A Knight To Be

6 Days to go. Last kilometer. La Flamme Rouge. I've gone under the kite, as Carlton Kirby might say. Into the final rest week of the 12-week Sufferfest Training Plan I go. As a reminder, this is the General Cycling Plan, Advanced Level, Indoor Only, VO2 focus, with all the toppings: Strength, Yoga, and Mental Toughness. At this point, it's interesting to look at the power zone durations for the span of the plan thus far: 4.3% spent in Zone 5, and another 1.6% in Zone 6 - and since there were not too many sprints in this plan, let's assume that the NM+AC work is there to support MAP development. We combine these two figures to ~6% (3.5hrs). I'm very curious to see the impact this will have on the upcoming 4DP Full Frontal Test. Meanwhile, this rest week is a blessing. I'm utterly exhausted. To illustrate a point, last night, I rode the 90min Endurance+ ride, which generally puts me in a hazy comatose state. This time it was so challenging that I ...

End of Week 7 In 34 days, I'll wave to you all from the peak of Mt. Sufferlandria. You won't see me, of course, as looking up towards the summit is a sure way to burn your eyes blind with the falling lava snow. I'm heading into a rest week now, having finished another 3-week block of the Advanced Sufferfest Training Plan. These past few days were rather enjoyable if you also consider fun to be constant fatigue, sore muscles, burning sensations, and pain as an unrelenting companion. In dread of losing form and tolerance during the rest week, I'm adding a spoonful of this stuff to every glass of water: Tangy, but a Sufferlandrian delicacy on par with Real-Pagne. This past week, as you may recall, crept upon the heels of ISLTA and some strength work. It then continued with " 14 Vice Grips " - a VO2Max session of 14 intervals ranging from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. These get progressively longer, then shorter in two sets of seven intervals: 14 Vic...

Week 5 When I first started with The Sufferfest Training Plan, I had to pay attention to planning the upcoming weeks carefully. Going from Xert, which is "dynamic," meaning you can find the right workout for your goal on any given day, SUF Plans are pre-fixed. Let's dwell on that for a moment: Pre-fixed training plans are a "given." You get the workout schedule for the next ~12 weeks and follow it. Sick child? Holiday? Business trip? Tough luck. Yes, life always gets in the way, but you more or less have to make up for missed sessions somehow. The Sufferfest makes it easy to figure out what to do in such a case: https://thesufferfest.com/blogs/training-resources/skip-a-workout-dont-panic . But as a whole, you're committed and inflexible. It's the same with training plans on Zwift and Today's Plan. Zwift will give you a short window to complete workouts, but if you miss the train, you're in trouble. Dynamic/Flexible training pla...

As the burning haze engulfed me, blurring my vision and scorching my lungs, I recalled the mystical counterspell: "You. Can. Do. This." It was still more than forty-five minutes to the end of the session, and my inner thighs began to cramp up. I don't remember if this was on Mt. Sufferlandria, Mt. apocalypse, or some other Col du-know, but I hurt, and I had to keep going. I knew that with these cramps - pure physical pain, almost mechanical, like someone or something literally and visibly pulling ligaments and muscle - I had to go on. To Stop is to Die. No soft-pedaling, no taking-it-easy. Just keep pushing. 1:52:34 elapsed... cramps are gone, but they'll be back, I know they will. It Seemed Like Thin Air is a Sufferfest video that has "tempo" climbs at various lengths. The shortest is 8 minutes, the longest is, um, 40 minutes. Now "tempo" is a relative thing. Yes, it can be constrained in Power Zones or HR zones, but when you...