Cowboy up!

I am not ashamed to admit that I thought I was a cowboy when I was in high school. I wore a cowboy hat... wore cowboy boots... listened to country music (I still know more old country than you do... and still love it... the new stuff is not nearly the same... and by "new", I mean anything from the last two to three decades). I even built a 50 gallon drum bull for me and my buddies to ride in my backyard. My parents tolerated it, but could never understand it.

I saw the movie "8 seconds" last night and had to laugh because it used to be one of my favorite movies. The movie is about a great, young bull rider, Lane Frost... the movie is about his life and early death by a bull. The parallels of bull riding and bike racing are surprising and really made me sit back and think.

One of the guys that traveled with Lane that was always writing poems... he read one to his buddies right before they went out to ride at the rodeo national championships and right before Lane Frost's last ride (I think this was probably souped up for the movie, but still). Since I have a DVR, I was able to stop it and rewind it and get most of the lines... if it is copyrighted, I hope no one will mind... I filled in a couple spots with cycling references but showed the other... enjoy...

There is a hundred years of history
And a hundred before that
All gathered in the thinkin’
Goin on beneath this cap (hat).

The cold flame burns within him
‘Til his skin’s as cold as ice
And the dues he paid to get here
Are worth every sacrifice.

All the miles spend sleepy drivin’
All the money down the drain,
All the “if I’s” and “nearly’s”
All the bandages and pain,

All the female tears left dryin’,
All the fever and the fight
Are just a small down payment
On the ride he makes tonight

It’s guts and love and glory,
One mortal’s chance at fame.
His legacy is cycling (rodeo)
And racer (cowboy) is his name.

THE END

-If you race bikes(I don't care what level), you just got chills...
-if you race, but didn't get chills, you may want to ask yourself why...

Click the image above to see it a little larger...

I was looking at this today... it is really an awesome thing to look back over your year of cycling. A lot of sweat and pain goes into racing a bike and it is rare that you can sit back and view it on one graph... thank God for power meters. I am going to jot down the first thoughts that come to mind when I look at this... no particular order and most of them will come off as inconsequential ramblings... either way, thank God for the power meter...

First some definitions...
FTP- my threshold power for an hour. This is the max wattage output I can put out over an hour time. I measure this often and it is the backbone of my entire training plan.
NP- normalized power- this is average power, but with a twist. Basically, the peaks and valleys the ride are factored in less and it gives a better approximation of the true stress on your body.
TSS- total stress score- this is a stress score that is assigned to each ride. An all out 1 hour effort at FTP receives a score of 100.
CTL- chronic training load- this is basically a measure of how hard I am riding overall for the past while... it is pulling from a 45 day rolling average of workouts to determine a chronic load of training. To quote from elsewhere... FTP is how fast you can go... CTL is how long you can go fast.
TSB- Training Stress Balance- this takes into account your ATL- acute training load (the past 5-7 days of workouts) and compares your current short term load to your chronic load (long term load) to give you a stress balance. The numbers are irrelevant other than a positive TSB means I am rested and a negative means I am tired. A +10 is usually good for racing...

• My first workout with my power meter was a 5 hour ride on 7-28-07... it came up as a 376 TSS workout... wow... what a beast. I don't remember what this was, but it must have been tough.
• I took two weeks off in October... I did not want my CTL to drop too far... looks like it went from some where around 77 to around 63... not too bad
• My ramp over the winter was around 4 CTL points per week... I started to push up on that number and got over 90 on CTL and got injured... not saying that the increase caused it but who knows...
• I level off for the anaerobic part of the winter training program
• I break my hip
• I had not looked at this since I broke my hip.
• All of the belly aching about not getting my form back... look at this graph... my CTL did not start an upward movement for almost two months and that CTL is lower than number I have had in a year... even lower for way longer than last years offseason.
• I am proud that I toughed out those rides when I was still on my crutches and a cane... it made my comeback better than if I would have been sitting on my tail for 2 months...
• My ramp coming back was steeper than my ramp last winter... I did not notice it while it was happening... I was just happy to be back riding...
• The month of July sucked...
• Look at the last ramp at the far right... I am coming back, but this time with my anaerobic system along with me...
• I love cycling

Work in progress...

Yes, my cycling is certainly a work in progress... in more ways than one. In one way, cycling form is always coming and going, building and retracting, racing and resting... a constant work in progress. That is not the topic of this blog. The "work in progress" that I am thinking of is the work of self coaching.

I self coach mainly because I don't know a coach that I would trust and don't want to pay the money that a guy I would trust would want to charge me for his services. I am convinced that I have a pretty good idea of what I am doing (the power meter helps a lot), but there are two major factors I must face. One, as I get closer and closer to my genetic potential as a cyclist, through hard training and racing, the more important a good coaching is... with a full time job and family, there is only so much time to train... I have got to train very smart (with my limited potential) to be a good racing cyclist. One day, maybe I will realize that I need help to get a little more out of my time.

Two, I am quick to abandon a plan if I don't see immediate results. A coach would help I think. The blog has helped for sure. I have looked back over my blog since my injury... I have set a number of training strategies that would bring me back to form... I have followed none of them more than a week. I realize now that my strategies I set forth in late June would have worked. I wanted to raise my FTP to a peak with 5x5s and max my anaerobic system over the following 3 weeks. That would have put me at a peak right around now. What happened? I looked at my charts the other night and I had ramped up my CTL at a steady 4 points a week for 6 weeks after my injury and had rebuilt it to around 80 when I went to the beach. The ramp rate was steeper than what I did this past winter... which left me with a low TSB around the first of July. My legs were tired, I wanted to ride competitively again and keep the excitement I felt from the rebuilding process. I went out hard with a low TSB and an unbuilt anaerobic system while in Florida and started to get frustrated.

I got dropped a few times... I realized that my anaerobic system was to blame and started some 1x1s... then I quit the plan. I don't know why I did. I think I got frustrated by the intensity of my cycling friends this time of year and the fact that I couldn't hold on. Anyway... I quit the plan. Last week, I checked my FTP... good ride... 303Watts. Good enough. I now realize that the work I did a month ago actually worked to raise my FTP to a reasonable number. I am now kicking myself for not sticking to my plan... a coach would have been yelling at me for sure.

Good news... it doesn't really matter. Normally a one month set back would be frustrating if I were going into a season and I had a certain race in mind. That is not the case now. I am looking forward in my schedule to Augusta... no matter the form.

How do I know my anaerobic system sucks? Good question. I get dropped... you know that, but still...

I went out this weekend to do 1 minute intervals. I did 5 (instead of 10) and could barely hold 440 Watts across the board. My usual is around 490 Watts and has gone to 520 Watts (repeatable) on good days, but never below 450 Watts on average. The system is gone for sure... the good news again... easy come, easy go with that system... it takes 2-3 weeks to build it and 2-3 weeks to lose it...

The First FTP...

I guess I have watched too many reruns lately. I have no trust of electronics. I think it is well documented... my distrust of the ergomo. I have not written about it lately... it is way overkill at this point and no one can relate. Matrix and The Terminator... two constant reruns that still interest me... I watch them and my distrust grows and grows... stay tuned... now I think the HR monitor is conspiring with the power meter to drive me crazy... they are trying to take over the world, I think...


Both movies deal with humans demise due to machines/electronics. I must be buying the hype. Today was my first FTP since before the injury. Actually, it is my first one since February, I guess. I felt good, but a little timid starting out. I used heart rate to pace myself... I did not want to go out too hard and not be able to finish the workout. My old LT heartrate (tested 1.5 years ago) was 168 bpm and I still use that for pacing. For this 40 minute effort, I decided to conservatively lay out a 165 average on the way out and a 170-172 on the way back. When I got really good at these over the winter, I could average over my supposed LT HR by 4 or 5 beats for 40 minutes, but it was uncomfortable. That was not really what I was trying to do with this first one.

I got to the parking lot and had right at an hour before the sky fell in (rain). I jumped on my bike and realized that my tire had a weird hump in it. Of course, it was the back tire and it was beat... bulging out the side... never seen it before. I happened (thanks Robert) to have two new tires in the back of the Tahoe and I switched them up right fast. Off I go... the first 10 minutes, I kept it around 165 bpm... it actually felt bad for a while and I was wondering how bad this would be. My power was overperforming... around 310W average at this point, but I felt bad. I trusted the HR and kept pluggin along. By 15-20 minutes in, my avg power had come down to around 305W and my HR had crept up to around 166-167. I kept it there to the turn around... lost 2 watts there... and started my way home. I stopped looking at the power meter for a while... when I looked back, I was still at 303W and at 178 bpm. This really is weird. I don't want to freak anyone out, but I have got to question whether my HR monitor is working correctly. I started watching over the last 10 minutes of the ride and I was steadily in the mid to high 170s. I was not really breathing any harder than at 165 bpm, yet I was well over threshold. Usually, I would know it if I were nearing 180 bpm.

I finished with an average wattage (new threshold power) of 303 Watts. I had estimated my threshold at 302 W from some NP efforts I had a few weeks ago. That was pretty impressive. My average speed was 22.7 mph over the 40 minute effort... right about where it was in the fall and winter for FTP rides along the same route... I ride on the hoods and tops the entire time. The numbers make some sense. My cadence was slower than ever before... 91 rpm versus 95 rpm before the wreck. I have noticed this during training rides... it is a problem and I think it goes back to me trying to overcompensate for my bad side... my spin is not what it used to be and it has cost me power during critical moments. My average HR was 168 bpm, but was very variable during the ride.

What does this mean? Well, I don't trust the power meter and I don't know that I trust the HR monitor. It does not matter anymore... I will go with these numbers regardless. If I believe the numbers, then I am not far from where I was this spring as far as aerobic capacity goes (off by 10-15 Watts). I have put on 8 lbs. Three options... either my teammates are freakishly strong after a great season racing... or... my anaerobic system is still not where it should be and it gets me dropped on Tuesdays. The last option... I am a headcase and my total lack of confidence since my injury has led to me getting dropped on Tuesday rides.

What are the facts?

1. I have raced twice since my injury. In both races, I raced near the front and finished with the pack. Is there any reason to think I am that far off form from this info?
2. My FTP is 303 Watts. Even at my fattened up 187 lbs, I am still at 3.6 W/kg... a fringe Cat 3/4 type guy... that is very realistic considering my abilities in races.
3. The Tuesday Worlds are a real slugfest... if my anaerobic system is off, those guys will expose it. We have a Pro 1 guy, a Cat 2/European racing, U23 guy, a guy about to upgrade to Pro 2, a master racer/Pro 2 guy, two Cat 3 guys that will be upgrading next year probably, and a good group of Cat 4 guys that are all the antagonists in any race... someone out of that group will be on the podium in every race it seems. Is it that bad to get wasted by these guys?

Whatever... today gave me some confidence that was sorely needed. At least I know that my aerobic system is OK. I have said it before, but now I mean it. I am scrapping the Plan from a few days ago. I am going to work on my anaerobic system from here until Augusta and I am coming out guns-a-blazing for that race... no base building... no excuses... it is time to get back in the ring... the guys were right telling me to race back into form... I just didn't believe it...

Now I do...

The Plan...

You can probably read my blog and realize that I have not been myself since I broke my hip. Yes... there was some uncertainty about my form in February (bad training camp), but after that, I really came into form, raced some, and had a blast. I was two weeks from peak when I broke my hip. I had a lot of positive energy for a few months after the injury... I was out on the bike in a few weeks... pedaling mostly with the opposite leg. I started working back little by little.

I had been increasing mileage very quickly after the injury and got the intensity going immediately. I worked a hard training block at the end of June and hoped that it would be my ticket to form by the end of July. I have not felt good since that block. I felt bad on vacation (July 4th week) and I have never felt right since. There is generally a lack of desire to suffer. I dont know what to say... after 3 years of enjoying every second I spend on my bike and forever craving the next ride, the last 2 months have been tough. I am still riding, but I am not working as hard. I am content to lose... content to quit... content to be weak. I am not the guy that always has to win, or he quits... I have been at the back of the B group many times in years past, barely hanging on... I had more fight in me then I think.

Anyway, I wonder... is this overtrained? Is this what it feels like? This is the way it is described, but still... could I be overtrained after 2 months off from an injury and starting back too fast? I decided two weeks ago that I didnt care. I decided that since I had planned these adventure races anyway, I would use these two weeks as my "time off this year" two weeks. This is usually planned for October, but why not now? I suck... that is for sure. I may need rest... who knows. I dont really have a big race that I am thinking about on the road bike and I dont want to race when my form is so gone. Could I start base building in August for the next season? Would it be too long? I decided that is what I should do.

I talked to a coach when I first broke my hip. He told me to scrap the season and start base building for next year. I didnt believe him at all. I thought I could tough it out and beat the odds. I thought my base through last winter could sustain me through a May layoff. I found that it could not.

This week, I will start back my FTPs and Sprint workouts from last winter. I will step up CTL 4-6 points per week with a drop back week every fourth. I will build up my long ride on Saturday to around 5 hours. I am actually really excited. My program lately has been to get my tail kicked by my teammates on Tuesday nights and mope about it all week. No more! Now I will do my FTP ride (45 minute- all out effort) on Tuesdays and ride for miles on Tuesday night.

This shift in training might be just what I need to get my head and body right over the next few months. If my legs come around, this strategy should work very well for some cyclocross workouts this November/December...

Adventure Races

I competed in two adventure races over the last two weekends...

The first was in Macon and was a 4 hour sprint race. I raced with a friend from work... it was his first adventure race... we had a great time and finished 2nd in our division and 4th overall. Not bad...

The next one was the Goldrush 24... a twenty four hour ball buster of a race starting in Woodstock, Ga. I don't feel like doing a long description of this race, but I will give it a go... the race was too exhausting to truly capture in print...
We started in downtown Woodstock at 8:00 pm. We had been busy all day... plotting maps... strategizing... driving to Woodstock (through Atlanta and of course sitting in traffic for an hour)... dropping off all of our gear (canoe, bikes, etc)... 1 hour bus ride to the start of the race... prerace meeting... on and on and on... by the time the race started, I was ready for a nap.

We started with a 4 mile road run before the real trekking leg began. This beat my long run from training by a little under a mile... I only did one training run... not the way to start a 24 hour race. We bushwacked, creekwacked, and side hill stomped for the next 5 hours to the canoe leg. The route was exhausting... wet feet... large grain sand in our shoes and socks... and mostly the entire route was side hill trekking on a left to right slope... the slope was probably close to a 1 to 1 slope (a 45 degree angle to the horizon- non technical writing... strange). The grinding in our shoes would not be good later in the race. We found all the checkpoints... got messed up on our route due to a subdivision, but arrived at the canoe in good spirits. The canoe leg was cake... awesome night on the water (we started at around 1:00am)... it was chilly which was a welcome change to the heat of Macon. We knocked out the 15 mile paddle leg in around 4 hours.

Another trek/swim leg followed and never ended. We were in and out of the water... swimming for a while... then trekking over a little island... then swimming again... this went on for the next 10 hours. You could never get the sand out of your shoes... no matter what. It continued grinding for the entire 24 hours. The rest of the team had some bad chaffing problems (the descriptions of pain by these guys led to some cracking up by all team members that can only be appreciated if you are on no sleep or smoking pot (I hear). We got all the checkpoints on this section and arrived at the bike section just in time to head for the finish line...

We finished 3rd in our division and 21st out of 56 teams. We were really happy about this finish. There were a lot of teams who have a lot of experience and many of them had raced this terrain before. Not enough can be said for how much of an advantage that is from a strategy standpoint alone...

Anyway... back to the bike... it was a fun interlude...