Congrats on the improvements! Totally get the "friends and family in real life don't care that I improved my FTP" thing. It always feels good to share the news though.

No such drastic improvements here, but for the past few years in preparation for bike race season I generally spend a few months putting in a lot of sweetspot on the trainer… And then come January/February I start to hit a few VO2max type workouts that I haven't hit indoors since the previous winter. Each year (so far) I've had a breakthrough interval session that destroys anything I did the previous winter, which obviously gets me all excited. And similarly, no one in my real life could care less :)

And in case you're interested (probably not!) the set that got me STOKED was 3' intervals at a certain VO2 max level wattage with 3' recovery for as many as I could handle. Was aiming for 6 reps and ended up getting in 12. And yes, I calibrated the power meter before the workout.

Train on man!

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Honestly, my biggest breakthrough was swimming lots of 50s fast on short rest while increasing the turnover of my stroke. About a year ago my main set was 10x100m on 2:00 usually coming in around 1:35. Now my main set is 10x50m on 1:00 coming in around 0:33 and then 10x50m on 0:50 coming in around 0:40. The only open-water comparison I have is the sprint distance which, last year was typically in the 1:50-1:55/100m range. This year it's in the 1:30-1:35/100m range.

I still need significant engine building but I feel like I'm on the right path.

I had a pretty good breakthrough swim this morning. Feel like its been a while since I left the pool stoked about how it went.

Did a broken 1000 (100/200/300/400 with :05 rest in between) on a sub-1:20/100 average. A year ago those times would probably have been ~5s/100 slower so I'm feeling pretty good.

On top of that its been a great off-season/pre-season already. Crushing my run splits, and on pace to beat my 1/2 marathon PR by over 10 minutes. Also up over 50w on my FTP compared to this time last year.

get off the epo :P

As a former swimmer, my two weaknesses were biking and running. I did some road cycling after college so I got strong, but I was not very strong in the TT position. And I was ALWAYS injured because I was not training the run properly. So, the two best things that helped me have breakthroughs were to invest $10/month into trainerroad and do it consistently on the trainer (even when it was 70 and sunny outside...no powermeter). And to use the mafetone (sp?) method for running: run slower, but build to running a lot. This winter, I didn't do any hard running, but ran more consistent miles and dropped over 20sec on my 5K PR.

And kyle h is an adult onset swimmer! Let there be hope for many of you AO swimmers out there.

My breakthrough comes in the form of running. My open half marathon PR set a year and a half ago was at 8:10 min/mi pace. This is while I was marathon training and specifically focused on distance running. I've been working with a new coach for the past 4 months and last week in a local 10 mile training race, he gives me this race plan that I thought was going to be impossible. Start out at 7:30 min/mi pace and descend to sub 7:00 by the end. I was surprised and amazed every mile split when I hit right on target or even a little fast. A lot of times coaches know what you're capable of even if you don't.

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http://trainingwheelsrequired.wordpress.com
@KellyNCollier

The single biggest improvement I noticed in my fitness and racing, specifically, and particularly cycling, was when I moved from Ontario, to British Columbia, and started living in Vancouver. A "big" climb in Ontario might take 5 minutes tops to get up, whereas, when I was in Vancouver, I could do 50 - 60 minute climbs on local rides!

There was something about pushing bigger gears up these long climbs, for that long, that took my cycling to a whole new and much higher level. ALL aspects of my cycling fitness and performance improved!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Congrats on the breakthrough.

I may have had a running breakthrough yesterday. I’ve been working on my cadence off and on for years and have gotten up to around 175 pretty consistently but I find 180 exhausting and never hit that as an average for a run. I listened to a podcast the other day that talked about cadence and form (mostly posture and how a forward lean can affect cadence) and a lot of the things he said made sense to me.

So yesterday I focused on posture rather than cadence and kept my head back and in line over my shoulders and pelvis, running tall, not looking down, etc. Doing that my cadence fell in place and I averaged 180 for the first time and found hitting 180-182 to be fairly easy. It felt much more natural and I didn’t have to force it and focus so much. It just kind of happened. I also ran a little faster for the effort. The best part was probably that my lower back wasn’t tight after running 8 miles, and it’s always tight after I run, and my legs didn’t feel as beat up afterwards. They felt pretty good actually. I enjoy running, but a lot of my runs feel like work (even when I'm just running and not working on cadence or form) and this felt smooth and fun.

Time will tell if this was a breakthrough or just a good day, but it was really encouraging so I’m anxious for my lunch run today. I’m really hoping this was a breakthrough because I haven’t had a run breakthrough since…well…never.

Great thread idea!

I've been able to work my swim split from 1:35-1:40ish/100 at the start of 2013 to 1:20/100 end of last season with a mix of pretty hard, short intervals (lots of 50-100m work) and medium length swims (1500-2000m). That is over a minute on just a sprint, which counts for something!

Key for me was being patient. I got slower before I got faster as I worked on breathing, and then kicking, and then body position, and then catch, now back to body position. Seems like a cycle. As you fine tune one element of the stroke, you need to go back and integrate all of the other elements.

I'm not a natural swimmer and no coach, just lots (and lots and lots) of YouTube.

My breakthrough was the discovery of sweet spot bike training. Finally I was getting results on the bike without being so damn tired - I used to skip run workouts from exhaustion last year

I PR'd in all of the sports last week with an 11 watt increase in FTP since September, a 35s drop in 10k time in a year, and for the first time led our swim group through 10x200 on 2:30 scy. Super excited!

Nice.

I ran every day last week, have run 19 of the last 24 days, hit 28 miles total for the week last week, and am feeling pretty decent.

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10x200 on 2:30scy is better than probably half the pros out there.

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2012 - FTP ~265, just casually training. bike focus but would just ride, some hard group rides, some easy rides, had a power meter but didn't download data every day

2013 - download data for every ride, focus on tracking CTL and getting it high. Spent much more time on the bike. Mix of long easier rides and hard group rides or intervals. FTP ~285 and 30 second power went up too. 40K TT from 59:40 to 58:30

more was more, tracking my training helped me actually know when I was doing more and when I was bullshitting myself.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

As a cyclist only the biggest factor for me this year has been high volume polarized training. 15-22hrs a week with 1-2 hard workouts [Z4/Z5/Z6 intervals] in the workweek and possibly a weekend race. All other riding is Z1-Z2 easy easy. 1m/5m/20m/60m powers are all up and my ability to feel fresh to the end of a race when others are flagging is awesome.

I'd like to think that my training breakthrough is just recognizing that it takes time to get better! Putting in volume day after day, month after month, year after year ends up with big dividends.

My example is from a few years ago, but a ran a 10k on the same course over three consecutive years. First year was 2010 when I was going from being a fat ass to getting the tri bug, and ran around 48 min. A year later I had dropped 10-15 pounds, was running consistently and finished in 39:35. Another year went by, and I finished in 36:34, actually winning my AG in a race with a little over 1000 people. I've pretty much maintained that speed for the past few seasons.

The problem that I've found is that when you get semi fast, it takes a heck of a lot more time and work to get faster. Dropping two minutes off my initial 10k time of 48 min seemed super easy. Trying to get down to 34:xx from mid 36's seems near impossible unless I solely focused on running. I also have age fighting against me at 36.

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FTP increase from 234 (3.45 watt/kg) in November/December to 265 (3.9 watt/kg) as of last night. Small numbers for some, but I am psyched to start seeing significant gains.

Zwift has been my golden goose. It has allowed me to up training volume during the winter without going absolutely insane. Once I learned how to stay disciplined it became a really great training tool.

Thanks for letting us all skip the back door bragging and let us open the front door and shout it out loudly.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

Theres a difference between being a bragging douche and an excited athlete...

Possibly the ownership of a trucker cap and mirrored aviators?

Did you swim growing up, or are you AOS??? Also, is your 35 sec drop on the 10K for a 10K run or a 10K TT on the bike???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I started all 3 sports my college freshman year 4.5 years ago. The 35s drop was a 10k run on the track. I missed my goal (32:59) by 2 seconds but still happy! :)

Excellent!

I've been in the weight room all winter and I can't believe how much it's helped me. I thought I'd be miles behind in training but I set a PR max wattage in a training ride! I'm a bike racer so I can't wait to get to the finish in a few upcoming races

Well, despite your not hitting your goal of sub-33, a 33:01 for a 10K in practice is still pretty fast for most people:) JOOC, what kind of times were you hitting on your 10 x 200y on 2:30???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Thanks! I started out around 2:20, but then settled in right around 2:25 for most of them. I had actually done the 10k earlier that day, so on #6 my legs started cramping and I had to grab a pull buoy to finish up haha

10.3 mile TT on Wednesday, 20min power at 328w from 270w earlier in the year. Pretty chuffed with that considering 321w was peak last year in July.

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