These are what Carmichael calls "PowerIntervals," which are done at or above VO2 MAX. He has two types - Steady Effort (what these are - you peg your target power and hold it), and also Peak and Fade, which I haven't tried yet. These are 3x3s. I went out too hard in the first couple and ended up paying dearly for it in the last three, which were at about 20 watts lower. It's like whimsically ringing up christmas presents on the card, only to be felled low by the bill when it arrives. My bill arrived 37 minutes into the workout, when I tried to finish interval #4 strong, and sputtered.
Some people make fun of my wimply little 50-minute workouts, myself included. But it turns out they're a fair amount of effort. Even though this one was only 6 intervals with a lot of recovery, the high normalized power drove the IF up to .942 for the full 55-minute effort. That's the same effort as a 55-minute TT at 94% of FTP, though of course doing it this way trains different systems. And with only 81 TSS points, I can jump on the trainer again today if I want.
First race is in less than a month. It would be nice to get on the road at some point before then.
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