FTP Workout and more

First up, my tri bike is temporarily out of commission, at least for outdoor riding. My luck hasn't been great lately in terms of bike durability. In my last post I mentioned that my rear derailleur hanger was bent. After calling a bunch of shops I finally found one that carried the correct hanger, so that problem was solved. When installing the new hanger, I didn't like the look of my derailleur cable so I decided to install a new one. Again, no big deal, just slip the new cable in, adjust the derailleur, and I'm reading to ride once more.

Having taken care of all that, this past weekend I went out to Cherry Creek State Park with the aim of riding a bunch of 20-30 minute efforts at a high power output (for me, anyhow). I did a 30 minute warm-up ride out to the park. Once I got into the park I started my first interval, but it wasn't a very successful effort. Instead of going hard for 20 minutes, I had to stop several times to re-adjust my derailleur. Perhaps the cable stretched a bit from the night before.

At any rate, by the start of my second interval I had tweaked my barrel adjuster so my derailleur was functioning perfectly. Once again, all systems were go. I started the second interval and a few minutes into it I rode over a bump that looked like just another crack in the road (of which there are many at Cherry Creek -- the place is in serious need of being re-paved). Despite its diminutive appearance, the bump had a very jolting effect. My arms popped up off my aerobars' pads and then came crashing back down. Here's what resulted:


That broken part is made of aluminum and should not be delicate. I'm kinda tempted to use my mechanical engineering background to figure out if the part was defective.

Regardless, I contacted the manufacturer and a replacement part should be shipped out today. Until then, I'm using a folded up towel in place of a left armrest. Looks any outdoor rides I do for the next few days will be on my road bike. Oh well, better to break the part now than in a few weeks during Cali 70.3.

Okay, on with the training stuff. Yesterday Stacey and I went to our first Rocky Mountain Tri Club run. After a warm-up, stretch, and drill session, everyone ran a 5k at tempo pace to determine groupings for future track workouts. My Garmin battery died during the warm-up, so I don't have HR data, but I completed the run in 18:30. I'd estimate my effort as half-marathon pace, but it's pretty easy to underestimate effort for something so short and in a group setting.

I chatted with a guy that finished a few seconds after me and may have found a good running partner if working out with the club is convenient enough (I'm also concerned that the workouts will be too short and spend too much time on warm-ups, drills, and stuff like that). He's a former D1 college runner from a pretty big school, but said he took a couple years off after graduating due to burn-out. I'm sure he'll smoke me as he gets back into shape.

Finally, I just finished up a solid trainer ride with lots of short, hard efforts:


I especially like the second 4 minute effort. 270 W for 4 minutes with a max HR of 161 bpm.

This is the best kind of trainer ride to do -- lots of short, planned stuff. It's quick yet tough. There was no boredom during this workout.