Active Recovery Workout with Power Analysis

2012-02-03 • SEND FEEDBACK •
Related: training

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Please see the previous endurance workout; that workout was the day prior.

The workout on this page was an active recovery workout in which the goal was to keep the intensity low enough to allow the body to continue to recover. For me, that means keeping watts at 55% or less of my FTP (functional threshold power, see previous page for an explanation).

Duration: 2:49
Watts: 189.3
Kilojoules: 1655 (about 1600 KCal)
BPM: 116
Distance: 40.04 miles
Ascent: 2462'
Speed: 16.47 mph
Temp: 55° F

Analysis

Keeping my power output below 190 watts is a challenge— it’s boring going that slowly and it doesn’t feel better than a moderately harder effort. In fact when legs are a little stiff from a prior workout, lower output seems less comfortable to me that pushing a little hard. Nonetheless, I forced myself to do so.

The day after this recovery workout, I repeated a shorter version of the endurance workout I had done two days prior. See the endurance workout page for the Feb 2 and Feb 4 workouts bracketing this active recovery workout, in particular the Feb 4 followup endurance workout.

Bottom line: this was a good active recovery workout, but was it too long and/or should I have dropped the wattage to ~180 watts instead of 190 watts? Something to explore, and it probably depends on sleep (not enough) as well.

Click for a larger graph. Red is heart rate, green is power.

An active recovery workout graph with power, heart rate, elevation
Goal of < 190 watts average power with no hard efforts