Right when I start to get disappointed...

I looked back over some other data from this season versus last season. For those that dont know, I have no faith that my power meter is measuring wattage precisely, but I am certain that it does measure accurately... I think that is right... I mean that it measures correctly high around 15 Watts everytime... it is repeatably high the same amount. Therefore, all of my graphs show data as a percentage of FTP (threshold power), thereby canceling out this problem and allowing me to view this offseason and last offseason in the same light...

Last Season

This Season

Here is a table with the exact numbers. I plotted my time in each of the training zones from October to the end of the year for 2007 and 2008. I thought the numbers were very promising. I know that my threshold has increased this offseason... and I have spent a lot more time training overall (16 hours) and have spent much more time in the areas that I wanted to... I nearly doubled my time in TE/L3, TH/L4, and VM/L5 (a little surprised at this... may be due to the change in threshold from week to week) while holding anaerobic work constant and going down on active recovery time. Surprisingly, I actually added a true recovery ride into my training this season each week instead of taking it completely off. Still, with my focus on constantly working when training, it has resulted it decreasing this number overall.

Even with my setbacks as of late, I should expect to be in better overall condition this season than last... no reason to be overly dramatic just yet... sometimes I have got to remind myself...

THE Woman! (As opposed to "The Other Woman")

So, in my last post, I detailed the demise of my Christmas Cycling Dream... huge fitness gains over the holidays is a must for a hard working, father of two... I had 5 days off in a row... big cycling holiday... big cycling disappointment. What salvaged if from complete disaster? My incredible wife....

No serious cyclist who lacks a wife and kids can ever understand the commitment that the "race team" must make to get daddy to the start line in the spring. I saw a pro quoted one time who said it is analogous to having another child for the wife of a cyclist... he (the cyclist) is constantly needing to eat and always needing to sleep... doesn't want to walk anywhere... is crabby if he gets hungry or sleepy... whines all the time... is incredibly scheduled...in general, is a complete pain in the ass.

We have been doing this for a while... my wife understands the commitment I am making and has adjusted to think it is actually normal. I had a colleague say to me the other day, "dude, are so engrossed in cycling culture that you don't realize how gay your outfit looks?" He has no idea... I actually thought he was joking... I think I am so engrossed that I think he is the fool to think I look gay... I actually think he should consider wearing Lycra to work. That is how my wife is now... she cannot conceive of anything else...

Here is the story...

I am in bed the third day... trust me, I am not feeling sorry for myself... I am hurting and she knows it- not throwing-up still, but not feeling right by a long shot... BUT... instead of bothering me with motherly BS and telling me that there is no way I need to think about riding today (she knows that I have now been off the bike for two days), she comes in and asks me what time I am riding. I loved her more in that moment then I did the day we got married. It said so much... she understands...

Then the very next day, she is sick... I mean really sick. Mine was mostly coming from the backend... she threw up all night and morning. I had been up with the kids since 5:30 AM and had been up a lot of the night listening to her retch. I was not moping around, either... I had realized that my chances of riding this day were long gone and had excepted it. I walk in the bedroom to see if I could bring her anything and she is on the phone...

She had called her mom and asked her to babysit the kids so that I could get in my ride. I am tearing up as I write this... I don't know what else to say really. She understands... and supports... and loves... and is the absolute best wife and mother I could have ever dreamed of...

BONK?????

I had planned a major cycling holiday, but the fitness gods did not cooperate with me. There is precious little that will keep me from achieving my goal rides... a tornado watch, major lightning, any natural disaster, I guess... to name the first ones that come to mind. Sickness? Usually not.

I have ridden through many a cold without so much as a thought and looking back at last winters ride notes, I only had one cold last season and I didn't miss a watt of one workout... I cannot say the same for this off season. Already I have had a horrible cold/upper respiratory thing that lasted a month. I trained through it until I had to take a break... I slept for two solid days and woke up the second day as if I had never been sick.

This time was a little different. I entered this very important week of training with a CTL of 80.3 and had planned to make a major jump this week... maybe as much as 7 points based on the way the week was working out. I went out relatively easy on Tuesday... still got over 100 TSS points since I went for almost two hours... I had rides planned for Wednesday through Sunday. Instead a got the stomach flu and only got out of bed on Wednesday to run to the toilet and felt bad all day Thursday with horrible stomach cramps. I finally crawled out of my hole on Friday and cranked out an eye-popping 60 TSS ride. This was all I could muster...

Saturday and Sunday is where it gets interesting. Leslie ends up getting the virus on Friday night... even though I am finally feeling better, I see any chance of riding go out the window... I will be babysitting. I end up working out a time slot to ride (through a miracle- see later blog)... a 3-4 hour time slot if need be. I decide to do my typical TSS fest... I try to go at 90% FTP all day long... I end up see-sawing quite a bit but can always get 70-75 TSS points per hour doing this type of workout. Leslie gets better and I get a 3-4 hour time slot on Sunday, too... here is how the rides workout...

I cramped on both rides and after throughout the night (have not done that ever)... I bonked on both rides (have not done that in 3-4 years)... I could not put out FTP wattage on either ride for more than a minute or so... I ended both rides (and Fridays for that matter) at 0.75 intensity factor which basically means that I sucked. I have been working for 4-5 hours on long rides for the past two months and have been at an average intensity factor of 0.82 without bonking or getting dehydrated at all. I brought more food and more water with me on these past two rides than I ever have on those others. Obviously, my system has taken a hit from the virus, but when will I recover? What is actually going on from a biophysical standpoint?

Guess what else? I also skipped my FTP and sprint work last week... could it get worse? Yes, because of my 158 TSS effort on Saturday and 202 TSS effort Sunday, I salvaged a CTL of 80.3... I stayed right where I was coming in... and the Build Phase of my training plan kick in this coming week...

I will push ahead and try to hit 100 CTL by the end of the build phase (5 weeks)... that will require a steady diet of 4 CTL points per week from here on. I don't think I can do it without blowing up or getting a divorce, but we will see...

Comparing the Peach Peloton...

I really have got to make the time to blog. I have a lot that I am thinking about right now from a cycling standpoint and I would like to be able to read this stuff later since it will directly effect the outcome of this coming season and how I decide to train next year.

Here are some thoughts:

• The race season for me next year sets up perfect for my general plan... 5-6 weeks of racing followed by 5-6 weeks off racing followed by 5-6 weeks of racing. This allows a two peak season with a rest and rebuild section between.


• The way the schedule breaks down is that racing will start in early March and end for the season in mid June. That is a short season compared to other years...


• The main thought going through my head... how should I be training now based on that race schedule...

Most people agree that going too hard right now will lead to burn out during next season. But most of what I read threatens that you will burn out in mid-July... if that is true, then what am I worried about? I don't need to stay sharp until August this coming season...

The main reason this question comes up right now is the Peach Peloton (PP) rides. This is an organized system of rides put on by a local 1/2 guy... the rides have been relatively low impact in the past with a few scheduled attack zones. This year, the rides seem to be a little more aggressive throughout the ride and the attack zones are very fast indeed. I was reviewing data from rides over the last two weekends... one of them was the PP and one was by myself. The terrain on both rides was similar... the main difference is that the one I did by myself was 85 miles and the PP was 75 miles...

Here is the Peach Peloton...

Here is the solo effort...

The graphs show an obvious difference in the way the "flow of the ride" turns out. What is not obvious (the type seems to small) is the numbers... below will clear that up...

The first column is AR or Active Recovery... you can pretty well call these trash miles. This zone is what you might ride if you are riding on a day you should be taking off... just moving the legs a little and this could be replaced with a walk in the park.

The next column is E or Endurance... these are good for building... you guessed it... endurance.

The next column is TE for Tempo... this is known as L3 and where I would like to spend all my time this winter when I am not doing threshold rides (FTP). This zone maximizes aerobic system building while minimizing recovery time needed for the work done.

Next column is TH for Threshold... this is the highest aerobic effort possible with crossing the line... you are close, right at, or slightly over your lactic threshold in this zone.

Last is AC for anaerobic... I also consider these trash miles for winter. The anaerobic system only takes around 3-4 weeks to build to capacity... the aerobic system takes years. The higher the aerobic system is operating, the more power can be put out in the anaerobic system. Any time spent here in the offseason compromises the additional aerobic capacity that could be built during that time and requires more recovery time which further delays additional aerobic workouts.

Unfortunately I got dropped as soon as the attack zone started on this particular Peach Peloton ride so I used the information from before I dropped. I think it is more applicable anyway... I will not take into account what is most certainly an anaerobic feast for 15 minutes... the attack zones are pretty tough...

Even with an additional 1.5 hours spent on the solo ride, I have less trash miles (AR and AC). Total wasted miles in time for PP ride was an hour and thirty-one minutes and a whopping 47 percent of the ride! Compare that with only 24% wasted on the solo effort. The time spent in my target zone... TE and TH was considerably different also. Compare PP at 27% to solo ride at 48%... that was particularly shocking to me.

With these numbers, there is no question in my mind where I will find the best winter workout... the question is whether I have the fortitude to ride alone when the PP rides are so much more fun...