It's killing me but..........



Originally Posted by Felt_Rider
Well I am not sure how long he will let is stand, but I bumped my former boss out of his spot on the 31 mile course today. I went up into 5th spot out of 60 guys for a solo effort in my age group and he went down to the 8th spot. :)

I never really had fun with the competitive side of Strava until I saw his name on the list last weekend. :) Now to move on to my focus of the long course.

The short intense work inside sure helped hammer through the rolling hills and there were a lot of burned matches today, but my focus on the 100 mile time goal is my priority.
Just work on doing two laps of that course back to back at a speed that's faster than his then when you see him next ask him if his brakes were rubbing...
 
big-smile.png
It would probably be the other way around if he finds out that I set that time yesterday.

He is built for endurance sports and has a long history of it. Because he doesn't train with a power meter I cannot tell how hard he was pushing. For me it was 87% of FTP as a ride total so there is not a whole lot more that I can do for now. I probably could have done a little better and the 70 mile ride on Saturday did play a role in not finishing a little faster.

Talking about the feeling of brakes rubbing. As I was watching the timer on the Garmin 800 and I was starting to lose time toward the end I was thinking of my favorite section of road coming up in the last 4 miles where I usually do really well. It is sort of flat with a slight tilt upward, but it favors my TT type pacing. I thought it was going to be a section where I could make up a little lost time, but as soon as I turned on that road I was hit in the chest with a wall of wind and it felt like it was going to bring me to a stand still. I pushed harder and was at 100% of my FTP with my legs absolutely screaming in discomfort and barely getting to 20 mph. I really thought that I was going to do bad, but ended up 4 minutes better than my effort last Sunday.

I am pretty happy about it. Not from a Strava point of view, but I tend to do better on long TT type pacing and I have never done well with short course rolling hills. Plus it has not been my focus for the past couple of years where I have intentionally worked on the 100 mile time goal.
 
As for my real goal that part is not doing well at the moment. I have focused in on shorter more intense efforts for indoor training the past few weeks. Mainly 4x10's near the top of my L4. It seems to be playing a role in that ability to hammer those hills more aggressively on a short course, but my endurance in the long course is not doing that great and is behind schedule.

Two weekends ago I struggled badly to do 65 miles in 4 hours and this past Saturday it was 70 miles in 4 hours. It is getting a little better each weekend, but I feel as if I should be at 80 miles in 4 hours without really pushing hard on this particular route. Following both rides it physically felt like I had done an intense 100 miles. Saturday when I got home I crashed hard after eating a meal. I fell asleep for several hours and struggled to wake up. My legs felt like toast and I was hurting all over. That is not typical for me. I really got to get back to where the 80 mile route feels like just a casual day out for a cruise. I'm just not coping well with the distance and long sustained power output at the moment.
 
Felt, sometimes it requires flexibility and creativity, like yesterday. Instead of posting all off my training/racing recaps on Facebook, here, and other various places I decided to start a blog. So, if anyone cares to read about my adventures you can check it out and/or follow it at brentgoetz.wordpress.com hopefully this will be a bit easier and provide some motivation to do cool ****! Js- good so see with a bit of time off you turned back to the bike, maybe that was what you needed. Dan-sorry to here about your setback, but I wouldn't stress it too much, sounds like it could have been worse. No great result ever comes without a few minor setbacks and I am sure you will be ready to roll at Battenkill!
 
bg, Thanks for sharing the blog link. It is interesting and motivating to hear each of your epic adventures. And your training approach to the upcoming season.
 
Well hopefully it works out! I am feeling pretty good about where I am at right now.
 
I'm glad someone is BG ;)

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) I rediscovered my love of good beer - Tank 7 was found to be the liquid equivalent to crack cocaine. 750ml of golden goodness... 8% that tasted like a nice summery 5% and probably 800+Kcal per bottle... and there were lots and lots and lots of bottles...

... but after looking at the simple, stark math of what I weigh now and what I need to weigh at the end of June in order to even contemplate finishing the Alta Alpina Challenge it's 2lb's a week or be prepared to sit on the ground somewhere f**ked out of my skull 8,000ft up a mountain after 100+miles.

On the upside, the ISM Attack saddle - effing awesome piece of kit. It's taken a fair few rides to start even figuring it out but after smashing my brains out on a all-or-nothing 20minute test it all 'clicked'. Basically you hook your sitbones somewhere close to the nose, pedal and trust you aint gonna fall off. This is a good thing since I have to meander through the lanes for 130 miles in a couple of weeks and 190 miles a couple of weeks after that including a nice 3,000ft climb with a few miles of 11% half way though. Where is that 32 sprocket!

That 20 minute test was fun. Hadn't really done one in the last few years. It was grim but not as grim as I thought and could have gone a bit harder, maybe. It definitely left the legs feeling empty but not sore but to be expected with nothing in the way of really hard efforts in a long time and not a massive amount of training in the past few months, apart from stuffing in 500km between Christmas and New Years.
 
felt - What did the video say? If not on Strava it does not count. I guess none of my rides count but good job and love the post about the boss. Unfortunately here I have no one else in this place to compare to.

swampy - your posts are always a fun read, very colorful stuff. 2 lbs a week, you can not be that big are you plan on being see through by the time of the ride.

bg as usual is livin the dream.

For myself I have kept good with the better choices and seeing the energy level return. I am now getting back up at 4 or so and not feeling like death. I have not cut down calories but just with cutting out the junk it kind of drops on its own anyway. The trainer is doing well and today was fun as back from a day off and I did a 260 10 minute and 240 30 minute so I was pretty happy. Given the nature of the trainer I could only do 90 minute ride cause switching gears really does not work that well for doing intervals and than when I try to tuck into a TT position the resistance knob must move a little and it jacks it up by a slight bit and that can easily add 10-15 more watts to the effort. So good hard, short effort today and hoping to get that CTL to 90 soon.

-john
 
js, supposedly 38F on Friday, maybe you can arrange a long lunch <wink, wink>.

bg, thanks for the encouragement. The short stint in the hospital came at what would have been the last big push in my first build cycle, so basically just re-jiggered the plan to accommodate a shift in easy weeks (made last week my rest instead of this week).

On the upside, and still taking it somewhat easy (so 2x18's instead of 2x20's), managed today at what felt like an easier intensity than the last pair of pre-hospital SST intervals, and finished them strong. I was only doing a modest 220W before the hospital (and probably could have a gone a wee bit harder as I never feel as though I can't pull off the 2nd set, and always like to finish strong), but today found myself drifting up to 235 and had to reign it in. Corresponding HR was also down a bit:

Pre-hospital (2 weeks ago)
1st int @ ~220W = ending HR of 159 (85% maxHR)
2nd int @ ~225W = ending HR of 159

Today
1st int @ ~225W = ending HR of 149 (80% maxHR)
2nd int @ ~235W = ending HR of 153

After steadily loosing weight over the last months am now 150lbs on the button which if I'm just guessing puts me at around 3.4W/kg. Nothing to write home about, but right in the meaty part of Coggan's bell curve for Cat4, and I still have 4 big weeks of build before the final rest and taper so feeling pretty good all things considered.

Which begs the question:
I know FTP can be extrapolated from a 20 minute effort, but I'm sure a more accurate SWAG could be made off two 20 minute SST intervals (with about 6-7minutes of easier pedaling between). I seem to remember RapDaddyo posting something to this effect (my next true FTP effort isn't scheduled in my plan for another few weeks so more curious than anything else), and wondering if anyone is privvy?


Edit: Another point that has me feeling good is the above #'s come from Conti 4-seasons on the rollers. If the data Dave Ryan posted sometime back is correct and if one is to believe the figures from the German magazine Tour, which tested a number of tires a few years ago, I could add 15-20W for the same effort just by swapping out to a set of GP4000's and regardless of how we feel about Tour magazine, or their testing criteria, the measured Crr of the two tires was relatively apples to apples, reads both German ;)
 
I've put the results of my recent fitness test (and final training goal) into a small spreadsheet layout... keeping my Excel skills sharp for the job hunt :)

There's a bunch of SWAG in there as I'm not using a bona fide PM, but I figure the progress will be relative to itself, and thus measurable on it's own terms:




PS. this development is from Hunter Allen's 4-month training plan specific to Battenkill.
 
Ok, last post for awhile, I feel like I'm hogging the thread. In my defense I know everyone loves pretty pictures.

Felt, this ones for you hoss. Hit 40.7mph @ 123rpm opening up the pipes for VO2 work in the 50x12 today. I'd love to know what kind of wattage this effort produces if anyone with Emotions would care to replicate on resistance setting=1 ;P

Encouragingly my cadence, not the gearing, was the limiter... the bike was getting a little wobbly on the rollers. Note to self: next time stay on the hoods!



Btw this was more of a comical retort to "if it didn't happen on Strava..." ;)
 
Originally Posted by danfoz
but right in the meaty part of Coggan's bell curve for Cat4,
You might speak to Andy Coggan about that table. The labels have nothing to do with catagories. But there is a claim that the relationship of your 5, 20, and 60 minute power outputs contain information about what type of racer you are.

But you are improving. And that is always good.
 
Originally Posted by danfoz
Ok, last post for awhile, I feel like I'm hogging the thread. In my defense I know everyone loves pretty pictures.

Felt, this ones for you hoss. Hit 40.7mph @ 123rpm opening up the pipes for VO2 work in the 50x12 today. I'd love to know what kind of wattage this effort produces if anyone with Emotions would care to replicate on resistance setting=1 ;P

Encouragingly my cadence, not the gearing, was the limiter... the bike was getting a little wobbly on the rollers. Note to self: next time stay on the hoods!


Btw this was more of a comical retort to "if it didn't happen on Strava..." ;)
Dan, nice work getting back into the groove post hospital visit.

Well I tried but I couldn't muster it up tonight following a few intervals. I can provide the following.

This is from this evening on Emotion rollers setting 1 with 50x12 recorded with a PowerTap G3 that was zeroed before training. Tires Conti 4000s @ 95 psi

clipped from WKO+

~Peak 5s (567 watts):
Duration: 0:05
Min Max Avg
Power: 557 588 567 watts
Cadence: 106 119 113 rpm
Speed: 35.5 38.7 37.1 mph
Pace 1:33 1:41 1:37 min/mi
Crank Torque: 403 468 426 lb-in
Temperature: 64.4 64.4 64.4 Fahrenheit

 
jsirabella said:
swampy - your posts are always a fun read, very colorful stuff. 2 lbs a week, you can not be that big are you plan on being see through by the time of the ride.

I'd need massive motivation to get down the the weight that I once was. It may happen if I get through the summer and get my head in a happy place with regards to training as hard as I think I need to in order to do make it all worth while. But I'm a lard-**** right now and in order to get down to something slightly reasonable I do need to lose 2lb a week. Even after that I could do with keeping that going for a couple of months and then I'd been cooking on gas... Many many weeks of good beer will get you up to 210lb in short order, especially combined with very little sleep.

2011 I was 156lb in the summer and riding well. Didn't do a full 1 hour FTP ride but from very spirited 35 to 45 minute efforts I was around 310 watts and a 5 minute just shy of 380 - without any VO2 Max training at all apart from a few good digs up a fun short local hill. Those were full on "breakfast part deux" efforts.The training notes from 2011 are what I'll be basing this year on.

2012 I was a little silly in making a few changes to the bars before a brevet series and ended up hurting my wrist. Doing the 600km with a sore wrist wasn't bad enough, so I did 200 miles in the high Sierra with 21,000ft of climbing killed it and like a complete and utter f##king dolt I topped that off by doing the Death Ride a few weeks later finished off the riding pretty much for the year. That killed the guitar playing too and I wasn't a happy camper at all.

2013 I did a few longish rides, the Davis Double and failed miserably in the Alta Alpina Challenge. I do recall feeling good before lunch and then after it wondering why I was sat on a mountain road in the hot sun watching ants. Took many months off the bike and drank lots after work. Did I mention how really good Tank 7 beer is? :p

Looking back at the graph from the 20 minute effort it was funny recalling now not being able to 'make it really hurt' partly through having the saddle a bit high (it was the first big effort on the ISM and it felt OK going fairly hard) and having no fitness. On the weekend I think I'll have another good 20 minute dig except starting about 20 watts higher. I expected the last one to be a 260 to 270 watt death on wheels but was surprised it wasn't and ended up hoiking it up 20 watts mid way through before ramping it up again slightly in the last 5 minutes. I guess really I should be a little more concerned about the 200km ride in a couple of weeks. Ah feck it... I'll finish it somehow and stomping on some gears seems a bit more fun right now :)

Apparently some time in March/April, the new Furnace Creek 508 replacement route will be announced. Hints on the website suggest it'll be a beast and anyone that finishes this year will gain entry the following year automatically should they want to ride. Based on that, I may revise my plans to aim for the year after as I think the hints given suggest a course that takes in the really big climbs around Bishop, CA where the Everest Challenge is held. If that's the case there'd be no room for slacking in the prep and even 145lb would be a bit on the heavy side. Maybe my old massage therapist was right (ex-Olympic swimmer) when she reckoned that mid 130's would be possible.
 
Originally Posted by danfoz
I've put the results of my recent fitness test (and final training goal) into a small spreadsheet layout... keeping my Excel skills sharp for the job hunt :)

There's a bunch of SWAG in there as I'm not using a bona fide PM, but I figure the progress will be relative to itself, and thus measurable on it's own terms:




PS. this development is from Hunter Allen's 4-month training plan specific to Battenkill.
It's always good to have something to measure improvement against but just a few cliff note points.

Even if you did have a PM, I wouldn't base assumptions on single best effort totals. If you ride at the bottom end of threshold pace for 30 minutes and do a few 5 on, 5 off with some L3 in between, what do you get for your last 5 minute effort? What level can you sustain evenly for those? It's a good chart to measure progress against and if you use power taken from the latter part of races then you'll get a better idea of where you stand rather than taking a 'fresh and just warmed up' best effort total. Heck, last Cat 5 road race I did on a evil lumpy course with very short steep hills that were dotted all over the place, I had a best 5 minute of 5w/kg and ended up looking for wheels after the first 15 miles and ended up with a bit of a small chase to get back on during the last descent before a flat part. Thankfully most Cat 5's descend like the have square wheels on their bikes.

You can't really base you result on what it says on the far left of that. I think I recall Andy saying once that he regretted ever putting (eg Cat ...) on that chart. Only base your possible results in a race on actual experiences in recent races. I don't see a (eg Sandbagger) category on Andy's chart either...
 
Originally Posted by swampy1970

You can't really base you result on what it says on the far left of that. I think I recall Andy saying once that he regretted ever putting (eg Cat ...) on that chart. Only base your possible results in a race on actual experiences in recent races. I don't see a (eg Sandbagger) category on Andy's chart either...
I'm only using the chart as a general ballpark. It's something I've never done before. In the past training has consisted of riding a bunch of miles, then riding a little harder for short spurts with some rest in between for a few weeks, resting some, and then racing. A race is definitely a truer indication of best performance effort, there's a huge psychological thing going on including a huge dump of hormones and adrenaline. But if one can run 270W warmed up in a controlled environment, and 2 months later run the same 5 minute efforts at 290-300W chances are the plan is working. That same rider might be able to summon their inner Philippe Gilbert and pull 320W out of the hat after pulling away in the final few K trying to stay away from the wolves, or on the flipside they might get dropped at the bottom of the hill they had planned to use that hard earned power because they had burned all their matches getting to the hill.

Those efforts I have up there are not one time best efforts, they are more like repeatable training efforts. For 5 mins, that's a little harder than what I'm running my VO2 intervals at for multiple efforts (the actual number I have up there is from a failed set I went out too hard to start and could only manage 2 efforts at that power - I usually do 3x or 4x 5min VO2 efforts in a set). They are VERY conservative numbers. I imagine if I truly went balls out after a good night sleep with some Ozzy cranked to 11 in the background for a one time effort I could do a bit better. Since all I have to measure progress are those numbers, that's what I'm going on for now. Once the weather improves to the point I can actually circumnavigate my local 3.5mi park in something other than snowshoes I'll be using that in addition to measure progress using a combination of time/HR/RPE (my lawyer said it's ok not to include all the caveats for potential retort on this particular issue for brevity sake as hopefully the lads will gather I have some idea of what those are and give me the benefit of the doubt - I've done approximately 12,000-15,000 laps on Brooklyn's Prospect Park 3.5 mile loop since 1993 and familiar with many of the variables and how they'll affect my performance measures). Imperfect yes, but since I'm not publishing anything based on the findings am not too worried about it ;)

Another interesting point is that there seems to be some contention over FTP measuring protocols, apparently some think it's a best effort after plenty of rest under ideal circumstances, and others think one should be able to pop off that number any given day of the week. The arguments I witnessed over at Weight Weenies during a brief visit on this very topic provided some entertaining reading.

But after having raced several seasons over the years under the USCF/USAC umbrellas am well aware of the limitations of these sorts of metrics. I could only imagine some coconut going to the marshal after the race wondering why he was dropped saying "But Andy's charts sez...". I'd put the Sandbagger Cat somewhere between the 3's and 4's, with a sprinkling of subCat3, aka the real arseholes. As far as ass/u/m/ptions, Benny Hill taught me many years ago what that actually implies in one of his skits ;P

Btw, all this talk of beer is KILLING ME! After Battenkill I'm going for a swim in a lake of Asahi!
 
Originally Posted by Felt_Rider

~Peak 5s (567 watts): Duration: 0:05
Min Max Avg
Power: 557 588 567 watts
Cadence: 106 119 113 rpm
Speed: 35.5 38.7 37.1 mph
Pace 1:33 1:41 1:37 min/mi
Crank Torque: 403 468 426 lb-in
Temperature: 64.4 64.4 64.4 Fahrenheit
Thanks Felt!

Looking at the temperature you may need to see a physician ;)

J/K, that's pretty warm for an indoor workout, do you have fans cranking?
 
Danfoz, 320 watts won't channel the inner Gilbert - it'll give most folks a good tow unless you get a nice gap first or kill everyone with lots of attacks such that everyone is tired or they no longer care. Cat 4 doesn't have the mammoth amount of sandbaggers that Cat 5 does out here and those races are less intense but if you're a lone guy you'll have your work cut out to break the will of those with strong legs by yourself. Homework helps - course notes, looking at the field to see which guys/team and consequently which colored shirts are the ones to watch. Let them jump and follow. It's all a game of poker, right.
 
Good advice Swampy, my example may have been taken too literally as while typing I was thinking about the effort after the last last tough hill, Stage Coach. Breaking free will require more of an anaerobic effort (say 150% of FTP on the 2 minute climb) to potentially drop any in the remaining group (and get that gap of which you speak), and once free the run in to the finish is several minutes... 310W for the Cat 4's may or may not do it. I may of course only have enough gas to hold the wheels of the other blokes attacking and if they don't break the elastic, then try and suck wheels on the run in to try for a sprint finish (it's one of the things I'm better at). I was thinking Gilbert at the Worlds... drops them on the hill with a strong anaerobic effort of about 90 secs, then holds them off for a couple more minutes once he's crested as they are look around all befuddled as to who's going to do the chase down. His effort after the initial attack was still probably highly anaerobic and of course his AWC is off the charts, but it's still pure fantasy at this point. Once I've ridden the course in a couple weeks I'll have a more solid idea of how things may unfold.

One thing I have done is looked at some of the other registrants in my category. I don't know half these guys from Adam but I do see there is a team with several guys, and I have tracked down some of their results via some web stalking. One or two are podium guys, the others show no placing, or finish in the middle of the pack. Their strategy, if they are racing as a team, may be to get their podium guys to the finish somewhat fresh. Those are the fellas I will probably have an eye on, but to be honest will race my own race on whatever strengths I'm bringing to the table that day. And in my favor, and based on my Cat4 experience so far, being on the same team often just means they are wearing the same color jersey and it's still pretty much a free for all.

Everyone's got a plan till they get punched in the jaw - Mike Tyson.
 
Originally Posted by danfoz

Thanks Felt!

Looking at the temperature you may need to see a physician ;)

J/K, that's pretty warm for an indoor workout, do you have fans cranking?
:) Let me introduce you to another power acronym, FWF.

FWF is something that is hard to control and yet can play a major role with indoor training in all seasons.

FWF (Frosty Wife Factor) has the house temperature up in the winter and up in the summer.

Kidding aside, I use two fans and in the summer I add a dehumidifier.