Here's my current situation: I had a good tri season last year, ending at the half in Whistler. Then I put my TT bike away for five months and concentrated on cyclocross season. I ended the year with pretty good bike fitness after that block, and then took three weeks completely off the bike for my 'offseason'. My 2018 season started this week and I got my TT bike out and put it on the Kickr.
I'm doing a TR plan, and so far the workouts (I've only done three) are challenging but I can complete them. I'm hoping that I rebound from my three week hiatus fairly quickly in terms of bike fitness (I always knew this week would be ugly). However, it's no surprise that I'm not great at staying aero right now, as I haven't ridden my TT bike since July 30th. For example, yesterday's workout had me doing 45 continuous minutes at 1/2IM intensity. That was tough but manageable, but I could only manage to stay aero for 10 or 15 minutes out of the 45. On Monday I did 50 minutes at ~10-12% less power and stayed aero for about 70% of the time.
My question is this: At this point of the season, would you decrease the intensity to a level where you can spend 90+% of the time in aero, and then gradually raise the intensity while staying aero? Or would you leave the intensity challenging and gradually increase the amount of time you can stay aero (and focus on staying aero during rest periods, warmup, cool down, etc)?
Opinions?
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Any run that doesn't include pooping in someone's front yard is a win.
I'm doing a TR plan, and so far the workouts (I've only done three) are challenging but I can complete them. I'm hoping that I rebound from my three week hiatus fairly quickly in terms of bike fitness (I always knew this week would be ugly). However, it's no surprise that I'm not great at staying aero right now, as I haven't ridden my TT bike since July 30th. For example, yesterday's workout had me doing 45 continuous minutes at 1/2IM intensity. That was tough but manageable, but I could only manage to stay aero for 10 or 15 minutes out of the 45. On Monday I did 50 minutes at ~10-12% less power and stayed aero for about 70% of the time.
My question is this: At this point of the season, would you decrease the intensity to a level where you can spend 90+% of the time in aero, and then gradually raise the intensity while staying aero? Or would you leave the intensity challenging and gradually increase the amount of time you can stay aero (and focus on staying aero during rest periods, warmup, cool down, etc)?
Opinions?
------------------------------------------------------------
Any run that doesn't include pooping in someone's front yard is a win.