VO2 max workout failed

I’m in week 6 of sustained power build and have been doing well so far.

The first half I found hard, with workouts like Raymond+7 and Elephants+4 really pushing me hard. After the second ramp test I made an FTP gain and I was dreading how hard the following workouts were going to be. Still though I managed to persevere through all of the sweet spot, threshold and over/unders work that it has thrown at me.

Last night I attempted Monadnock+4 and could barely make it past the second interval. I was so surprised as to how hard this was and I’m not sure why.

The past few days have been tough, doing O/Us and threshold intervals in the previous days before attempting Monadnock+4. Monadnock+4 does not appear in the calendar as I discarded it, which I am regretting now.

I am hoping this is down to fatigue, I have a week skiing next week and I am hoping that after this week off of the bike I will be able to get back into it and hit the VO2 max work hard.

Does SPBMV target enough VO2 max work to expect riders to be able to hit 3 minute intervals at 122% ftp? this seems like a big step and every percentage after 115% or so really cranks up the hurt!

has anyone else experienced issues similar to this? I should say that normally I do have the pain threshold to push through the harder intervals, my legs just could not push any more! I could barely get my HR over 170 (185~max)

any advice, consolation or abuse is appreciated!

There’s loads of reasons why you might’ve struggled and I’m probably not the best person to advise you on those things.

One thing I will offer though, is that it may be worth estimating your TSS for your commutes. That’s a lot of work you’re doing every week in total, but it also varies a bit week-to-week.

Also, leave your failed workouts in the calendar. It may help to motivate you in the future and help keep a record of what went wrong for the future.

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In the notes section of Monadnock +4

Power at vo2max is highly individual. You don’t have to do them at 122%. If you are strong at vo2max then up the intensity, if vo2 work is hard dial it back a bit. But make them hard, you should just barely finish each interval.

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yeah this is why I regret deleting it. Usually I would just reschedule it for the following week and give it another go, but due to skiing I can’t really do that this time round!

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I thought about dropping the intensity, but then I thought about things that I’ve heard coaches say in the past with the takeaway message being if fatigue is high and you cant complete intervals, bail out and give it a go when you’re fresher (or words to that effect).

I think I could have ordered the workouts a bit better, probably would have been more manageable to do the VO2 stuff at the beginning of the week then grinding through O/Us and threshold stuff, rather than trying to push out VO2 max work on tired legs.

It’s frustrating because in my ramp test I held that power for over 5 minutes, and my max 3 minute output is over 40 watts higher, which I achieved last year when my FTP was about 40 watts less than it currently is, which means I was probably pushing 130+% for 3 minutes.

Its worth noting that I try to keep these commutes as easy as possible… rarely going into zone 3 and trying to keep it zone 2 as much as possible. It may be worth dropping the easy workouts like petit though in weeks where I’m feeling fatigue?

My week is quite similar to yours with regards to commuting. I keep them all as easy as possible but estimate weekly TSS from commuting to be around 300. I then do low volume TR plans. And yeah, during the rest week I just drop all workouts for that week and just do my easy commutes

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As others have mentioned, try tweaking the intensity. Start at 95% and gauge that first interval. If you have something left in the tank, do the next interval at 96%, and so on. This will help inform you when facing similar sessions.

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Failing one workout is no big deal really. You can’t expect your body to perform in some perfect linear gaining fashion. You’re bound to experience natural peaks and troughs in performance. It’s when you get consistent fails that you really need to analyse what’s happening.

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Drop a line to tech support. They can almost always restore it for you.

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That could be part of the problem…you’ve done a lot of threshold & SS work so your threshold has moved up materially while your VO2max has stagnated.

It looks like you crushed Spencer+2 a while back. If monadnock+4 doesn’t suit you, go back to Spencer+2 & extend the cool down by 20 minutes. Close enough.

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thanks for all of your feedback, I’m doing a shorter version tonight so fingers crossed it goes to plan!

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