I survived. I was pretty happy with my effort. All total, racked up 1008TSS in 9 days. I think my 2nd highest total ever. It helped my run volume is still low coming up after injury , so only 23 miles running plus 18,000y swimming for this week with the last 7 stages of the Tour.

Great stuff. I learned a lot about how much training load I can handle and really pushed myself on the bike. I dropped the workout intensity to 95% which kept it manageable. I tried to ride ISLAGIATT at 100%, but the wheels came off after about 65 minutes in and it was all I could do to even sustain Zone 3-4 power.

Nutrition really helped on Stage 8. I was easier than I thought and I was reminded that average power was only about 75%. So total energy output wasn't that high, it's just all the anerobic efforts.

I have a LOT of songs stuck in my head now.... but since we didn't ride The Hunted.... it's not "driving me crazy".

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

I usually can put down 140-150 TSS points when I do ISLAGIATT, but yesterday my legs were so fried I only managed 115. My NP was also about 20% lower than usual for it. My legs were just so destroyed by Stage 8.

IN general I find I almost never get the number of TSS points that Trainer Road says I should. My power output is always just a smidge less than TR asks for. I ended up with about 900 TSS points from this (plus some from a few runs and swims I did, but I didn't count that in my TSS total). I wonder if it would be a good idea to bump my FTP setting my, say, 10 watts, just so I actually hit the right numbers instead of just below like I usually do (IE I will still be just below, but then it will be about where it should be for my FTP)

The odd thing was I didn't think Stage 8 was all that hard while I was doing it. I just put my head down and did the work and got it done. Later in the day I realized I couldn't walk straight, but during the actual ride it wasn't that bad.

I have been training pretty heavily leading into the tour, with the past 5 weeks being >11 hrs (yes even Christmas week). I am backing off to 8.5 hours this week to take a bit of a rest week.

Also survived my first ToS with 1198 TSS for the week. 100% all stages with out any outside running or swimming. The last 2 days were brutal but somehow on ISLAGIATT I managed a 5 sec, 10 sec, and 90 min PR. Mostly due to being excited it was done and now looking forward to a few days off and bike tinkering before Boston 2015. My legs are still feeling numb today, definitely in for next year, but really want to do it with a small group of people to share in the suffering.

Finished it up yesterday and have a 1058 TSS for the Tour. I surprisingly recovered just fine everyday (and managed ZERO saddle sores... a miracle). It did take me longer the last few days to warm up and feel good, but once I got over that hump I did fine.

I thought I'd be more wrecked after this. My quads are certainly sore, but not too bad at all. I think this taught me that I really can push my training harder and I also learned a bit about pushing through pain and hitting targets.

I highly recommend the ToS.

Adding up all 9 stages per TrainerRoad gives an expected TSS of 1,119 for the 9 days. I dropped the intensity to 95% starting on the 3rd day and still only managed 981 TSS. I expected to be right around the 95% of 1,119 by the end (~1,063) but Stage 8 was a killer to my total. I just couldn't consistently hit the required efforts for Violator and Half is Easy.

Overall still a successful tour and I feel good about getting through it. Now, how to benefit from it...

my garmin wasn't recording my distance very well. Not sure why. The wheel magnet was working and so was cadence on the Quarq. For some reason every ride was 8.1 miles. The two hour rides were 16.2. So odd.

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The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

Did you have your Garmin GPS turned off to record distance from your speed magnet? My experience is if you leave your GPS on while recording on the Garmin the distance file is just a shaky little plot around where you were riding.

By way of summary, Stage 8 was near absolute death. I did Revolver in erg mode set to 100% intensity. That was fine, but I was tired. Then for Violator and Half is Easy I flipped the Kickr into Standard mode with fixed resistance and just changed gears etc. to do the sprints. I probably hit the 100% "goal" displayed by Trainerroad 20% of the time, but with the lag to get up to sprint power, especially on the 5 second intervals, I was usually pumping through. I just don't think those TrainerRoad tools are useful for sprints under 30 seconds. Also, I managed to pull my bike off the Kickr at one point (apparently didn't have the quick release set tight enough) and also had to make a quick stop to grap a fresh sweat towel.

Then I took a day off (I had gone straight through Friday to Friday) because of other commitments/fatigue, and blasted through ISLAGIATT at 100% intensity in erg mode. Only reinforced that my FTP must be lower than I could probably do, but it's probably close enough.

Anyway, happy to have completed for the second year in a row. Congrats to everyone who made it through.

You're working with power on a trainer. Who cares how far you rode (or how fast you went for that matter). It's all about how much work you did.

I was good through 7 then hit the wall. Was a great experience and glad I took it on. Definitely made the last 9 days more interesting and productive than they would have been!

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Banger

Similar story here. I willed my way through the loony bin of stage 8 at 100%, and then only eeked out a 137 TSS for ISLAGIATT. I started it at 100% and after the first segment thought 'oh god, i'm not gonna make it through this'. Backed it off to 95%, then my hands were shaking half way through, backed it off to 90% and just groveled.

Today I'm waiting for a phone call, and my right leg is vibrating and twitching so much that I can't tell if my phone is vibrating in my pocket, or my leg is just freaking out.

I was the same, on the 2nd interval set of The Rookie, I dropped TR to 95% then on the 3rd interval set it went down to 90%. The last 2 days were at 90%

That's why I wasn't overly concerned with it. Just thought it was odd.

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The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.