This morning I thought I’d try my hand at some Anaerobic Capacity/Level 6 intervals. I’ve never really done any structured L6 work before, I usually use training criteriums and races for that. So this morning I went out to do them on the rollers, since I wasn’t sure what was planned for our team ride this afternoon. So after a quick warm-up I started doing 2-minute L6 intervals with 1 minute rest. Well, by the time I got to the third one it was quitting time. I did try another but it only lasted 39 seconds. Oh well. Not sure what exactly was the problem, but morning rides where I don’t eat much beforehand don’t usually go well for me.
So in the afternoon I was scheduled to meet with my team. I still wanted to get something accomplished beforehand so left early and did a sprint workout. Sprint workouts are fairly “easy” so I like to do them when other workouts don’t seem to work. Plus, I just had couple rest/easy days, so it was a good time to do them. I did about 7 sprints and their wattage wasn’t too bad, but my power did take a nosedive by the last three.
After that I went down to Reeds and met up with Ted. We headed out westbound, and Todd managed to catch us at a light. After chatting for a little, I settled into tempo pace. Ted had L6 intervals planned, so I thought I’d just sit on while he did those. Todd and I held his wheel for the first couple, but since Ted’s Anaerobic Work Capacity (AWC) is so strong, it was pretty hard even in the draft! So I figured, if I’m going to be working, might as well do some true L6 work. Maybe being on the road would enable me to put out more power?
So I ended up doing a bunch of 1-minute L6 intervals. The power was just about where I wanted it for that interval duration…much better than this morning’s attempt. I’m not sure if it was just riding after eating more, being on the road or the fact that they were only 1-minute intervals (probably a combination of the above). After we were done with those, we rode mostly Tempo on the way back. I kept it on the high-end of Level 4. Then when we hit Beacon Light it was a Level 2 and below cool-down for me. Hopefully my AWC has a lot of headroom, since I’ve never focused on it before. Overall it actually turned out to tough day with a total of 222 TSS at .84 IF.