A Knight To Be

I did the 4 Dimensional Power Test again today. The new plan I'm on (100 Mile Gravel Grinder) has this on the 2nd day. The 4DP Full Frontal test protocol is the stuff nightmares are made of. A session so painful and demanding it can bring grown men to tears. I tested with another protocol, "Half Monty" just two days ago and will discuss how the two compare. The previous 12-week plans all ended with the fitness test. Instead of a race or event, you go ahead and set new records to make your future workouts even harder. You see where this is going, right? There's a good reason it's called "The Sufferfest." Usually, there's buildup, and some planning for the test is involved, much like a real race. It includes pre-test prep, physical and mental, event strategy, mindfulness work, and more. Going through the motions is priceless and can undoubtedly push one through those horrid dark places a Full Frontal 4DP Test takes you to. Nonetheless, I st...

After a pretty "bad" 4DP Full Frontal test, where I aimed high but instead maintained my results (albeit in a very fatigued state), I decided to take a week to prep, and do the Half Monty Fitness Test . (* At this time, The Half Monty test is only available to Knights Of Sufferlandria in The Sufferfest App, but is slated for release soon). The Half Monty is a ramp to the max, followed by a heart-rate constrained effort. The aim is to determine Maximal Aerobic Capacity (MAP, 5min power) and Functional Threshold Power (FTP, 20min power), as well as Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR). So no sprints or 1-minute all-out effort. Yay, I guess. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect. My #1 worst nightmare is a ramp test. Why? Because it will ALWAYS be as hard as it possibly can be. Failure is the only escape. ("Ramped to Failure" - for my headstone, please.) So I've been deliberately avoiding ramp tests, much like a sneezing and coughing stranger thes...

Last week I completed another 12-week cycling training plan with The Sufferfest. The grand-finale, yet again, is the excruciating Full Frontal 4DP test session. As a brief reminder, since most who endure this go deep into denial, you undergo a series of 4 maximal power output tests to get a complete and comprehensive profile of your abilities. And these are: Neuromuscular Power (NM): 5-second max power Anaerobic Capacity (AC): 1 minute Maximal Aerobic Power (MAP): 5 minutes Functional Threshold Power (FTP): 20 minutes It looks like this: 4DP Full Frontal Power Output Graph (on a bad day) More info: https://thesufferfest.com/blogs/training-resources/4dp-full-frontal-fitness-test-faq Completing the test creates and applies a "4DP Profile" to your training plan and subsequent workouts. Right. Moving on. So last week I completed the third instance of the test . The first was upon my arrival at Sufferlandria, part of the immigration process. I then fol...

The only impossible journey is the one you never begin. My journey started when I decided to ride the 2020 Tour Of Sufferlandria. I had my hesitations because I'm in the final block of a 12-week training plan and wasn't sure about the ToS' impact on the training load and how it would affect my upcoming 4DP test. The "Focused" option answered my concern with overall slightly reduced intensity across all stages of the ToS, to keep things hard, near impossible at times, yet manageable. And so I plunged in with joy, murmuring a poem by Grunter von Agony to myself. On the morn of the Attempt, my remaining rides for the ToS were 14 Vise Grips (Stage 8b); and Power Station + Angels + Thin Air (Stage 9: Grunter's Gran Fondo). I went right ahead, a wee bit sluggish at 4 am, with muted audio and darkness overpowering. (As an avid reader of The Scrolls of A Knight To Be, you already know all this, of course, so thank you for bearing with me as I recap for the ...

Violated. Quite simply. That's what Violator will do to you, for two primary reasons: 64 sprints. What Rest? The complicated thing about Violator - the 5th ToS stage, is that a sprint is a sprint. Meaning, you go all out. Sure, The Sufferfest app gives power targets, but this session is done in Slope/Level mode because the timings are too fast for my Tacx Neo to respond, so yeah, the target might be one thing or another, but I'm eating stem anyway so whatever. I did reduce the slope for each set to match the reducing slope of the power curve, but it hurt nonetheless. The last set has just 5sec recoveries, so it gets silly. So that was ToS Stage 5... Then came Wednesday. Because of domestic obligations, I can only ride in the late evening after the kids are asleep on Wednesdays. Today though, I fell asleep before the kids :D So while I had the Torture Chamber ready to go for Stage 6, I involuntarily took a rest day. I earned this rest day earlier by riding multip...

Funny how I wrote about wanting to increase training volume... careful what you ask for... Stage 1 kicked off with It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time (ISLAGIATT). While I haven't ridden this as a standalone too many times, I've done ISTLA (the extended mashup with Thin Air) many times, so I'm very familiar with it. Mostly, I'm doing these workouts on the "Focused" mode, so they are slightly reduced in their power targets not to derail the training plan by too much. I'm not looking to utterly destroy myself during the stages, considering that I plan on riding into Knighthood on the last day and have a 4DP test coming up in two weeks. So ISLAGIATT was solid tempo fun at ~3.1 w/kg weighted average for the 2 hours. ToS Stage 1: ISLAGIATT Then, stage 2... I was looking forward to The Bat. The new workout that replaced the NoVid "Batman Intervals" with this Mental Toughness themed workouts. Good marketing! There are 6 intervals with ...

The Chores. There's something about them (and it). As a stay-at-home-dad of sorts, I get to do a lot of them. I love cooking and spend a large part of my day in the kitchen, either making the next meal or cleaning up the previous. We're a family of five, so the kitchen is a central hub. At any given moment, the dishwasher is packed, the sink is full, and, most likely, mouths and bellies too. I have not one, not two, but three sous-vide setups going, no microwave, and a host of utensils, pots, pans, and a nifty knife collection too. But here I am rambling about my other occupation when you, the weary crusader, are here to entertain in my Suffering. Of late, I've found myself rather enjoying The Sufferfest's musical soundtrack. I've been caught numerous times humming a tune from one of the videos. I've even been hearing in my head (mind's ear?) the STAND/SIT prompts and bracing myself to surges as the tunes pump. My Google Mini Speaker in the ki...

Just announced today, the 2020 Tour Of Sufferlandria is going to include 9 stages, starting Feb 15 till Feb 23: ISLAGIATT (1:50 150TSS) The Bat (1:15*) + Fight Club (Remastered! 0:59 84TSS?) G.O.A.T. (0:42 49TSS) Team Scream (1:09 92TSS) Violator (1:03 63TSS) Hell Hath No Fury (1:04 92TSS) Igniter + Joyride (0:20 21TSS + 0:29 47TSS) The Tool Shed + 14 Vise Grips (1:02 96TSS + 0:55 77TSS) Grunter's Gran Fondo: Power Station + Angels + Thin Air (0:49 60TSS + 0:55 81TSS + 1:00 80TSS) So, assuming The Bat* is going to around 30 minutes we're looking at about 12.5 hours in the saddle over 9 stages. *[UPDATE] Version 6.8.0 of The Sufferfest App introduced new training plans to cover the ToS . These include not only the prep, but also: 1. Post Tour Recovery 2. ToS Stages 3. ToS Gran Fondo Challenge Looking at the ToS stages, we get a sneak peek into The Bat : 1:15 of what looks to be a horrid MAP workout: 5-minute intervals [30s MAP | 4m 95% FTP | 30s A...

It seems like the trend on The Sufferfest community these days, and as reflected on the SUF Facebook page, is the mental difficulty people have with doing easier workouts*. As with any plan, sometimes you have days with less strain and stress. There is only one correct response to such a workout on your training plan calendar: "Thank You." I won't go into the physiology of recovery here, and if it isn't obvious that recovery is crucial for improvement, then I suggest adopting other hobbies, Macramé perhaps. Some people use the convenience of a private torture chamber to punish themselves for their sins. Fine by me. Your workout says "45% FTP," and you still push 100%? Go for it. You deserve to suffer for your mistakes in life, your wrongdoings, and anything else you blame yourself for. Heck, why stop at 100%?! Do Blender at 200% - now that's the spirit! But seriously - it underlines an issue with The Sufferfest. New users seem to think they ar...

Eight weeks to go. 2019 had just ended. Here are some stats: 94% of those kilometers were indoors. It was my most active year in a decade. My oldest child (of 3) is ten, so it kind of matches. 2015 was strong, and I also had a few podium finishes, including one on the National Championships (for CAT, Masters B). Still, there's a direct correlation between the occurrence of an offspring and a reduction in cycling volume. A brief history of time: In May 2018, I decided that I'm going to ride the Alpen Brevet in Switzerland, only three months or so away. This followed 2.5 years of practical inactivity: 2015: 400 hours / 10,000 km 2016: 116 hours / 3200 km 2017: 40 hours / 790 km 2018 (through May): 12 hours / 270 km Then in June 2018, I started to get things in motion with Zwift's Fondo plan. I managed to ride about 40hrs/1000km in training before the August event, which was pivotal. I knew I was light years away from my podium form, yet rode on in t...

fail·ure /ˈfālyər/ noun 1. The action or state of not functioning. "The point when your working muscle is fully fatigued to the extent that it can no longer complete another repetition of a movement with strict biomechanics." Or, in other words, Success . Workout highlight Fight Club... true to its name, was a fight to the finish . This workout comes early on the training plan when targets are high, and adaptation has only begun. You attack. Attack and attack. The attacks come thick and fast from a threshold level with no recovery. As with most surges on The Sufferfest workouts, cadence spikes by ~15rpm and the power by Multiplies of Agony and Pain (MAP). Each interval starts with a TT effort, ~100 rpm, then transitions into a climb with ~75 rpm. While I have no problem surging from 100 to 120 rpm regardless of power (usually), the surge from 75 to 90 is a challenge. Obviously, metabolic and muscular demands are different at these efforts and given enough of ...

Plan #2 Week 2. 10 Weeks To Go. Welcome back, weary traveler. I trust that you may have wondered about my decision about which training plan to pursue having completed a 12-week program on 12.10.2019. You may have lost sleep, bitten your fingernails, pulled hair, and felt generally anxious and edgy. That's common, expected, and you're healthy - it's ok. More realistically though (and Google Analytics doesn't lie) I, the composer of these digital scrolls, is the sole soul reading these lines anyway, so, like the rest of it, no one cares, right? But I keep at it nonetheless. Remembering Why. That's why. I had, at the time, contemplated another 12-week plan, an eSport/vRacing plan, or a Knighthood attempt. Virtual Racing, I must admit, was most tempting because keeping a tight plan prevents me from hammering away on Zwift, which I genuinely enjoy. As for the Knighthood attempt, I can always do that, and I'm quite confident I don't need five weeks to...

*CAUTION: This post may contain images of a grown man in tights practicing masochism with the aid of a bicycle. TL;DR: The Sufferfest Training Plan, 12 weeks, MAP (VO2max) focus helped me raise my MAP by 4.3% (w/kg) and my FTP by 2.5% (w/kg).  Pre-Event Checklist? Done. Event Strategy? Done. All boxes ticked; battle awaits. Today I rode my second 4DP Test: Full Frontal. The first was a little more than 12 weeks ago, and since then, my focus is Maximal Aerobic Capacity (MAP, or VO2max) with The Sufferfest Training Plan. As a reminder, this is the 12-week General Cycling Plan, Advanced Level, Indoor Only, MAP focus, with all the toppings: Strength, Yoga, and Mental Toughness. TL;DR*: NM: 987 => 994 (+7W / 0.71%) AC: 470 => 456 (-14W / -2.98%) MAP: 314 => 328 (+14W / 4.46% ) FTP: 268 => 274 (+7W / 2.24%) LTHR: 182 => 180 (-2 BPM / -1.10%) And in W/Kg terms (as I gained 1kg over these 12 weeks): NM: 14.51 => 14.62 w/kg (+0.11 w/kg / 0.76%) AC: 6....