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...

September Summary...

I finally got my new computer up and transferred all my .wko files and looked over what I have been doing the last month.

Pretty disappointing really. 4.5 hours of riding for 3 weeks straight (at least riding with the powertap) until this week (probably around 8 hours this week). That is really weak. My legs have been horrible until today. I felt my old power creep back on today's ride and put down the first solid L3 effort without major discomfort for the last 3 weeks. Looks like my legs will come around after all... I was beginning to wonder.