Droping the hamer

I can't say that I was fully recovered from Sunday yet. For a race that only lasted 1:41:51, I've sure been tired for a couple of days. But I don't really have time to take a lot of rest, with another race in three weeks, and I'll be out of the province (and consequently, off the bike), for all of next week, so I needed to get in my scheduled bike session today. And up on the menu was another of the new (and unwatched) Spinervals DVDs, 29.0 - Dropping the Hammer.

It's always a bit disconcerting to go into a workout completely blind. I never really know how to pace those first few sets so that I'm still getting something worthwhile out of the last few. Based on the description, I figured that this workout was going to have lots of short, really hard intervals. That's not quite how it plays out. After the customary warm-up, there's an acceleration set for further warming up, then a block of 3x6 minutes (2 minutes). This are to be done at slightly over threshold effort, or at such a pace that the last minute of the first rep will suck, the last two minutes of the second rep will suck, and the last three minutes of the third rep will suck. Or at least that's how it seemed. Then we got into a set of Killer Minutes, adding a bit more power. I messed up the first one, and petered out at 40 seconds, but for the rest I was able to find a groove. And then there were sprints to end the day. By the time I cooled down, I was well and truly shattered. If a hammer had been dropped today, I was the nail.

That said, a great workout. I'm actually a bit disappointed that I did it at this point in the season. My rough plan was "raise the left, fill the right", meaning my focus would go from sprints, to short hard efforts, to progressively longer reps. If I knew that I'd get into a block of 3x6, I would have set this for later in the summer. Lessons learned, I guess. Not that it isn't of benefit now, either. And now that I've gone through it once, when I hit again in a couple of weeks, I'll be able to crank up some of the parts where I know I left gas in the tank.

Run: 2.5 miles, ez

Bike: Spinervals 29.0 - Dropping the Hammer, 60 minutes