Tracking overall fitness, Sheep, Neoprene swim shorts, Wahoo Speedplay pedals and which frameless shades did I keep?

Thanks so much for reading this, I use it as justification for buying new gear.

Training this Week

Another good week I think. A couple of missed optional sessions on Monday but the other sessions worked out well. Four swims, two bikes, and three runs. plus mobility and some walking.

The coming weeks are going to be more challenging in terms of getting enough training in. I have my second COVID jab on Thursday so I could be ill following that, and then in a fit of excitement, and because now we can, we have booked two holidays in June and one in July which amounts to 20 days where the only sessions I could potentially do are running, swimming in the sea (possibly), and using my Brompton bike or a hire bike (possibly). We’ll see how that pans out. On the positive side, the Hever Castle Tri isn’t until September so there is still plenty of time.

The run on Sunday was interesting because Ade asked me to run it on perceived speed rather than using pace or Stryd power. The session was as follows:

Warm up
5 x
3mins@70.3 effort 1min walk
2min@10k effort 1 min walk
1min@5k effort 1min walk
Cool Down

I could use the Stryd workout editor, but I didn’t want power displayed during the run and me getting distracted by it, so I set up the plan in Intervals Pro and disabled fitness tracking within it, because I still wanted Stryd to log the activity and power to review after, and Apple Watch generally does not play well with two apps logging activities at the same time.

This worked well - I started Stryd logging, then switched to Intervals Pro and started that. I kept Intervals Pro on screen (by changing Settings > General > Wake Screen > Intervals Pro > Return to Clock > Custom > After 1 hour and Ensuring “Return to App” is on - those are some seriously buried menu options!). The only unforeseen issue was that Intervals Pro still displays the pace but I think I could avoid that by selecting a different workout type next time. If you are looking for a flexible intervals timer for anything then Intervals Pro is definitely worth a look at.

Intervals Pro on iPhone and Apple Watch

This week the most fun was getting back on the Gravel bike for ~50km on and off-road on Saturday. I even got to play hide and seek with some sheep while on a footpath through a field.

These sheep tried to hide from me on my ride today but I found them (I don’t think they are very good at it)

This ride was in part prep for a 100km Gravel event I am doing next Saturday: The Battle Gravel 100 which is the first Gravel event I have ever entered - really looking forward to it, no matter what the conditions may bring.

Maybe I’ll end up looking like a shorter, fatter, much weaker Mathieu Van der Poel in this remarkable photo following his recent win at the XCC Nove Mesto World Cup. I’ve got to say, I do think that was a bad choice of bib shorts, he looks like some sort of alien cycling species to me, made from the same otherworldly materials as his bike, though looking at his power output (avg 374W, max 1,463W) maybe he is.

Getting your legs to match your bike like that takes years of practice

Tracking Fitness

Everything else has been fine, and I hit 101 CTL in Training Peaks. That is actually the first time I have done that. CTL is a measure of your training load and thus correlates to a measure of fitness.

Trying Peaks Ramp Rates

Looking at my Training Today app (full disclosure, this is an app I have developed) I can also see that since Feb when I started my training with Ade at Goal Specific Training (who also works on the Training Today app) my Heart Rate Variability has risen from 37ms to 48ms - the higher the better, and also a good indication of overall fitness (not entirely sure what that blip in Wk14 was though, I’m guessing there is some sort of outlier data in that set I should delete)

Training Today app

So that’s good then.

From this screenshot, you can also see how my Readiness To Train (RTT) score (which is what we call our daily processed HRV data) has varied with the plan from Training Peaks on a day to day basis. It tracks pretty well.

I find that sleep, hydration, diet and alcohol intake can be the biggest influences outside of activity that impacts RTT on a daily basis. Poor sleep in particular can really impact it negatively (such as getting up at 2 am to change the printer cartridge for my daughter who was working through the night to get her A level work completed on time - she’s smart but somehow can’t change the printer cartridge herself.)

Interestingly Strava does not show the same increase in fitness as TP and TT and I’m tempted to write theirs off as inaccurate. It does show an increase just not as much. Further investigation is needed, however, both TP and Strava are really just estimating workload based on the data you feed them. I may be biased but Training Today is looking at your underlying physiology and the heart rate variability (HRV) logs that Apple Watch records throughout the day and night. This will always be a real figure no matter what you have actually logged as activities and so should be the most accurate of the three if you accept HRV as a valid metric.

Strava fitness chart

Neoprene Swim Shorts

I’ve been happy with the way I have got back to a decent pace (for me) in the pool since lockdown. Part of that may be to do with the use of Neoprene Swim Shorts from Zone 3 - I used to exclusive use Speedo Jammers, but I am rocking these in the pool now.

I got the Zone 3 Neoprene Buoyancy Shorts “The Next Step” 3/2mm so not the most buoyant ones which are the 5/3mm ones, but enough to simulate a wetsuit swim in the pool and to be able to concentrate on technique and arm strength while letting my legs trail a bit, much like you do in open water swims in a triathlon. Comfy too. Pro tip: don’t put them on the radiator to dry neoprene out (don’t ask but this is my second pair)

Does anyone else use these or the more buoyant ones? What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments.

Wahoo Speedplay Zero

I forgot to mention that I added Wahoo Speedplay Zero pedals to Canyon SpeedMax recently. There were two reasons for this: Firstly bike fitters seem to love them because of their adjustability and I have my bike fit next week, and secondly, I wanted a change (yes I am that fickle).

Interestingly I found that my power balance is significantly better with the Speedplay - it now seems very even on each leg, whereas with my previous Time XPro 10’s I always seemed to record more power through my left leg compared to my right (I have a Sram Power Spider on the crankset). My right leg is the stronger so this was strange. It could have been to do with cleat position, but the Speedplay’s do seem to be a much tighter fit to the cleat and I feel like power delivery is more direct, so maybe that is it?

They are superbly made pedals though and look great on the bike. I have left the float adjustment as it came out of the box for now until the bike fit is done.

Only my eyes can show the suffering

My choice of frameless cycling shades developed into a bit of a carry-on this week.

First I ordered the Rapha ones which were delayed though Rapha thought not, so I cancelled and ordered the Oakley ones which arrived the next day and were cool. But then the Rapha ones turned up. They were bigger, and according to my wife looked cooler.

Both do the job of not restricting my eye line in any way when in the TT position on my Canyon SpeedMax, and protecting my eyes from the sun and flying debris. The Rapha ones have a chamfered edge which I was worried might impact the vision at the edge, but doesn’t. The Oakley ones have an etching around the lens which also doesn’t cause any issues, but does look a bit dorky to me. Both have nice cases, but the Rapha one is softer and has a quote from Fausto Coppi: “Only my eyes can show the suffering”, and they include a spare nose piece.

So which should I keep and which should I return? Here are the images, but come on you know already: Rapha wins, the quote from Coppi and the comment from my wife made it easy.

Rapha Pro Team Frameless vs Oakley EVZero Path

Fausto Coppi, 1953 Giro d’Italia

And with that I’ll depart for the week.

Have fun with your training and let me know your comments, I always value reading them. If it’s something other readers would find useful, then use the button below, or alternatively feel free to contact me on Twitter or ian@theAppleWatchTriathlete.com

Cheers!

Ian