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Friday, February 27, 2015

Training Video Review: Sufferfest Downward Spiral


This workout is two long interval sessions with a 5 minute rest in between.

This is my Strava speed/heart rate data.  Spoiler alert - there may be a surprise this reveals if you look at it too closely!

Each interval "downward spiral" (orange boxes above) looks like:
2:00 hard, 2:00 rest
1:45 hard, 1:45 rest
1:30 hard, 1:30 rest...
... dropping by 15 seconds each time until...
0:15 hard, 0:15 rest

I found the first "spiral" pretty easy, but the second one I made sure to give a little more gusto, and by the end my legs were burning pretty good.  Next time I'll have a better idea of how deep to go - really it's best not to hold back at all and just go for full burn, over and over.

Heart rate was interesting - the peak of each interval was pretty close, but how far down I managed to recover progressively increased until by the last few I was barely recovering at all before the next interval.

Oh and there are some surprise intervals at the end of the second "spiral".  Spoiler alert.

I loved the workout - but the footage wasn't that great on this one, got pretty repetitive.  They've definitely upped their game in their more recent videos.

4 stars out of 5

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Indoor Trainer & Humidity


I recently read this article from Bicycling Magazine about keeping cool while on the indoor trainer.

It's worth a read, but long story short: keep cool or your workout will suffer (even if it feels like you're kicking ass and taking names).

I have a small gym in my basement, use two fans, and keep the barn-door style door wide open.  Should be good, right?

Not so much.  Before and after... 20C to 22C... 21% to 44% relative humidity.


In 1 hour the temperature went up 2 degrees and relative humidity more than doubled from 21% to 44%!  The smiley face is about comfort sitting around, not hammering it on the bike... so this means it got increasingly harder to shed the heat.

Not sure what I can do to fix?

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Training Video Review: Sufferfest Angels


Spoiler Alert: I love all the Sufferfest videos.  And this one is one of my favourites.


If you didn't hate Contador before this video, you will definitely hate him after.

There's a warm-up around a velodrome, followed by "over/unders" - 10 minutes alternating between just over and just under tempo effort.  But that's really all just a warm-up for the climbing.

Three climbs.  8 minutes each.  All challenging.

By the last one, your legs are screaming as what was the top effort of the first climb is maintained for almost the full 8 minutes of the last one... punctuated by that SOB Contador attacking at every turn.

The music, as usual, is right on point... yeah, some of it is a bit lame/cheesy, but nothing as bad as the "other" videos (spiner-something) and their shitty elevator music.  Just a great video that makes an hour fly by - other than when time stands completely still as you suffer.

5 stars out of 5!  Or, to put it in terms a Sufferlandian would understand, 10.0.

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Intermittent Fasting and Running, Cycling


I have been doing Intermittent Fasting for about a month, figured I'd share some of my experiences.

If you're not familiar with it, check out my earlier post.

There are different ways to do it, I've picked the 16:8 method.  That is, fast for 16 hours and eat during an 8 hour window daily.

I'm also counting calories in an attempt to lose weight.  This tends to reduce that 8 hour window some days to a 7 hour window, and increase the fast length to 17 or even 18 hours.  But mostly my eating window is about 11:30am-7:30pm... or put more simply, don't eat after dinner and skip breakfast.

I have stuck to it pretty close to 100%, mostly because it's really quite easy once you get in the habit.  I rarely feel all that hungry at night or in the morning, and I find I have plenty of energy right through to lunch.

Running

The only thing I struggled with at first is running in a fasted state.  That took some getting used to - but now I feel completely fine.  I had tried a 5km and 7km previously which went well, so today I tried to push it up to 10km.  This was in the 16th hour of fasting, it was totally fine, felt good.

I should note this was around LSD pace, I don't think running on empty is something that would maximize a tempo or interval run.  I'm not doing speedwork right now, but when I do I will do it at the end of the 8 hour feed period rather than in the fast period.

Cycling

This is where my intensity has been.  I do my intense 1 hour indoor training rides in the evening, within an hour of supper (right at the start of the fast period).  This has been totally fine.

I tried to do a 2 hour ride with higher intensity last weekend really early in my feed period, which turned out to be a complete disaster... fell apart after an hour, just didn't have the energy.  I'm guessing this was related to diet, but who knows, not quite ready to conclude that on the basis of one bad ride.  I'm thinking pushing that back later in the feed time would be better.

Weight Loss

Intermittent fasting alone didn't result in me losing any weight at all.  It just stayed put.  It's entirely possible to overeat, regardless of how small that eating window is.

However it has worked very well with calorie counting, mostly because of the way you stop feeling hungry even when you haven't eaten in 16 hours.  It's remarkable.  That's really my biggest challenge when counting calories - the urge to cheat when my mind is screaming "eat! eat! eat!".  With Intermittent Fasting I don't feel that same urge.

Except.... when I have a couple beers.  That messes badly with both my hunger and willpower, and is still the weak point of my diet.  To that end I'm cutting out alcohol for a week, just to help things along.

But even without doing that, I'm down 5 pounds in 3 weeks.  Not quite the pace I had planned/hoped for, but still something I'm pretty darn happy with.  If that keeps up I'm totally content.

Good luck!