Easy Does It!

It's important to keep the overall picture in view at this time of the year. There's a long time to go until the season starts and longer still to reach a peak in performance. On the other side of the coin, unless a training plan is followed, the time between now and the start of the season will soon pass and the opportunity reach peak form could easily be lost.

If peak form at some future point in time is a sole target, then all efforts need to be geared up to achieving it. That means training appropriately in terms of duration, intensity and other skills specific to the target event. Using a power meter over the past two winters has taught me so much and it's this experience that I'm trying to feed back into this winter's plan.

Right now I'm probably very fit compared to the average guy in the street, but in terms of bike racing I've got a lot of work to do. I've lost ALL my speed but before I worry about that, I need to emphasise rebuilding my aerobic fitness. I've got to re-teach my muscles good cycling habits and also get my body ready for the stresses of intensive training in the spring. However, I also have to bear in mind that I can't do it all overnight, so I have to increase my activities little by little, getting my body used to the stresses of training in a gradual fashion.

The winter before last I got carried away with training load. My weekly load in December was as high as at any other time during the following season. This made me fit and strong throughout a long season, but my form plateaued and at no time in particular did any performance really stand out. Last winter I changed that, built up my training load gradually, introduced small increases in intensity (including levels 5, 6 and 7) most weeks and actually manged to peak during the summer. However, I still made a few mistakes and early on in January I got ill because of it. Overall though, last winter was good and I was pleased with my performances in 2009. In order to keep things fresh and to keep on learning, I need a different challenge for next season and that means that this winter's plan needs to be suitably different too. Whilst my plan presently has more "bones" than "meat", I have still started as I mean to go on. This is now week 2 of a new training cycle and already I've completed some very good workouts. This includes building training load at a very conservative CTL increase of 2tss/week whilst making workouts more specific. I'm cutting out even more junk miles than I did last winter which keeps each session's training stress score lower but still gives me the same amount of quality training time on the bike. By doing this I am hoping to string more quality training sessions together on consecutive days but at the same time to maintain a sustainable rate of increase in overall training load. Hopefully, I'll get to next season with a CTL that I know equates to feeling strong without leaving me physically weary, but that has also been built up on a diet of focused training sessions.

Mountain Bike Ride MTB From Blair Atholl ~ The Disappointing Munro

Another mountain bike, walk, mountain bike adventure:

I was the first person to park in the Forest Lodge car park at Blair Athol, subsequently I had the early morning trail to myself and it was only as I was descending back from the Munro’s summit that I met another walker who exclaimed “I’m a bit disappointed with this Munro!” I felt quite sorry for the chap, I’d had a fantastic morning out and my mind was full of the things I’d already seen. I left him with a “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever found a boring Munro yet, you just have to look for different things” and he carried on with his route march towards the summit.

The track exits from the woods onto open wilderness

After very heavy rain the day before the morning sky promised good things. I cycled away from the car park and up through glades of beech, sycamore, larch and pine. Beneath my tyres was a carpet of bronzed beech leaves with brilliant yellow sycamore leaves in stark contrast. The sound of my bike flushed a woodcock out of the undergrowth and I watched it fly up the hill. Once on the open moorland track, I felt a sense of awe at the huge open space of heathland stretching out in front of me. It was all uphill, but with a steady gradient and on a good surface of compacted gravel and hard earth. This was such a contrast to the outing that I’d had the previous week to Am Bastier on Skye: there were no terrifying and vertiginous drops, no need for total concentration where a careless step and subsequent slip would without doubt have been fatal. Bleak heather clad moors of Athol’s hills replaced bleak rock and knife-edge ridges of Skye’s Cuillin Mountains. Here, a sense of solitude and an engagement with nature was easy to realise.

Uphill for a few miles with remote but easy cycling

The track stretched out in front and to my left the burn, still full of white water, rushed downwards. There were plenty of red grouse around and I was constantly being scolded. The sunlight played it’s symphony of light on the land and white clouds still hung to areas of higher ground. After approximately 5 miles, the track rounded a corner and there before me was a large herd of red deer. I counted at least 40 animals then gave up as I began to see more and more against the dark vegetation. Stags were both up and down the hill and the glen reverberated with the deep, from the pit of their stomach roars. The deer, having been spooked by my presence moved swiftly across the extremely deep heather to a safer place from where they could monitor my much slower progress.

Allt Scheicheachan bothy, a mile of rougher track still to cycle

I soon reached the bothy at Allt Scheicheachan and stopped to have a nose around. It was very tidy, with stone flagged floors, a cast iron hearth, tables and bunks. It was a diminutive building amidst a wild landscape. This was supposed to be where I should leave the bike, but after a dash through a rather deep ford and having still maintaining dry feet, I continued to cycle up alongside the burn almost to the head of the glen from whence I proceeded on foot. There had been a thickening of the cloud and the bright sunshine was showing less and less. As I reached the plateau, a golden eagle flying low and almost dawdling flew right over the top of me. As it enjoyed a couple of typical "tumbles" through the air I could clearly see by it’s wing markings that it was an adolescent. I watched it make way over the mountain and out of sight.

The deep heathers were soon replaced by sub-arctic tundra type dwarf varieties, only a couple of inches high, interspersed by incredibly clean looking lichens, and amongst the short ochre grasses, bright green, yellow and brilliant red mosses. It was truly wonderful tapestry of colours and textures. As I neared the summit, which by now was veiled by thin cloud, the rock changed to rounded granite boulders and the path was typically Cairngorm type grit. A mountain hare, upright on it’s hind legs watched me approach then made off though the boulders. A large group of ptarmigan, whistling as they do, casually moved along close by, virtually indistinguishable by means of their plumage against the grey rocks.

Lunchtime view, dull weather but a myriad of subtle hues and tones

After a quick look at the summit’s shelter cairn I descended back out of the cloud and found a good rock upon which to sit whilst I ate my lunch. The views south, west and north over the Highlands were superb as the low light levels revealed the landscape as subtle tones of greys, browns and mauves. I heard a loud rattling sound across the moor and there was another herd of deer with two stags locking antlers, one of them soon distancing itself from the other who proceeded to roar for some time.

After unlocking my bike I set off back to the bothy. A hen harrier rose up out of the heather and as I rounded each bend we had a game of chase with the bird perching then flying on a bit further. It was an easy ride back along the track as I hardly had to press on the pedals, the sun had gone for good but the cloud had risen again and I felt smug about having enjoyed the best of the day. When I got back to the car I realised that my rear light had fallen off somewhere along the way. I hope “Mr Disappointed” found it, I’m sure it would have made his day!

Velocimage #24 ~ The Wall

"Escape Route", the cyclist's and walker's shop in Pitlochry

Hooray, it's Saturday! Unfortunately there's a gale blowing outside so I've been glad to get my fix by reading Robert Jordan's reports on some recent Chung tests on Mid-Georgia Mid Pack Training.

Threshold and Sweet Spot

Last night's training session was called off. When I left work it was raining very hard and the road home was like a river. After changing into some dry clothes I did a satisfying hour of core strength exercises using a Swiss ball and some dumbells. This morning was dry and mild and I completed another 45 minutes of sweet spot on my way to work.

With reference to my last post, Paul asked:

"What is sweet spot and threshold power for you? How do you work them out?"

Over the last couple of years, I've tried a number of methods for determining my FTP, but now I just go a ride as I can for 40 minutes. I use a circuit that has minimal bends, easy junctions and no hills to speak of. I ride it like a time trial, a conservative start, a well paced consistent effort and build up over the 40 minutes. Experience has taught me that when I am NOT particularly aerobically fit (like now), my FTP will be 98% of my best 40 minute power. When I AM aerobically fit (say in February), I will use a factor of 99%. I also use the normalised power value from the test, which (if it was acceptably paced) will never be more than 1% higher than the average power. So for example, if at the moment I manage to ride at 306W normalised for 40 minutes in November, I will set my FTP at 300W. If it was February I'd use 303W.

I approach most threshold rides in the same way as if I was doing an FTP test, a consistent effort and well paced. Depending on what I'm trying to achieve from the session in terms of duration and intensity, the overall normalised power will end up between 90 and 110% of my FTP. So if my FTP was 300W, then I would want to see a power trace with an overall normalised value somewhere between 270W and 330W.

There's a few ways of doing a sweet spot session as it's more of a training concept rather than a discrete power training zone that some people would have you believe. In the old days we would have called it a "good hard ride". See here for more details. My sweet spot rides always follow the same format and don't often contain any specific training elements. Typically I ride around a circuit, unconcerned as to whether I am maintaining a narrow target power band or not, but maintaining a good solid effort both uphill and down dale. I set my power meter to display average values and aim to maintain between 87 and 93% of my FTP for the duration of the training session. So if my FTP was 300W, the overall normalised power level for the session would be between 261W and 279W. I'll allow 1-2% for the difference between the displayed average power and what I know will be the final normalised power that WKO calculates. I use perceived exertion to meter the effort if I feel that I might be riding at endurance pace, or alternatively over threshold pace. This is one form of power training where a heart rate monitor can also help. I know that if I maintain between 148 and 158bpm I'll end up with an appropriate overall normalised power. When I look at the resulting power file, there will be no nice level power trace and it will vary up and down as I rode around bends, over hills and through junctions. However, there will have been no sprinting for lamp posts or eyeball out efforts along the straight sections either. Afterwards, my legs always tell me they've been given a useful workout.

I don't understand it when riders try to compare ONLY their threshold power. My current FTP is 10% lower than it was when I peaked for the British Time Trial Championship but I'm also 2kg heavier! As far as my power to weight ratio is concerned (watts/kg) that's a double whammy. "It's power to weight ratio that matters", repeat, "it's power to weight ratio that matters". If you weigh less than me, your FTP would have to be lower than mine for us to have the same power to weight ratio. To make it even harder, unless your power meter is calibrated to the same standard as mine, any comparison really is apples and oranges.

I Love My Performance Management Chart!

Yes, I really do like my Performance Management Chart. In 2007 I rode 11,000 miles, in 2008 10,000 miles and this year I'll end up doing even less. I used to obsessively make myself ride at least 200 miles week in and week out and felt guilty if I didn't manage it. All that has changed now as using a power meter has given me better metrics with which to monitor my training load. I've learnt that training load measured in terms of miles does not equate to higher sustainable power levels and hence better results in competition. At this time of the year, as far as being fit for next year's racing is concerned, "getting lots of miles in" is not going to help. This year my best FTP was 3% higher than in 2008 and I have ridden my bike less. A major target for next year should be to get it even higher by building on what I've learnt in training this year.

Back to the Performance Management Chart. After 2 years of using a power meter I've got my weekly sustainable training load pretty well determined. I know what level of long term load (CTL) leaves me constantly tired and I know more about how to balance higher but shorter term loads (ATL) with rest. The biggest difference between the miles I did in 2008 and 2009 was their constitution in terms of duration and intensity. The overall training loads for both years look similar, but their make up was quite different. Whilst the Performance Management Chart doesn't really reveal these differences in any detail, it'll be this aspect of my training that I'll be trying to improve in 2010. It's here where I think I made my 3% FTP breakthrough during this season.

Right now, my training load doesn't need to be as high as it should be in March 2010. I've got a ramp up plan that allows for an easy week at Christmas and then builds up to a target maximum in April. Following the recent two weeks off the bike, my CTL dropped to below 60 tss/day and last week during training my body felt very sluggish. This week has been better and I've already done 60 minutes worth of solid sweet spot and 40 minutes of threshold. Another 60 minutes of sweet spot tonight and I'll have met my training load criteria for this week. I'll probably have a couple of easy hours "junk miles" riding over the weekend (some more Chung testing if it's calm), but be completely relaxed about how much training I've done.

My current FTP is 10% lower than it was at the beginning of September, I'm now accruing TSS based on it's new level and am not at all concerned. It's the Performance Management Chart and experience from the last two years of the cyclical nature of annual fitness that gives my obsessive nature permission to be relaxed ~ nice!

Shorter Lap Length ~ Chung Test #7

The Chung testing that I did on Sunday was about improving my test protocol for forthcoming trials. I've settled on using Desford lane at Kirby Mallory because it is extremely quiet, has an ideal V shaped elevation profile and the road surface is good. The only real downside is that because it is so narrow, I've had to teach myself to to perform very consistent, very slow 1.5m radius U-turns whilst in the aero position. I can't quite manage it without slightly lifting my inside elbow out of the padded rest, but I am travelling so slow at this point that I don't believe that it makes a difference.

I started off using a slightly longer lap of 0.85km with short and much reduced gradients at either ends. This allowed me to use a couple of gateways and easier U-turns. The problem was that slowing down (even allowing for still going uphill) was difficult to judge. It was too easy to get my speed wrong and then not be able to soft pedal to a low enough speed to permit a u-turn to be done (no braking allowed).

I then cut the lap length down to a mere 0.65km by lopping off the flatter end sections but necessitating even tighter u-turns. To my surprise I found that whilst I had to practice a bit of low speed bike control, turning on a steeper section of road did result in a cleaner power trace. There was no dithering on the pedals either before or after the turn as I tried to judge my speed. In addition, the laps take less time and look more consistent across a full set.

On Sunday I did 10 laps on the longer lap and 10 on the short lap. I then repeated both sets of laps a second time. Because I don't have a deep understanding of the maths behind the model, I had wondered whether the slower sections of longer lap improved the results. I have been unable to detect any real difference in the results. There may even be an indication that the shorter laps are more consistent from lap to lap but the figures weren't conclusive. However, as a result of these latest tests I will continue to use the shorter lap length and will carefully mark out my U-turns on the road before doing any more tests.

Un-ewe-sual Traffic Jam

I had a "pottering around off the bike type of day" yesterday, and will do every weekend until at least Christmas. I did some much needed maintenance on my mountain bike. Whilst in Scotland, none of the gears had worked very well and when I stripped down the cables it became apparent that the "outers" were badly corroded. My rear hydraulic brake had also needed bleeding which took a while. After alternating between tapping the brake body lightly, pumping and squeezing the brake lever whilst opening the bleed screw for about 30 minutes I finally managed to get all the air out of the system. I'm just waiting for some new brake shoes to arrive from Ebay and I'll be all set for some more off-road riding over Christmas. I also ordered some outer gear cable too. I found out that you can buy Jagwire 4 and 5mm diameter cable by the metre at a much lower price than you pay for the precut kits of cable.

The battery in my SRM "pro" cranks died during the week. For a couple of days it wouldn't work after the bike had been left in the cold garage overnight, but was OK after being stored in the warm during the day at work. On Thursday evening, the offset became very unstable and then the meter stopped working altogether halfway through the training session. I've swapped the cranks out and have to send them back for a replacement battery. It's times like this that I'm glad I've still got a Powertap as backup.

The weather has been good, but not calm enough to allow any meaningful Chung trials to be carried out. Later on this morning, despite a light breeze, I peddled off to Peckleton again in order to do some trials where I varied speed across the test laps. It was an effort to find out if my test protocols can be improved to provide better data. When I've analysed the results, and if they show any useful findings, I'll make a report. It was worth going because I learnt that my test venue is very quiet, even during daytime. It was also an opportunity to fulfill one of my other targets of riding my TT bike at least once a fortnight throughout the winter. I saw one car, a cyclist and a horse rider. Oh, and a large flock of sheep been shepherded along by the farmer. I can honestly say that I've never been held up on a Leicestershire lane by a flock of sheep! The road was quite wet from overnight rain, and after the sheep had passed by there were little piles of very green and sloppy dung all along the road. Undeterred, I carried on and completed 40 laps in total. Needless to say, the bike and my clothes required rather a good wash down when I got back home!