Vic Sutton RR ~ An Achilles Heel Of Descent

Paul Stubbs had the excellent idea of meeting early and going for a ride around the course which was new for this event. It was good to meet up again and provided a very pleasant hour. The East Yorkshire hills were stunning in the morning sunshine. From the top of the Wolds Way the views south over the flat lands of the Humber were framed with enormous fluffy white clouds and provided quite a panorama.

Today's race course provided 8 miles of steady ascent followed by a very fast descent. The sting in the circuit being that half way down the descent there was an acute angled left hand turn, followed immediately by another significant downhill section with double bends and poor road surface on the racing line. This is what I dislike most about bike riding and I determined that my best chances were to go for an early break so that I could descend within my own comfort zones.

At the 2 mile mark I had escaped the bunch and settled into a steady pace. Knowing that there was a long way to go I kept my power at threshold and pushed into level 5 on the hills. I also raised the effort more over the summit in an attempt to gain a few more seconds over the bunch. On the first lap they were hovering at around 20 seconds, but on the second I seemed to have pulled out a bit more time. However, on the exit from the descent I'd lost a lot of what I'd gained, was once more in clear sight and was finally caught just after the halfway point. I had another couple of attempts to escape but was now being heavily marked. Making the third descent with the bunch totally unnerved me, I felt quite unsafe and a liability for the safety of the other riders as they passed me at speed on both sides. It didn't take more than a few seconds for me to decide to call it a day.

They say that you should always try to find some good in your performances whatever the final outcome and today's power file provided me with no shortage of just that. After a week of wilting in the heat, I'd managed to ride for an hour with normalised power at 101% of FTP. My 40 minute normalised power was only 2 watts lower than this season's best, and when I attacked 2 minute power was a second best too. These numbers have now given me a lot of confidence to stick to my plan of working on FTP for a couple of weeks, in the knowledge that on another course and another day they are good enough to put me in the frame ~ I just need to stay away from races that require technical bike handling skills.

Threshold Session On TT BIke

I finally got round to the 40 minute threshold session on my TT bike which was supposed to have taken place last Tuesday. Shirley wanted to go out on her bike too, so we drove across to the Bitteswell circuit. We were just about to set off when Phil thundered past with a whir of gears and a "morning", a couple of minutes later he was pedalling back after have just completed a 40 minute session himself ~ talk about coincidences and chance timing! He and Linda had cycled out to do some training around our mid-week threshold circuit.

My target today was to complete 40 minutes on my TT bike, not to be concerned about power except to maintain threshold zone and to aim for 100rpm cadence. I had also raised my aero bars a couple of centimeters to where they were at the beginning of last season as they had felt rather uncomfortable on the level 2 rides I've done over the last couple of weeks. After a 10 minute warm up I set off at a conservative pace of around 95% of FTP and managed to maintain (though not comfortably) this for the full interval along with my target cadence.

Towards the end of the interval my thighs were aching in different places to when I'm on my road bike and it was a timely reminder that I need to practice these efforts again, not only on my TT bike, but in general training too. What with the weather and a couple of other issues I have been remiss in this area. This happened last year but the power came back after a couple of weeks of practicing. Today's power trace showed a lack of steady effort and poor concentration on form.

Despite this I'm pleased that I've finally done this workout and at the moment am not too concerned with the outcome. Thursday's ride had been 190tss leaving me tired yesterday, TSB has been negative for over three weeks now, we still have hot and humid weather and experience tells me that I'm just out of practice.

A Bug In The Computer

Cavendish’s ’numbers’ – wattage output mainly – rarely add up to the world class performer that he is and irritate those who like to reduce sport to a science.

“I was like a bug in Sebastien’s computer which ruined all his sums. I’ve got two things he can’t plot on a graph, passion and an ability to suffer. To me there is no limit. To me there is no universal rule of cycling except that the bloke who rides fastest wins the race.”

From today's Daily Telegraph

Hot Conditions And Training

Since last Saturday we have been subjected to a bit of a heatwave. Later on after Sunday's race I realised that I was somewhat dehydrated and since then have made a big effort to drink plenty of fluids. I managed a level 2 ride on Monday with some sprints, but Tuesday was a different kettle of fish. The evening temperature was 30 degrees C with high humidity and thousands of thunder flies were in the air. I started of with good intentions of a 40 minute threshold workout, but after 10 minutes I gave in and just rode home as it was just too hot. Last night was even hotter at 32 degrees C but it wasn't quite so humid. I rode out to Billesdon and circumnavigated the north side of Leicester at sweetspot pace for 90 minutes and it was enough.

I accept that hot conditions like this will disrupt my training plans and they already have. Heat creates additional stress so that it FEELS and IS harder to train. It slows us down and reduces the amount of work that we can do in training. We have to accept that in adverse conditions overall form will suffer and that workouts need to be shorter and/or of a reduced intensity.

When the air temperature is around 32 degrees C and humidity is also high, the body will struggle to maintain an even and safe temperature. Normally the body looses heat through perspiration, but when humidity and air temperature are high then sweat cannot evaporate and sits on the skin. Inevitably, body temperature will rise as a result.

I'll be drinking plenty, taking more out than is normal with me on my rides and knocking off the intensity it I feel dizzy, faint or nauseous. Even if I can't manage the intensity in training whilst these conditions last, I can still maintain and even build some training load. Just like the snow we had in the winter, this weather won't be for ever and then I can get back on track.

Sports Drinks And Gear Cables

After having been drawn into the marketing hype surrounding sports drinks, then asking more "what do I need" questions last season, then reducing my consumption of these products even further it's good to know that an expert expresses similar views to my own, only this expert's view is based on a lot more science than my anecdotally formed opinion is. I eat plenty of fresh produce, fruit, seeds and such like, consequently don't worry about mineral intake and don't see any need to have additional chemicals added to my "on the bike" drinks. For my training runs which rarely last longer than 150 minutes I eat something digestible a couple of hours before and now don't even bother with energy drinks. I don't feel like my training is suffering as a result and I'm simultaneously helping my difficult to control waistline by doing so. I DO like a scoop of carbs in my bottles when racing but I think that is more to do with feeling like "I'm all prepared and ready to go" rather than actual need. As I've said before, there are too many strong arguments that say that our mineral concentrations actually increase as we get dehydrated. The only supplement I continue to take is magnesium phosphate which I believe helps reduce spasms and cramps especially in my feet post exercise. When I get phases of suffering from these I take a supplement for a few days and it seems to work. See Joe Friel's latest views here.

Changing the subject, I got a good deal on STAINLESS gear cables. Prices for these can vary in the local bike shops from between £3 and £5 each. I got 10 from EBAY with end crimps and free postage for a total of £9.98. It only took me 5 minutes (as opposed to a couple of hours trip out) to make the purchase and I didn't get drawn into buying stuff I don't need as I probably would have done in a shop! I always like to keep a spare cable in my workshop and now I won't be buying any more for a long time.

British Cycling Four Year Plan

From Bike Radar:

British Cycling is aiming to meet the following objectives:

• Inspire Britain through success and establish the country as the leading cycling nation in the world. Focus will be on the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and Team Sky's participation in the Tour de France. Aim is to produce a British winner of the Tour in the next five years.
• Get more people on bikes through a series of mass participation cycling events with British Sky Broadcasting. Aim is to get one million more people cycling once a month by 2013 through the new Skyride initiative. There will also be a comprehensive programme of led rides and sportives.
• Boost cycling as a sport by investing more and better resources in growing competitive cycling at a grassroots level for all ages and abilities. Aim is to increase number of quality cycling clubs, link schools to clubs and increase number and quality of events, and also improve coaching.
• Improve 'playing environment' for competitive cycling by creating a network of nationwide traffic-free facilities. British Cycling will also continue its efforts to improve access to the public highway for events and competitions.
• Exercise Britain’s international influence by staging major events in the UK. British Cycling is implementing a comprehensive bidding programme for major international competitions, with recent successes including the right to host the UCI BMX World Championships in 2012 in Birmingham and the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in 2010 in Dalby Forest, Yorkshire.
• Position British Cycling as an essential resource for all cycling enthusiasts by embracing all disciplines, needs and interests. Aim is to grow membership from 27,000 to 100,000 by 2013.

There can be no doubt about the success story surrounding British Cycling and the organisation must be the envy of the cycling world. However, whilst watching our athletes come home with the bacon brings tears to my eyes, after having had a British Cycling racing licence for the first of year of my return to competitive cycling I haven't bought another one. The simple reason being that I just didn't think that the organisation could offer me anything that I wanted. Whether right or wrong, I have formulated the distinct view that British Cycling's view of masters racing was that it is a "dead end" and not an area of the sport where there should be any focus of attention. The prestige "Peter Fryer "masters racing series has (I believe) died and a search on the British Cycling website for it produces zero results. In later years, races that were held under the Pete Fryer banner were nothing more than a nod to the events that used to take place. Searches for "veterans" and "masters" yield nothing except for a rather buried listing for the 2009 Masters Championship RR on the 19th July. In this event last year I was led to understand that there were no start sheets mailed out (email or web only) and the prize money was a poor reflection of the expensive entry fee. As a master cyclist, a £68 a year licence plus expensive race entry fees is a lot of dosh for what is on offer.

It will be interesting to see whether British Cycling really do support their new objectives in an aim to promote cycling for cycling's sake. I suspect though that these objectives are tactics that will be used to support an overall strategy of funding and finding the best potential competitive cyclists in Britain. That being the case, there would seem little need to support masters racing despite some of the objective details.

It's a bit of a shame for the more competitive and aspiring masters riders than myself, but I accept the way things are and am thankful that there is a League of Veteran Cyclists. I think that British Cycling is absolutely right in having a crystal clear focus on what the goal is, and in order to achieve that they have to concentrate on the areas that will be most fruitful. Masters racing just (probably) isn't one of them, "c'est la vie".

Protest Reactions

Not doing as well in a bike race as I would have liked to have done is difficult to accept and so it was with yesterday's result. I entered both yesterday's and next weekend's races because I knew that they would be tough and challenging. Originally, my intention in choosing them was not to win, but to get exposed to a couple of hard events, get racing back into my legs, exposure myself to level 5 and 6 efforts and allow me to concentrate on rebuilding my threshold power during mid week training. The simple fact is that I've now only raced twice during the last seven weeks, and on one of those occasions it wasn't really a race, rather a solo sub-threshold session. Realistically, I should expect to suffer when I'm required to make efforts that I haven't prepared for and just accept it when it happens as being a necessary part of a longer plan.

It's important to reflect on the bits that went well in a race. Yesterday I was able to ride at the front of the bunch during the first half of the race, I also pedalled as strongly as anyone else up the major climb never once feeling under undue pressure. I was able to ride at high threshold and didn't need to ride in level 5 as I was doing in hill repeat training just over a week ago. That knowledge tells me that my training has been good and that I ought now to be concentrating on improving other aspects of my ability. I should also be circumspect about about my condition on the day. I have been ramping up my training load again and am not as fresh as I was in late April and early May and this will continue for a few weeks yet.

Where I didn't do so well was in my head. I allowed any focus on doing as well as I could to be distracted by my long term emotional fears about being a poor climber and descender. I even told other riders before the start that I disliked technical descents and instead of trying to calm myself and think more rationally about the bike handling, I allowed my fears to control my performance. I should have turned the problem on it's head, put ultimate success out of my mind and used the occasion as an opportunity to improve and so had an emotionally positive event. Instead I tensed up and throttled my performance both mentally and then physically through needing to compensate. The power spikes that my SRM data shows on the exit from each descent must have been so much greater than for either of the two riders who were in front of me. The experience made me into a racing cyclist with a negative approach.

Protest reactions occur when we tell ourselves that we can "win" and another voice in our minds tells us that might not happen because of something else occurring. Physiologists tell us not to think in terms of winning, but rather in terms of doing our best. We can be in control of the latter, but too many things outside our control can stop us winning including protest reactions. If we loose when we expected to win then it's all too easy to believe that we are useless and inadequate thus affecting our longer term view of ourselves. It could also influence the way we train. For example I could take yesterday's performance and decide to concentrate on improving my anaerobic work capacity. That, however, would not be sensible within the longer term picture for the rest of this season. It's difficult to recognise the thoughts that we may have that will produce protest reactions and is something I have to be more alert towards. Last week Bike Radar posted a very good interview with Emma Pooley where it was reported that 'Pooley says she tried to avoid thinking about a specific result going to the Olympics last summer. Her reasoning – and one which is shared by many sports psychologists – is that obsessing about a particular outcome brings more stress and less chance of success than simply focusing on getting the very best performance out of yourself on the day. “I tried not to have any expectation of a result,” Emma told us, speaking about the time trial. “Obviously I wanted to win, but I concentrated on riding the perfect race."' See here for the full interview.