Hour of Power!

Hard workout tonight to kick off the Sportif block… The hour of power. Cribbed from Bill Black, my take on this workout is to ride at just about my maximum sustainable pace for one hour and throw in a 30 second all-out attack every 2 minutes. On the turbo, this is murder and only a DVD to take my mind off the pain can get me through it. On the road, it’s slightly easier due to undulating terrain and the fact the biggest gear on my training wheels is a 13.

I did this on the Daffodil Road Race course, which I’m planning to use every time I do it outdoors fo the summer, as a benchmark. Really good night to be out as well, no legwarmers (first time, not in a race, since October!), sunglasses on and an average temp of 13 degrees.

The performance was a little down on the last time I did the HoP (back in my peak phase) with an average speed of 32.3kph compared to 32.5kph and an average heart rate of 173 bpm (88% of max) compared to 168 bpm (86%) last time. I’m going to put this down to two factors;firstly, after a week of slothing about on transition and two weeks of reduced workload on peaking… I’m bound to have lost a little fitness and second, i’m still knackered from Sunday… There was a really strange tightness in my hip when I got started that seemed to work it’s way out after about 10 mins.

All comparitive hour of power stats welcomed!