February Update

Just got back from our yearly training camp. Horrible weather but a good time to catch up with the guys on the team. And guess what? I still suck in the mountains. I suck so much that I actually look forward to going so that I can enjoy riding around here so much more. I never felt comfortable on a climb and we didn't do many. All rides were cut short or didn't happen due to icy roads. I did ride my bike in the snow for the first time...

I have ventured into L3/L4 training this month and a little in January. I am doing all tests and all notable workouts in the drops or on the TT machine. I have noticed a big increase in power when in an aero position. I am more convinced than ever that this will be a notable improvement come race time. My FTP seems to be moving sharply upward over the last few weeks and I expect this to continue through the month and taper off pretty quick.

I am more fresh than ever at this time of year. There is no question about that. Even though I have been riding the same number of hours and my FTP seems to be nearly what it was last year at this time, I did very little L4 this off season and really didn't nail the L3 until lately. I did a 40 minute L4 workout every week of the off season last year... no matter what. I really never understood how much mental and physical energy I was putting into these workouts. I did everyone like it was a do or die effort for every single watt... rather than just aiming for 90-100% of my FTP the week before, I would treat each one like a TT... a 40 minute TT. I would do them on Tuesdays and I would start thinking about the next one on Thursday or so. I didn't realize it until now, but I was racing every single week. Sure, it was just racing myself, but I was really racing the power meter... if I was under where I was the week before I would be upset... elation for the opposite. All of this drama dealt up a nice burnout for me in April last year... yes, I said April...

It looks like I will be racing the first three weekends of March. I cant hardly wait...

Ramblings...

A few things that have happened or that I have been thinking about over the many, many, long, freezing cold, solo rides that I have been on over the last month...

• This sounds like the start of a country song... I was riding my bike to church a few weeks ago to meet my wife and kids for Mass. I stupidly picked a bad, high traffic route and decided to ride on the sidewalk. This particular sidewalk apparently has water constantly running over it from the hill above. Of course it was around 32 degrees when I left the house. Before I knew it... riding down a hill at around 25 mph... I find myself shooting across a 3" thick sheet of ice. I, of course, go down like a sack of potatoes. Didn't get hurt... thank you Lord...
• Today, man and machine become one... not in the biblical sense, but suffice to say that I felt sorry for every man, woman, or child that does not take the time to become truly comfortable and efficient on a bicycle... it is magical and there is nothing else like it...
• I completely rehabbed my basement while managing 12 hours per week on the bike, work 45 hours per week, and raise two kids. Everyone is still happy I think (would I know if they weren't?). Anyone who tells you that they dont have time to workout needs a perspective change.
• Speaking of perspective change, I had to chuckle when I found some old emails where I was saying that it would be 36 degrees so I would not ride until it warmed up. Until this week, I have not ridden in weather over 36 degrees in three weeks with the same gear I had last year.
• I have leaned down quite a bit since New Years. Oddly, I am at 185 lbs (7 lbs over last year at this time) but I am in my smallest waisted pants that I own... pants I havent worn in 12-13 years... the weight room has worked but I hope it is not upper body muscle...
• My 30 min all out on the hoods is around 295W... My 30 min all out on the drops must be around 275W... My TT 30 min max is 269W. They are all growing rapidly but these are low numbers for this time of year for me... I am ready to let it loose a little...

December '08 versus December '09

Last year stats...

34.08 hours on the bike

Average Intensity factor for the month- 0.802

No time lifting weights

This year stats...

40.75 hours on the bike

Average Intensity factor for the month- 0.733

6 hours lifting weights (squats,step ups, plyometric jumps, lunges)

L4 is just starting to pick up now and IF will go up accordingly... it will be interesting to see how more hours, time in the weight room, and less intense work will translate into form this next season. Hope it works out...

Either way, I am as fresh as I have been in three years going into the new year and my threshold is as low as it has been in three years.

Winter Focus

The following points sum up my focus for the last two months...

1. Get aero and get used to it...

I have decided to spend a lot more time in the drops than ever before. I realized when reflecting on past seasons that anytime I am attempting an attack, to bridge an attack, sprint for the finish, advance in a crit, hold position in a crit when I am outmatched, or ride a TT/prologue, I am in my drops. Yet I have spent nearly no time training in my drops. My road bike position is relatively aggressive on the hoods and very aggressive on the drops (these are mostly relative to my own comfort level but also in comparison with other cyclists)... this makes me less apt to ride in the drops than on the hoods. I have focused on spending time in my drops this off season and have tested there on occasion. I have more than a 20 watt drop in FTP when moving from my hoods to my drops... this is unacceptable and explains some of my hardship in certain races over the past few years. I will often jump into the drops on an attack or bridge attempt only to find myself quickly out of breath. Now I expect that is due to many factors, but giving up 20 watts cant be helpful in any case. Spending more time in that position will help flexibility, muscle firing, and strength in TT/drop specific positioning that should help in races. I need to be closer to 98% FTP in those positions rather than 90%... time will tell...

2. Lift Weights...

We will see... I hope that it adds to my sprint but who knows. What I do know is that it has made me full strong throughout and that should add to my durability and confidence during the next races season... cant be bad...

3. Save the L4 for January...

Last year I completed a 40 minute L4 time trial every week from November until nearly February. As L5 and L6 work started in Jan/Feb, the L4 work tapered off but still continued every other week for maintenance. This offseason, I have had a steady diet of L2 and now L3 and will build L4 similar to the way I have built L5/L6 in the past... do it over a month and dont look back. I dont know what this will do, but I feel much more mentally and physically fresh right now compared to other years and I burnt out last spring very quickly so maybe this is the right move. I am training between 8 and 13 hours a week... feels good and my legs seem OK so time will tell..

The Illusive Limiter...

There were certain races this past season where I was satisfied with a midpack result (I say "satisfied" because it was all I felt I had that day). I went into the event well trained (or so I thought) and yet was unable to perform for a result. When I reviewed my power file after the race, I noticed that the power output was not out of the ordinary... well within my threshold. I would then study the hard efforts during the race... searching for a match and trying to decide whether I had burned too many too quickly (as most everyone knows, the "match" is loosely described as an extreme effort... you only have so many of those in your box... once you burn them all, you get dropped.) On these particular events in question, I had a hard time defining what efforts left me tired at the end... too tired to make a winning move. The "intervals within the race" should have been well within what I was trained to do. I was left to decide that I just didnt have it that day... it wasnt in the cards... I just had bad legs... whatever...

As a guy that likes data and likes analysis and likes to think that I have some control over outcomes on the bike and likes to think that training specifically for events can provide success in those events... I didnt really like the "well I had bad legs" excuse.

So I was reading some stuff the other day... Friel to be exact. He was asking questions to help you decide what your weaknesses and what you need to train hard to overcome. One particular question caught my eye and got me thinking. Where do you find yourself in the pack on a climb (defined as longer than 5 minutes)? His shortened answer was that if you cant climb then force might be your limiter. Now the easy answer for me is off the back... of course this depends on what pack we are talking about, but still. The more specific answer is that if I can find a gear where my cadence is comfortable (95 rpm) then I climb OK... if I am lower than that... not so much. But could force be my limiter?

I started to think about my training. I am a spinner and I know it. I have power, but I harness and distribute that power quickly over the cranks. In a TT, my average cadence is between 95 and 100 rpm... always. If I am struggling during a TT, I can check my cadence and I will always realized that I have dropped into the 80s... speed up my legs and immediatley my power and speed increase. I have always rationalized that as long as I had gearing to find that ideal cadence that my body yearned for when putting out powerful efforts, I really never needed to worry out forceful, low cadence efforts. Lets face it... high force, high cadence is sprinting... I am not doing standing starts or anything else that would require high force, low cadence.

All this brought me back around to racing... is there a possiblity that racing requires those high force, low cadence efforts and I have never noticed it? If it did, could I look at my data and figure out where those efforts were or how many there were?

Enter Quadrant Analysis. A spreadsheet tool designed by Andy Coggan (to whom I give credit for the chart below... well, credit for design... I will unfortunately take credit for the power data... or does God take credit for that (for giving me the questionable genetics in the first place... I digress...). This "software" was developed to breakdown rides into quadrants of effort. Quad 1 (upper right) shows high force, high cadence efforts... Quad 2 shows high force, low cadence efforts... Quad 3 shows low force, low cadence efforts... Quad 4 shows low force, high cadence. So for me in a race (this statement is obviously oversimplified but is probably true at the extremities), 1 is sprinting... 2 is mashing/grinding (think Stoney here)... 3 is chilling... 4 is spinning.

The blue dots show every individual effort from the race. The red line represents my threshold wattage... if a point is higher on the graph than the red line... it was over 280 Watts... below it would be less. So, all blue dots above the red line in Quad 2 (upper left) would represent efforts that are above 280 Watts and below my ideal cadence of 95 rpms. The further from the y axis (pretty much) the slower my legs were moving. This explains some... see next post for more information...

Cold Weather Returns...

Finally we have a touch of cool weather today. The forecast calls for 47 degrees at ride time and only warming up 2 degrees during the ride. I love it... cant wait to break out some fall weather gear and smell embrocation will certainly spark nostalgia of offseasons past...

Winter Training... Where to go...

This time of year is always spent working on this offseason's plan. There is a lot of info out there on how to train and what works best. My interest is to find the best plan to max out my potential while minimizing time away from the family.

Last offseason, my two main objectives were as follows:

1) Minimize trash miles... otherwise known as recovery miles. My plan was to never do any workouts (nor intervals) over threshold (no lactic acid)... and never do easy workouts... L1... recovery workouts. I would always push L3 for every minute I was on the road. This is the area where the most bang for the buck is realized on the bike. L4 and harder workouts usually require recovery and therefore the physiological adaptions realized from such workouts come at a greater price. The graph below explains it best. I am talking about sweet spot training. Strain is minimized while training effect is maximized.

So, my thought was... if I only have 10 hours per week to train... it is winter which means that a steady diet of hard L3 work could be tolerated... couldn't I train there all the time and sit up when I get too tired to keep it up?

2) Grow CTL (Chronic Training Load) to highest point I could without overtraining. I wanted to hit 110 which seemed like as good a number as any. The truth is... this can only get so high on 10-12 hours per week, but I gave it a try.

So... what happened last winter and how did it workout this past season?

I really achieved both of my goals stated above. I rode L3 all the time and really cut down on trash miles. I did one L4 workout each week and took off one day each week. I got sick three times (always during intense training periods) and learned a few things about that. I increased CTL around 4 points a week and tried not to step back weeks (but would get sick just in time for a needed step back). I think I hit around 105 CTL... cant really trust all of that data, but I was riding a good bit and mostly around L3.

How did it workout for the season? Well... different story. I decided to crash diet coming in so that I could get really light before the races. I dropped weight quickly when I stopped eating... down to 174 from where I had been for a while (182). I am pretty sure now, based on what I have been reading, that the calorie deficit and the increased training intensity and load in February and March led to overtraining. How else can I explain the huge disinterest in cycling that happened in April and May. I starting running again... I think that says enough. I trained my tail off for 5 months looking forward to nothing but racing, through rain and cold, and 3 weeks into the season with beautiful weather I decide that I want to get off the bike and rest for a while. It makes no sense. I lost all of my form with 4 weeks of foolishness and never got back to where I was as far as form.

I will spend the next week studying my data from last winter and determining where to go with this information. I will not be crash dieting... that I am sure of...