I find all of the unicorns to be challenging regardless of what I have been eating lol
Purple Unicorn is a killer. Definitely in the top3 most challenging workouts in the plan when I did it last winter
After failing Purple Unicorn the first time I told myself Iād come back to it later. Iāve gone into Zwift with the intention of selecting it a few times since then, but somehow always get ādistractedā and find something else to pick 
I was doing LOX tonight and I couldnāt make it through the first VO2max interval. The first 2 minutes were hard, but thats normal, and then my body just gave up in the final minute.
I was well fuelled and coming off a rest day.
I am wondering what to do now:
- try again tomorrow?
- take a few more days off?
- Quit?
I guess the question is if you couldnāt complete it because your legs were completely dead before you started, if you felt good to start and didnāt complete the first interval I would wonder if the FTP is set too highā¦ I find LOX to be incredibly difficult personally, when I went through BMU I got halfway through the 4th interval, had to take a break for a few seconds while I questioned my life choices, then finished the rest of the workout and continued on with the plan. Others might have taken a different approach, but at the time they didnāt have the same flexibility the plans have now.
But week 7 was one of my worst weeks in BMU, it was just too much intensity for me personally at that point.
What cadence were you riding at? I find that if you increase your cadence you can take a bit of pressure off your legs, and if you let your cadence drop a bit you can ease the cardiovascular load a wee bit. Anything above 105rpm works for me.
I highly recommend NOT doing them in erg mode. Start 20 watts above target power and let the power drop naturally so that by the end of the interval youāll probably be a bit below target power. The average across the interval should be good.
1 Like
Bring the FTP down or reduce the percentage of the workout.
The idea is to find a level that you can get through the workout. You should find it hard, but be able to finish it. When you are at that level, then you keep doing the workout and when it starts to get a bit easier, you can increase the percentage.
The most important thing is that you complete the workout. If you donāt complete it then you arenāt getting the benefit of it.
If you were okay at the start, itās probably just that the percentage of FTP was a little too high.
1 Like
I did this plan 3 years ago so I donāt remember this in detail, but in general I do remember at times this plan got on top of me in terms of general fatigue. Looking back my notes on this workout were:
Failed 2min into the 4th (of 5) 3min at 115% of FTP
. Turned intensity down 10% and completed the 5th.
And looking at what the workout is, it looks horrible! Iām not a coach and am an ignorant amateur, but if I had time (I.e. itās not going to take away a rest day or just make me extra fatigued and end up messing up other workouts in the coming days) Iād do it again, but set the bias at -10% from the start, if I feel ok then after the first interval Iād bump it up 1 or 2 %, if not then leave it where it is. If feeling bad/unmanageable I would just turn erg off and do it as best as I could or just forget it and move on with the plan.
1 Like
I was aiming for 105
Interesting. I might give this a go when I reattempt.
I did 15.9 last week at this FTP and was able to finish all five 2.5min intervals.
I might try this. At the very least to give me the confidence to get through that first intervalā¦
My plan at this point is to reattempt LOX tomorrow morning, so that I will be more rested. I will either try it without ERG mode or use ERG mode but turn down the intensity for at least the first interval.
Thanks for all your support guys
2 Likes
Plenty of carbs the the two days before. Rest up the day before. Smash it. 
I find Erg OK for sweetspot workouts, but itās horrible for me above FTP. It feels like running through glue.
What trainer do you have? Anything above FTP is generally horrible anyway, but Iāve never felt it any worse than I would expect. If there are big changes in the power output (like going from a recovery into an above FTP effort) then I do need to start spinning faster fractionally before the gate.
Wattbike Atom, but itās not bike/trainer specific. Itās the fact that cadence dropping by 5rpm means that torque required goes up, which is not what I want to feel. I want it to feel like a real bike.
Itās the last 30 seconds of VO2 Max intervals where it"s the worst for me.
1 Like
Update: I just completed LOX. It was freaknā terrible, and I had to take an extra 2min easy spin between the 3rd and 4th intervals, but I did it. The final 10mins of Sweetspot was almost just as awful as the intervals 
I am not looking forward to Kirizuma and Mosaic; I recall those were two of the hardest for me last year.
3 Likes
Today I did the Purple Unicorn. I was dreading it! I have had a good diet this weekā¦ Okay, better diet! I listened to my body and took 2 days of rest which was difficult. I felt pretty good throughout the workout and completed all stages. For some reason I got one stage that didnāt give me a star, but I did them all at the coaches levels for power and cadence. I have realized I hate standing!
Keep up the great work all! Letās suffer through this together lol
Awesome work Jeff! You have finished 4 weeks of this tough program, be sure to take a moment to reflect on that!
1 Like
You too Joel! Keep up the great work