Watching others learn to pace

I'm feeling pretty good after Sunday, and I'm now into the last block of the triathlon season, and so, I need one last bike workout for the last weeks. This is now the time for the last of the new Spinervals DVDs from last Christmas, Time Trialapalooza. It's a simple workout after the warm-up. Four intervals, twenty - fifteen - ten - five minutes each, with five minutes rest between. The objective is to hit each one a little harder than the previous, so you need to temper your effort correctly.

Coach Troy suggested threshold pace to start, but I figured that might be setting the bar a bit high to begin, so I went with about 260w. Each interval I went up by ~20w. Listening to the coach read off the riders wattage during the workout, and his admonitions about going out too hard, lots of folks were cracking. Not only weren't they picking it up, lots were losing watts over time. I, on the other hand, was right in where I wanted to be: working hard, but not overly taxed.

I'll get to this again in a couple of weeks, and probably start 10-20w higher and follow the same progression. It's a good simple workout, and will prove very effective in the long-term.

Run: 3.2 miles, ez

Bike: Spinervals 22.0 - Time Trialapalooza, 90 minutes