Race Time!

It is finally here... months of preperation... months of cold weather and solitude... finally ending with the birth of a new race season. I really cant wait. I have been looking forward to this moment since November 1st last year when I hammered out a training plan and started working toward this season.

I think I am prepared. I certainly have a great team around me... we have a sprinter, a few mountain specialists, a few guys that should do well in crits, a few TT guys. I would think that all of our Cat 4/5 team will be toward the top of the group we meet on Saturday, but time will tell.

I am a big Georgia Football fan and college football fan in general. There are always those running backs that are not great practicers... but you put them in game situations and watch out. They have a way of out-performing when there is a lot on the line... they react and feed off of the crowd... they enjoy hurting other folks. They are gametime guys. These are the guys that you dream that you have around the first of September (earlier than that nowadays)... you have not heard about them much during the spring and fall practices, but pray that they will put out when the going gets big...

I hope I will be a game-time guy this year. I have actually been a great practicer... the schedule suits me... the goal oriented, task oriented training I have been doing makes a lot of sense to the engineer inside of me. Set the goal, organize, and accomplish. It has really been fun. Before I decided to race my bike, I really loved the training more than the race. I never really cared about the outcome of a race... the training... the long hours... the commitment... that was what I enjoyed. I would train for a marathon (just once) or a triathlon (only a few) and have a time goal in mind, but it was a personal adventure. I cared more about the distance covered than the time or the competition. My, how the game has changed.

I really have got to get my head straight for the big efforts ahead. At the beginning of last season, there was no amount of discomfort that would make me back down... until I had at least thrown up in my mouth. Toward the end of the year, I could not put out anymore... I started making excuses. Dont get me wrong, there were plenty out there to grab on to. Having a child with down sydrome is not an easy thing to get your head around and Leslie was still pregnant at the end of last season. That was my last taste of racing... my head was not in it... I was just going through the motions. I am not going to do that this year. There is a very fine line between thinking that this is the day you will push yourself all out and telling yourself that there is always another day. The first is a loser and the latter is a winner.

I have thought a lot this week about what motivates me to try to win a race. How have things changed in the last year of my cycling "career"? At some point... around this time last year... I decided that maybe I should give it a go... try my hand at racing... and I wasn't half bad. In my mind, I plan to transform... just like the manimal right before the TT in Albany... ... hopefully say bye-bye to base and not turn back... think panther... yes, think panther...

Inlaw Afterburner...

My wife planned a birthday get-together for her Dad in Madison, Ga. When this happens, she will usually throw me a bone so that I will not be a baby about going... I can ride there or home or both depending on the distance we are traveling. This situation was no different, so I decided to ride home from Madison on Saturday. There was a 10-14 mph wind working to the N-NW, so I knew that it would be a tough day, but I love a point to point ride on roads that I have never ridden.

The best part of the trip... I was up against a time limit if I were to make it home before dark... I needed to ride 70 miles with no stops at 19 mph or else it would get dark on me. I set out with the general goal of averaging greater than 20 mph, regardless of the headwind...

The wind did not seem bad at first... it was mostly a cross wind and did not feel too bad. By the end of the ride, I had really started to feel it. For the past two weekends, my stamina and power output seem to drop at 3 hours in... I am training to ride much further, if the pace is moderate, but if I push it... it appears that I can only put out strong for 3 hours before a performance dropoff. At close to three hours in, I checked my stats... NP- 256 Watts, AP- 236 Watts, Average Speed- 20.2 mph... and the decline began...

I did what I could to maintain this effort, but dropped off in the last 30 minutes. I ended up with 70 miles and average fo 20.1 mph... not bad considering the conditions... and I had done a 1 min interval workout on Friday night in the rain...

Updates on Albany Prologue Strategy...

I have kicked around my calculations with some folks. No one thinks it is possible that a Cat 4/Cat 5 could hold 32 mph with 11- 90 degree turns and a roundabout. The distance that is reported is not accurate... at least that is the theory.

I dont think I will be able to use my power meter for pacing. There are too many turns and therefore too much slowing and sprinting to make it helpful. But, the guys that did the race last year have been given me some tips for success...

1. Dont burn out on the first uphill from the start... the adreniline is pumping and you are apt to do something stupid...
2. Dont touch your brakes going into the turns if you want to do well... the turns look tight, but are not as tight as you think... you must take risks to do well in this race...
3. This is a TT for crit racers... be ready to work the corners like you are in a crit breakaway closing in on the peleton and looking for the lap...
4. It is the first race of the season... dont do anything stupid...

I will continue to comment on the race as info comes in...

Trade out on the TT Bike...

I am pretty excited... I have made a buy/sell deal to change my TT ride for the new season. I had a Litespeed Blade with 650C wheels (to the left)... I now am getting a Cervelo with 700C wheels (below). I never felt right on the Litespeed, but I am not sure that I ever will feel good on a TT bike. I am trading off mostly because I always hear people talk about how much they love getting on their cervelos... figure it must mean something... besides 650c wheels look ridiculous with a 6'2" rider on board...

Interesting Tidbits on Albany Race Weekend

I was studing the Georgia Cup Albany Race results from last year. They did the same TT/Prologue course as we are doing this year... the first place Cat4/Cat5 guy rode the 1.94 mile course in 3 minutes and 34 seconds. The 10th place guy- 3:47. That puts the winners average at 32.6 mph, the 10th at 30.8 mph and the 26th guy (halfway/midpack) at just shy of 28 mph for average speed.

So, of course, I must go to my trusty speed/wattage converter...

http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm

and determine what I must put out to win the event... place 10th... place mid-pack...

I have found this calculator to be off a little, but it is due to the difference between my position and the assumed frontal area it uses based on weight and height... my natural position is a little more aggressive than it assumes which returns a higher wattage at the same speed when compared to actual testing.

Anyway, when I assume...

• I will race in the drops on a road bike and
• The course is flat with no wind

I find that I must average 550 watts to average 30 mph and come in 20th. I will need 600 watts to come in top 10 and I will need 700 watts to win the event. Looking at my mean max power chart... things dont look so good. Add in the fact that I must also negotiate 11 corners and a roundabout...

All I can say is that I will redefine my MMP chart in two weeks... my 3.5 minute power is currently resting on a svelt 365Watts... whoa...

The good news (as there always to seems to be good news in my world)... I have never tested this time/distance and it is really too long to show up from group rides. The times I have tested... 1 min and 5 min... I have only done interval sessions. I can repeat 8 intervals (so far) 1 minute intervals at 475 watts. I think I could probably do 630-650 Watts if I tested just one- one minute all out effort. My 5 min max effort also has not been tested, but I was doing 5 repeats at 335 watts and think I could do 360 Watts for 5 minutes or something like that. So, where does that put me for this type of effort? It is hard to know... the graph is steep when you go from the anaerobic system to the aerobic system. A three minute effort, in my mind, is right at the edge. I think everyone would agree that a 2 minute effort is closer to anaerobic and a 4 minute effort is closer to aerobic. It is really a very interesting thing to consider.

The other question... if you are riding at 30 mph, can you help not being on a TT bike... even if you are taking 11 ninety degree turns and a round about? I dont have a choice... I just sold my TT bike and my new one will not be in for a couple of weeks... but it makes one wonder...

I love this stuff...

One More Theory Before I Go...

Last one...

There is one other thing. I have reflected a lot in the offseason about racing and my race team. I am a competitive guy, but I think this training program is teaching me to focus my aggression toward the race season. Right now, I have several "key workouts" each week. If I get them and hit my CTL goal, then the week was a success. The good news is that I have only missed one weekly goal since November 1st. The bad news is that I think this attitude is causing me to lose my intensity in these preseason workouts. Most of the guys are out for blood, showing off their preseason form. I, on the other hand, am a little soft. The workouts when I go out with the guys are mostly CTL fill in... they are not intensity workouts for me... I have already done those for the week when I show up.

I think this might cause me to "let it go". I think it makes me think that I will fight another day... I will get mean in a few weeks...

I dont think this is good really... my mental toughness is a little off right now. The good news... I have been focusing on the race season, and I will continue to do so. I plan to peak after Albany, but I will be going all out there and will be excited to see how it turns out.

Theories and More Theories...

I have been thinking for a while about my training and the different phases of it and when I will "come into form". I have a theory... it is mostly me trying to rationalize why my form seems to be lagging behind several of my teammates... this was proven yet again on yesterday's effort. I was dropped during a hard rotation and just could not put anymore out.

Here is the deal... I rode with my teammates all last season... we all ebb and flowed along, some better one month, some better another month. I had worked harder and smarter than I ever have in the offseason... I lost 7 lbs since last season. I really expect to be much better this season than last season and still racing in the same category. Since I do not appear to be performing up to snuff (based on comparison to my teammates), I have developed the following fall back theory...

So, here it is... be patient, it takes some build-up

I weigh 180-185 lbs depending on the day and time that I weigh. I became convinced after much research, that my focus during the winter should be on L1 to L4 efforts. In particular, one L4 effort per week (40min FTP TT on Tuesdays) with several L2-L3 workouts throughout the week to build up to a certain CTL- thus "base miles". These would be base miles on steroids, though... I was really not holding back except to stay under threshold... I could ride as hard as I wanted up to 300 Watts. I spent most of my time at L3...

There arose a situation that I noticed during the winter. When I would go out on the Saturday group ride (I probably made it to half of the peach peleton rides this winter), the pace up the hills would force me into a wattage much higher than threshold, even though I did not feel like I was killing it, my weight was forcing my wattage above threshold and me into doing microintervals. Like I said, I realized this was happening, and based on further research, decided to minimize the peach rides I did, and minimize my time over threshold (other than 15 sec sprints). I started riding with some newbies and I would pull all of our long rides. With this strategy, I could keep a perfect wattage up hills, downhills, and on flats... never going into the red, but pushing the line all the time. The point is, at my weight, I dont ever ride like this with competitive riders... ever. If we are riding a moderately spirited ride, I will be hitting 500 Watts on power hills. There is no doubt.

I realized it one time when my waifish teammate commented to "keep it under 400 Watts" because he thought I was pushing to quickly up an incline. When I looked down, I was in the 550Watt range. This is foreign to a guy that weighs 145 lbs in Macon Georgia. The rollers here should not force him into that range unless he is really killing it...

SO... I decide to hold 300 Watts on all uphills during the offseason... this makes for a slow offseason racer, but a good pal to newbies.

Fast forward a month... now I go out with a bunch of folks that have been riding attack zones throughout the winter. Their anaerobic systems are not as untrained as mine are for sure... they should be beating me... but when and why?

Not in the mountains... they should have not advantage there (I am speaking of the guys that are my weight, of course)... those are threshold efforts (long climbs... not long, but long for the south... 15 minutes+... or threshold plus 10% maybe)... more of a VO2 effort with a little anaerobic system mixed in but mostly aerobic. My thought is that I was off my game for this one. One of my teammates rode the first climb and he hit at 10% over threshold... I rode (what felt like all out) at 10% below threshold and felt like it was all I had.

What about Saturday? I got worked with a thousand tiny accelerations... working through the echelon for hours. Was the workout intense... yes, my NP was 266 at 3:30 and I had spent the first 40 minutes before I met the guys screwing around at 210W NP. It looks like the NP for each of the long stints was around 280W... that should not have killed me... my FTP is close to 300 for heavens sake. The only answer (other than continuing this BS theory that I was off my game) is that I am accumulating lactic acid in my muscles due to an untrained anaerobic system. That the intensity in my training over the past months has not put me in a position to excel in these efforts I am faced with.

The good news... if my theory is right, I will build my anaerobic system over the next two weeks and then prepare both aerobic and anaerobic systems for peak output over 5 weeks of racing... recover for a few weeks... rebuild... and 5 more weeks of racing.

If the theory is right, things are proceeding perfectly and according to plan. If the theory is wrong... I will need to work hard to develop a new theory before my next entry... maybe harder than I have worked this entire offseason.

Anaerobic Phase Begins...

Today was my first workout in the anaerobic phase. I will be here for three weeks... it is a place that I have blocked out of my mind over the last three months. It is a place that I really enjoy. It is here where real suffering is... it is the burn that we cyclist love to hate and hate to love.

I never thought that I would forget the feeling, but today was like smelling a grill in the spring or like visiting your old highschool... I just couldnt help but think of racing. I thought about the group rides around here... where you can cut the suffering with a knife... where you lay it all on the line to stay on the back of the group... then progress to stay in the group... then progress to work with the group... then progress to attack the group... and one day, maybe leave the group (if some of the best guys move away from here)... that is the growth of the cyclist.

Yes, today I enjoyed lactic acid flooding my musles and it hurt and felt good. After 8-1 minute intervals, I was tired but I could not help but to attack my riding partners from work and arrive back to the office alone. I dont know why I did it... it just happened... I think I have already forgotten this past weekend... I think I am back. Not that leaving the work cycling group is very difficult, that is not the point. The point is that spring is here... anaerobic is here... there are no more thoughts of holding back... there are no thoughts or concerns of hindering aerobic development... anyway... I am out of breath...

Today was good. I thought I would go by the book and set my goal today for eight-one minute intervals at 150% of FTP or 450 Watts. I felt too good for that. I did some over 500Watts with one as high as 535Watts. I think I averaged 475Watts across the eight. Not to bad and I am energized for more. I think I will try to hold 500 Watts across the board next time. I will be doing these 3 times a week for the next three weeks. My schedule will go as follows...

Monday- OFF
Tuesday- 10x1 min at 150-200% FTP
Wednesday- L2 for 1 hour
Thursday- 10x1 min at 150-200% FTP
Friday- L3 for 1 hour
Saturday- 10x1 min at 150-200% FTP with 1 hour L2
Sunday- Endurance

Cheers!

Training Camp...

The truth of the matter is that we dont always know why things happen in cycling. Sometimes you just have a bad day. Sometimes, after months of focus and preparation, the day that you have been thinking about and looking forward to throughout the long miles of winter, ends up a little lackluster.

Should I be surprised that I got whipped by a few guys that are 40 lbs lighter than me in the mountains? No, I shouldn't and am not. Should I be surprised that I got whipped by a bunch of guys that are my weight? Maybe not surprised, but definitely disappointed. Saturday was not a great day for me.... I got dropped on every climb by guys that I had hoped to be equal to coming into this season. I really did not feel right all day...

Was it the saddle height that I adjusted the day before and was still tinkering with on Saturday? Was it the fact that my body was fighting sickness that showed itself as a cold/sore throat on Saturday night through today? Was it that the guys on my team have really benefited from the long rides and attack zones that I have missed out on many weekends this winter? Has my killer instinct been lulled to sleep during a winter season where every waking minute is a rush to balance two kids (one newborn), a wife, a career, and 10+ hours a week on the bike?

I dont know, but I do know one thing. I would rather be a surprise... I would rather over-perform come race time. I would rather shock my teammates and surprise them in a good way when I exceed expectations. All I can say after this weekend... if this were my strategy... things are definitely proceeding according to that plan... I have set a low standard in my team's mind for my fitness and strength... I now have to work to redeem myself...

The only redeeming thing (other than a fun weekend where I got in some good rides with a great team) is that my power meter showed that it was me that wasnt putting out. My numbers were atrocious... really bad. On the two climbs where we decided to compete, I put out 280W and 240W. These are not 2 hour climbs... they were 15 minute climbs. I would have expected to be at or above threshold on both and I could not put out the power. I could not push the pedals...

Anyway, onward to the season... nowhere to go but up...

Build Phase is Gone, Gone, Gone...

I finished my last VO2 session today. It's not that I won't do them anymore in training, it is just that I will not do them every week anymore in training. My training plan now ends the build sequence (building CTL) after this weekend and goes into the anaerobic phase of training. I really feel think my fitness from an aerobic standpoint has improved over winter.

I raised my FTP 8 watts on Saturday and today my 5 minute intervals were quite a bit higher than when I started these. My training plan calls for intervals done at 110% of FTP. The first one is usually pretty easy and the last one feels pretty hard. At 110%, at my old FTP, I should be doing repeats at around 322 Watts. Over the last few weeks, I have been lucky to hold 322 for three and fall off after that. Today, since my FTP had increased, my goal was to hold 325 Watts in all five (I know 3 watts means nothing, but I have a problem). I finally found the perfect place to do these... I imagine that helped as much as anything. I held 333 Watts for the first three, 340 Watts for the fourth, and went for 350 on the last... I almost had it when I burnt up at 4.5 minutes in and ended up dropping off to 340 again. I tried to do the last one on the way back to the office and blame the terrain for the drop off. You just cant hold the wattage when you hit a slight downhill, weigh 185 lbs, and have a tail wind coming off of the lake... it is impossible after 4 hard intervals...

The idea is that right now I am maxing out my aerobic system in preperation for anaerobic training. I want to maintain my aerobic fitness while increasing my anaerobic fitness quickly and working on race specific training over the next month or so. I will utilize the first few races of the season to polish my form and skills for the first block of my peak racing season.

This is my first time with anything that is close to structured training. I have no idea what the result will be... I just know that it will be better than last year...

Anyway, it was a good day. Now, I will take it easy and wait to see what happens in TN. Either way, it will be fun...

Training Camp Preview

We have training camp this coming weekend. We will be going as a team up to Chattanooga, TN for a weekend long retreat with our newly formed team. We will ride 50 miles Friday, 90-100 on Saturday, and 50 on Sunday. After this effort, my CTL will hit 94 and will be the highest it will get this offseason.

I am a little disappointed in this... I wanted to hit 110 because I read that elite/professional cyclists should be at 110 or higher after the build phase. I think I will be OK since I am not elite nor am I professional, but it still makes me question, "how much is enough?". I slowed up a couple weeks ago due to a hamstring/calf/back of knee pain that came out of the blue and put me down for a few days. The pain was not severe, but I could not go full power and I knew I needed to back off a bit. I was on an upward surge at the time, had dropped the easy week from my program and was increasing a steady 4 CTL points per week when it happened... I was around 92 TSS/day when it started.

I got rid of it with anti-inflammatories and haven't felt pain at all since then... until today. Not bad, it just let me know that it was not fully healed. A racing cyclist is always on the edge of injury or sickness, or they are not pushing hard enough. I do believe this, but really wanted to take it easy this offseason... it just didnt work out that way... I am a slave to the graphs!!!!!

A Little Background...

This will provide a starting point, bringing me up to present time (so I can remember later)... I have loved cycling for many years, but never committed the time to it that I needed to become good (I am obviously not genetically gifted- I have got to work at it to be decent). My fitness was completely horrible when Eliza, my daughter, was born on April 29th, 2005. Life changed quite a bit and got even more busy than before. I had put on some weight by the winter and was disgusted. It was that time when things changed. I started riding again. I started riding during lunch with a coworker... I weighed 218 lbs... my heaviest ever in my life. I rode my way into spring and lost 20 lbs. I went out on group rides and got killed... but I had fun. I did my first century that year (2006) in September and followed it up three weeks later by completing the 6 gap century in north Georgia. I had a decent winter that off season and stayed in shape riding some lunchtimes and riding mountain bikes with Brooke. We were doing a 45 minute ride at night on the moutain bikes (1-2 days per week) and a 2 hour ride on the weekends... all pretty hard. When spring came around, I was in the best shape of my life, but it took a while to get my road legs up and running. I had lost another 10 lbs and was now around 190 lbs. I raced several times last season as a Cat 5 and upgraded over this offseason.

I bought a power meter and am in the middle of a winter training program that me and a teammate put together after doing a lot of online research (google wattage mostly). The winter base phase basically lasted from November 1 to the end of the year, increasing CTL incrementally (4-8 points per week- I chose the low end and took it easy every 4th week or so) while doing a 45 minute (usually 40 minute because it felt so good to quit 5 minutes early) FTP workout every week and a sprint workout (8x15 second sprints... all out). Since November, I have increased my 40 minute effort from 270 Watts to 302 Watts and have increased my 5 second (1111W to 1250W)and 15 second sprints (739W to 1046W- this interval was untested until this winter) considerably. Overall the program has been great. I am currently doing five- five minute intervals at 110% FTP each week with a FTP (40 min) every other week or so (sometimes more). Over the next week or so, I will be posting some charts to show progress over this winter thus far...

Why Not!

Everyone else does it... why not me? I read several blogs religiously and thought I might as well give it a try...