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

[Alex Simmons]

I raced again yesterday. Lasted longer this time (I think the race was easier to start with) and I withdrew gracefully after half an hour or so. An NP of 207 watts, so a little better.

I have an issue with the leg liner filling with sweat and getting a bit squishy to ride on after a while. Haven't worked out best way to deal with that yet. In this instance I took a 1-lap "mechanical" to remove the leg, dry everything off and replace. I did another lap with the race but felt like that was enough for the day and pulled myself off.

During the week I did a MAP Test - 289 watts.
So I'm ~ 70% of my previous maximal aerobic power and about 20% heavier.
I'm what you class as "untrained".

The other cool thing is I was able to race on a 170mm left crank arm. Just needed to lengthen my leg a bit (which ain't hard - just loosen one allen bolt).

 

[swampy1970]

I raced again yesterday. Lasted longer this time (I think the race was easier to start with) and I withdrew gracefully after half an hour or so. An NP of 207 watts, so a little better.

I have an issue with the leg liner filling with sweat and getting a bit squishy to ride on after a while. Haven't worked out best way to deal with that yet. In this instance I took a 1-lap "mechanical" to remove the leg, dry everything off and replace. I did another lap with the race but felt like that was enough for the day and pulled myself off.

During the week I did a MAP Test - 289 watts.
So I'm ~ 70% of my previous maximal aerobic power and about 20% heavier.
I'm what you class as "untrained".

The other cool thing is I was able to race on a 170mm left crank arm. Just needed to lengthen my leg a bit (which ain't hard - just loosen one allen bolt).

Don't feel to bad about the weight - despite losing 40lbs over the past couple of years, I'm still just over 20% heavier than I was when I raced! LOL ... and I'm nowhere near holding ~340 watts for an hour either.

It's great to hear that you're back in the saddle and starting to race again!

 

[swampy1970]

I agree with better the better than nothing sentiment, but your example is one of the ways HR can be misleading, the slow reaction of HR and implicit averaging allow you to burst a bit to drive it up, float on easier sections and easily keep your HR in "zone" but a look at the matching power file shows bursts followed by rests and lack of sustained time in level. It's really easy to cheat pure HR workouts and get the numbers you want without actually holding steady efforts for the durations necessary to target aerobic adaptations.

Not really disagreeing with you Wiredued, just that I blame that sort of HR burst and float riding over the years with mediocre results. My first six months of power training while I still wore the HR strap made that pattern really clear. If I had to do it all over again without a PM, I'd focus on perceived exertion and breathing to make sure I was really staying focused instead of HR.

-Dave

Each to his own I guess. I found that my old trusty Polar Sports Tester (Vantage XL in the US) was a damned handy tool - one that helped especially in longer time trials.

 

[wiredued]

I've been thinking about this comment and at the risk of being dead wrong I would like to ad my half baked theory. Your comment describes what I experienced last year while watching power and heart rate on the KKR I could zing my heart rate up and keep it there (above 163bpm) with out much effort and yes it could give me abnormally high averages if I did it alot during a ride. But that was when I avoided VO2max as much as possible and my above threshold time was about 100 to 106% FTP for about 10 minutes per ride. Now if I hit VO2 max a few times a week ussually the 4 minutes at the end of a ride instead of the ten minutes of threshold time I used to do I notice my heart rate comes down quicker if I zing it up and I can't seem to cause a false average as easily... My conclusion is that when FTP hits the VO2max cieling it tends to make heart rate stick above threshold longer even when intensity drops below threshold.

I agree with better the better than nothing sentiment, but your example is one of the ways HR can be misleading, the slow reaction of HR and implicit averaging allow you to burst a bit to drive it up, float on easier sections and easily keep your HR in "zone" but a look at the matching power file shows bursts followed by rests and lack of sustained time in level. It's really easy to cheat pure HR workouts and get the numbers you want without actually holding steady efforts for the durations necessary to target aerobic adaptations.

Not really disagreeing with you Wiredued, just that I blame that sort of HR burst and float riding over the years with mediocre results. My first six months of power training while I still wore the HR strap made that pattern really clear. If I had to do it all over again without a PM, I'd focus on perceived exertion and breathing to make sure I was really staying focused instead of HR.

-Dave

 

[PaulMD]

I am two weeks back from vacation but still have to read all those threads and posts you all made. How should I work, train and read all the posts in a day that only contains 24hours??

OK - I raced today.

Good to hear Alex. I follow your comeback with great interest.

I posted the above on the 20th June, determined to get down to under 70kg.

This mornining weighed in at 72.8kg and falling. No donuts, cake or sweets since the 26th, except for 1 Mars Bar last Friday. And that's the plan - one Mars Bar every Friday. Still have 20 odd Mars in the fridge. They'll go bad if I just leave them.

It turns out that 2030 is in fact 2037, which will make me 95! Now that's a tall order.

Have changed my workouts a little. After an L4 workout, for no reason other than the need to get used to turning the pedals at a high wattage, I do 4x1+ @ 400watts. I figure if I can do them after a hard workout, when I come to do 400watts in my VO2Max sessions beginning the last week in August, they should be a piece of cake. Tyson

How is everybody doing? Do the 2008 goals have to adjusted upwards?

Tyson, are you close to a FTP of 330 watts? 400 watt Vo2max sessions, ouch.... That's awesome!! I hope to hear the good news in August!

Before my vacation I could do 2x20min @ 330watt and weighted 66kg. Yesterday I did 2x20min all out and only reached 325watts @ 67kg. But the good news is my 120min power has increased. Before the vacation: a hard L3 workout was 100min @ 260w. Now I can do 120min @ 272w (4.1w/kg) and I am enjoying the long rides more. Only time is a problem and I can only do such workouts in the weekends. At the end of august I hope to reach my goal of 5w/kg FTP. I have to lose one kilogram again and to ride 330w for 60minutes.

 

[Alex Simmons]

I had a ride at the track on Friday. It was really good, better than I thought it would be. I was even able to do full half lap out of saddle accelerations. That was a major confidence boost, I can tell you.

Sean Eadie (2002 World Sprint Champ) was there too so I got him to time a standing lap (250 metres) for me which I did in 24.9 secs.

This Friday, I am going to do a 500m TT as part of the Friday night racing - a special challenge, which I'll repeat on the last night of the series 6 weeks later to see how much I've improved.

Yesterday I wasn't going to ride but it was such a fantastic day I went anyway - did a bit over an hour in the Park and average was a little over 200 watts.

 

[PaulMD]

Yesterday, I did my first time trial of this year.

I had all kind of pacing strategies but when I started I just forgot it all... The first 5 minutes I did 361 watts In the middle section of the time trial I had a very slow part: 3 min 30 sec with only 297 watts. After that section I recovered a little and could ride the last 6 minutes with 335 watts. The end result was 13 km in 17 minutes 49 seconds (43.7km/hour) with an average power of 333 watts (5.05w/kg) and a second place in my category . My first medal since a long, long time.The speed was relative low because there were a lot of corners and a very strong wind (the TT was not only at sea-level it was almost in the sea...).

I learned some lessons:
1.) Go early to the event and check the course (I didn't and justed my brakes for corners that did not require any braking)
2.) START SLOW, use your powermeter for pacing in the first minutes!!
3.) Train in your time trial position (Time trial was on Friday and I did my first ride in TT position last Saturday).
4.) Buy a TT fframe, those look awesome! (I used my sisters old roadbike which I gave a TT look with a FSA basebar+clip on+wheel cover+404 front wheel).
5.) Buy a TT frame, those have short headtubes. (The frame I use has a 14cm headtube incl headset and I can't get lower on it)

But overall I am happy with my result. I have a new best average power for 17min48sec. In June I did a L4 training on my road bike with 2x20min @ 330watts. Now I come very close to that in a TT position (an untrained position). Saturday I will do my second time trial and I hope to average 340 watts, to use my brakes less and to go faster than 44.0km/hour

 

[Alex Simmons]

Yesterday, I did my first time trial of this year.

I had all kind of pacing strategies but when I started I just forgot it all... The first 5 minutes I did 361 watts In the middle section of the time trial I had a very slow part: 3 min 30 sec with only 297 watts. After that section I recovered a little and could ride the last 6 minutes with 335 watts. The end result was 13 km in 17 minutes 49 seconds (43.7km/hour) with an average power of 333 watts (5.05w/kg) and a second place in my category . My first medal since a long, long time.The speed was relative low because there were a lot of corners and a very strong wind (the TT was not only at sea-level it was almost in the sea...).

I learned some lessons:
1.) Go early to the event and check the course (I didn't and justed my brakes for corners that did not require any braking)
2.) START SLOW, use your powermeter for pacing in the first minutes!!
3.) Train in your time trial position (Time trial was on Friday and I did my first ride in TT position last Saturday).
4.) Buy a TT fframe, those look awesome! (I used my sisters old roadbike which I gave a TT look with a FSA basebar+clip on+wheel cover+404 front wheel).
5.) Buy a TT frame, those have short headtubes. (The frame I use has a 14cm headtube incl headset and I can't get lower on it)

But overall I am happy with my result. I have a new best average power for 17min48sec. In June I did a L4 training on my road bike with 2x20min @ 330watts. Now I come very close to that in a TT position (an untrained position). Saturday I will do my second time trial and I hope to average 340 watts, to use my brakes less and to go faster than 44.0km/hour

That is sensational power under the circumstances.

My three TT P's:
- Power to the cranks
- Piercing the wind
- Pacing the course

Fast times result from optimising the combination of these three Ps.


I rode a 500 metre TT at the track last night as a special event on the race program. Before that I had about an hour in total circulating and rode a paceline for about 10-min or so.

I pulled my "foot" on my first start attempt but tried again. Bit of technique to work on (for obvious reasons) not least of which I'm starting on my non-natural leg now. Starts will require some experimentation although I really just need enough out of the blocks for pursuiting and maybe even team pursuiting.

1st lap was OK but after that it was pretty ugly, I really had to fight the bike in the last half lap. Start power:
Max: 987 W (SRM, calibrated and zeroed)
5-sec: 948 W
10-sec: 910 W

So I suppose that's pretty consistent, so far I am at about 2/3rds pre-accident power levels for FTP, MAP and 5-sec MMP. I have no plans to test 1-min MMP thank you very much.

Here's the power file showing the rapid decline after 12 seconds and a blistering top speed of 47km/h ...:

 

[PaulMD]

Nice performance Alex.

Especially your 10s power. It's very close to your 5s power.

I will follow your three P's next Saturday. Saturday I have the Medical National Championships And when I perform well I will start at the Medical World Championships

Wanna laugh about my position? Check this photo:

I was not in a TT position on the 600m section with tiles. And I was suffering from the first 5 minutes

That is sensational power under the circumstances.

My three TT P's:
- Power to the cranks
- Piercing the wind
- Pacing the course

Fast times result from optimising the combination of these three Ps.


I rode a 500 metre TT at the track last night as a special event on the race program. Before that I had about an hour in total circulating and rode a paceline for about 10-min or so.

I pulled my "foot" on my first start attempt but tried again. Bit of technique to work on (for obvious reasons) not least of which I'm starting on my non-natural leg now. Starts will require some experimentation although I really just need enough out of the blocks for pursuiting and maybe even team pursuiting.

1st lap was OK but after that it was pretty ugly, I really had to fight the bike in the last half lap. Start power:
Max: 987 W (SRM, calibrated and zeroed)
5-sec: 948 W
10-sec: 910 W

So I suppose that's pretty consistent, so far I am at about 2/3rds pre-accident power levels for FTP, MAP and 5-sec MMP. I have no plans to test 1-min MMP thank you very much.

Here's the power file showing the rapid decline after 12 seconds and a blistering top speed of 47km/h ...:

 

[PaulMD]

Where's everybody?

On Holiday? I hope everything is well!!

In my spare time I am just reading all the topics at slowtwitch, the wattage list and here about aerodynamics. A lot of useful stuff is already around in the various forums. Andy Coggan, Tom A. and Alex Simmons contributed a lot of good stuff to it Also found some useful articles by C. Kyle. I want to improve my Power/CdA ratio. I already tweaked my Power/Weight ratio. Now it's time for the Power/CdA ratio because where I life we do not have any hills (sealevel, sealevel, viaduct (+6m), sealevel, sealevel...).

My girl friend took some photo's. Now I want to improve my position by look. Afterwards I want to test it on a 1.6km course with my powertap when there is almost no wind. I uploaded it to this topic. When you have feedback, please post it!!

This winter I want to tweak my CdA from poor to stealth mode Probably I am gonna post the pictures in a new topic with the title "Criticise my TT position".

NOTE: Off course I normally ride with a helmet. But we took the pictures 10m from our house...

 

[Felt_Rider]

For the past couple of years I have been trying to absorb training information on this forum and have watched this thread in particular. For almost 2 of those years I did only what I could do and that is put the HRM away and train with RPE the best that I could. While I progressed amongst my riding buddies using a spin bike during the week, I often thought that my effort using RPE was probably lower than I thought and the reason I desired to use a power meter to find the truth about my training effort.

Now the time is here and I am starting my 2nd week training with a PM. My first oberservations were what I thought they would be. It is like being hooked to a lie detector for the time of the training event. RPE has to face the truth of reality and it is much more discomforting than before. I would have jumped into using a PM earlier, but my wife balked at the idea saying that I am progressing fine under RPE because she hears from my friends all the time of how much I have progressed and training under RPE was not expensive. Last night she again witnessed another step up in effort level and now I think we are both understanding the value of the PM. While I was in the middle of an interval she said I have never seen you train with such intensity and meanwhile my legs were about to explode and I couldn't even gather the energy to respond to her comment.

My 2nd week and now that reality is setting in as opposed to RPE (perception) I know I am Tyson back on page 1 of this thread. The numbers are embarassing, but I am looking forward to this time next year and hopefully I will have progressed to page 80 of this thread.

 

[bigwillie013]

@Felt Rider:
aren't you also the one who admits that he's still having lifting being his No 1 priority? What do you think, does the PM change that?
For me it's not that I have the gym being No.1 but I still go there at least once a week to keep my upper body in good shape for 2 reasons: 1) my girl friend likes it the way it is and without the gym she'd be more protesting against the cycling and 2) I like to see the surprise in the eyes of the ones who see me first time without clothes and who alway say I'm thin - which I'm not but rather very well trained

 

[frost]

@Felt Rider:
1) my girl friend likes it the way it is and without the gym she'd be more protesting against the cycling and

Couple of years ago when I started cycling again I dropped ~15kg of weight and stopped going to gym in late spring and summer. It is not that seldom that I hear "when are you coming to the gym again?"

I very much doupt you and me are the only one here...

 

[Felt_Rider]

@Felt Rider:
aren't you also the one who admits that he's still having lifting being his No 1 priority? What do you think, does the PM change that?
For me it's not that I have the gym being No.1 but I still go there at least once a week to keep my upper body in good shape for 2 reasons: 1) my girl friend likes it the way it is and without the gym she'd be more protesting against the cycling and 2) I like to see the surprise in the eyes of the ones who see me first time without clothes and who alway say I'm thin - which I'm not but rather very well trained

I believe whole heartedly in the following article from the guys at Science of Sports about choosing your parents wisely and apply it to my individual goals. My body was more apt to compete successfully as a bodybuilder than in any other sport. I continue to put lifting as a priority for a couple of reasons. One, I am aging and now at 45 it is a battle of declining hormones, natural loss of muscle and weakness of bones that makes my desire to keep that aspect high in the order. Two, I did not pick my parents well for competitive cycling and no matter how much desire I have if I was to give up everything and train specifically for cycling I still would probably never even be a descent CAT 5. My body type (genetics) is completely wrong, but I can excel in cycling compared against myself and have done so for the past couple of years. From that point of view I see no reason to give up an activity to be so specific to an event that my genetics are not geared for high or low level competitiveness.

Because I have so many years of competitive lifting and nutrition that goes along with it my training with weights is very efficient. There is a lot less wasted time or energy and recovery time is usually as efficient. Now that I am retired from a destructive competitive activity I can lift weights with less specificity and more for maintenance. It is no longer my goal to add muscle, but try to maintain lean mass as much as possible going into the later years.

To answer your question my new schedule is a split routine with weights in the morning and cycling in the evening. The future is unknown as to the fine balance of recovery time. For the past two years I was able to juggle to two opposing styles of training and and to progress in cycling, but I know that progression is normally more high when first starting a new activity. My hope now with using a PM I can begin to gain the same efficiency in training as I have in lifting. One thing I can say about my physical build is that it holds up a little better in a crash than some of the more fragile built cyclists that I know.

So not to cause excitement amongst the competitive cyclist I am a huge believer in training specificity if one is competing or considering competing.

 

[frost]

My hope now with using a PM I can begin to gain the same efficiency in training as I have in lifting.

With a lifting background you will definately find PM a fantastic tool. You could compare training with PM to training with full equipped gym where you can dose the training and follow results in very detailed level vs. lifting stones and logs and wishing you get better.

 

[PaulMD]

Couple of years ago when I started cycling again I dropped ~15kg of weight and stopped going to gym in late spring and summer. It is not that seldom that I hear "when are you coming to the gym again?"

I very much doupt you and me are the only one here...

I also stopped weight training to increase my CTL and FTP.
I did not have the physiology of a person that does weight training but when I stopped and increased my cycling: I lost a lot of weight. With Christmas 2007 I weighted 75kg and now I weight 66kg. My FTP increased from 280 to 320 watts in only 4 months...

The last two months my weight is stable around 66kg and I am happy with it. I can keep it at 66kg with a lot of candy My FTP stayed also the same during the last 2 months: stable at 320 watts. Probably due to the vacation (decreasing CTL), post-event-of-the-year-syndrome (decreasing CTL), adapting to TT bike (decreasing FTP) and some stupid trainings (doing intervals to hard).

Now I just want to do some time trials. My focus is on adapting to TT position and decreasing my CdA. This winter the focus will be increasing FTP and decreasing CdA.

 

[Felt_Rider]

With a lifting background you will definately find PM a fantastic tool. You could compare training with PM to training with full equipped gym where you can dose the training and follow results in very detailed level vs. lifting stones and logs and wishing you get better.

You are right!!

I don't quite know what the data means at this point, but I like looking at it

Goofing around on Sunday

 

[bigwillie013]

I also stopped weight training to increase my CTL and FTP.
I did not have the physiology of a person that does weight training but when I stopped and increased my cycling: I lost a lot of weight. With Christmas 2007 I weighted 75kg and now I weight 66kg. My FTP increased from 280 to 320 watts in only 4 months....

I came down from 82kg lean muscle with 1,82m and body fat of 8% in Feb 2006 to 70kg now, body fat at 6-7% (loads of lost muscles )
In the same time my FTP came up from 200W (Feb 2006) to 300W (now). It was due to a change in priority and hopefully the FTP will increase further but my weight will be stable or increase 1-2kg (looks better ). Over winter or better "off season" I plan to do more gyming and put on some of the lost muscles again. What a waste of energy!

 

[PaulMD]

You are right!!

I don't quite know what the data means at this point, but I like looking at it

Goofing around on Sunday

Try to do an all out 60min timetrial on a course without intersections and too much corners

Your FTP is probably higher than 190 watts. An 2 hour ride with an IF of 0.882 is not "goofing" around

 

[daveryanwyoming]

...This winter I want to tweak my CdA from poor to stealth mode Probably I am gonna post the pictures in a new topic with the title "Criticise my TT position"...

At first glance your TT position looks pretty good. Have you read Andy's neanderthal positioning post on the Google lists? That's a really good starting point. But from your pix it looks like you're close, are you reasonably comfortable and can you sustain your typical long interval power in that position? You might be a tad stretched in terms of the fore/aft positioning of your elbow pads, sorta looks like your upper arms are reaching a bit forward instead of resting nearly vertically on the elbow pads. How does your leg extension compare to your road bike position?

I've been working on my TT position this season and I'm getting lower and faster with small changes over time but also trying to find a low CdA position that doesn't sap my sustainable power. Tough challenge. FWIW I rode my first TT of the season with 10cm of seat to pad drop, held roughly 300 watts for the duration but didn't go nearly as fast as I'd like. My seat to pad drop is now ~16cm, my sustainable power has dropped nearly 10% but my times are much faster. The current position has become really comfortable (even the 10cm drop felt really extreme back in April but seems ridiculously upright now) and I'm due for ratcheting down another notch in the adjustable stem but definitely don't want to lose any more power so I'm also doing comparisons to my normal road position to try to find a balance. Anyway it's an ongoing process.

Have you tried the Chung method for comparing position changes? I've been doing at least one day a week on the TT bike where I go around a 20 mile loop that fortunately has no forced stops or overly sharp turns. I try to ride it in the morning with very light stable winds and I've been using that to estimate CdA. I've also done more conventional regression testing to baseline CdA and Crr, but the Chung method is great since you can just go out and train as long as you maintain a constant position and get data as a side benefit. I've seen my CdA drop from ~.28 to ~.24 based on these tests and incrementally lowering my aero bars. I'm hoping to drop another couple of cm over time but I'll definitely stop when lower positions fail to lower my CdA, especially if they cost me even more power.

Good luck and keep us posted on your watts/CdA progress....

-Dave