A spider's web

A quick post today. Work is busy, the boss is on leave and we had a major technical outage yesterday across the globe (a nasty viral attack) and I needed the trouble like a hole in the head.

I was due to race last Saturday night at the Goulburn Track Power open. Wouldn't you know it - Goulburn hasn't seen rain in five years, is in the grip of the worst drought on record but on Saturday night, right after warm up and just when the first race was lining up on the fence, it absolutely started to rain cats and dogs!! Track meet was cancelled.

I feel sorry for the organisers as the country town carnivals are good community events with lots of people working hard to give the rest of us a chance to race. Still, if you asked me which race I'd cancel due to weather - I'd have picked Goulburn since they need the rain so badly. So dinner at the Paragon Cafe and the drive back to Sydney. Never mind.

This coming weekend is round #1 of my season target events - the State Masters Track Championships. My races are on Saturday (points) and Sunday (individual pursuit). My taper doesn't start until before the Nationals which are at the end of March, so essentially I am training right through this event.

Still, I am feeling pretty good and will give it my best shot. The points race has a 20 rider field, so I will need my wits abouts me. I am going to set a PB pursuit pacing target and see how I go.

Just to show I'm honest, here are this afternoon's (Coggan) Level 5 Aerobic Power Intervals:


Normally I try to do them at my local track on the pursuit bike but the weather was not looking good so I decided to get on the road bike and head to the park to do them. It was a good decision as the weather did close in and the track would have definitely been closed. Unfortunately, the dark and wet conditions at the end of my set meant I could not safely complete my workout with some 30sec L6 efforts. Still, it was better than another wash out!!

Oh, yeah, the spider's web...

The other morning I got up early for my endurance ride, got on the bike, fired up the headlight, check the PT was reset and behaving, clipped into the pedals and pushed off with a few firm turns of the cranks on the way up the slight incline of my street. Looking up I was surprised to see I was heading right for a HUGE spider's web!! (and said spider too). I couldn't believe it - it was in the middle of the street with at least a 15 metre span between objects either side upon which to hang a web. Amazing creatures.

No time to stop - I rode right through it and the spider was now crawling over web tangled all through my bars, lights, cables etc. He (she?) decided they liked to get close to the HID headlamp, which was good as I could see where it was in the darkness. Trying to remove it with some persuasive blowing techniques, I couldn't quite huff 'n' puff hard enough to quite get it away to the ground, each time quickly returning to the headlamp. After a few minutes, I managed to persuade the spider my bike wasn't the best place to hang out and continued my ride, covered in web!

I'm hoping it's a sign of good luck!

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Tough Love

Aaahhhh, aahhhh, Andre……. is the song going round in my head every time I look at my training programme and see more L7* work in the schedule.

OK, it's been a few weeks since I last posted – so what's been going down? Well I'm deep into race preparation period, that's what! Races are coming up soon – early-March for State Masters Track Championships and end-March for the Nationals in Melbourne.

So how does it look from a Performance Manager viewpoint? Well here's an updated Performance Manager chart (PMC). Click/right click to see a larger version:

Last time I posted my PMC was on December 7, 2006. At that time I had completed my early season build phase and had then eased back a little and enjoyed some good form at race carnivals. Good results at the Gosford Track open, the Brindabella crit and the Pudding Race, including some personal best power outputs were some highlights. Of course this was a chance for my body to regroup after a 3.5 month build phase and to enable a transition to the next phase of training, in which the intensity would start to step up a notch.

A solid block of training over the Christmas / New Year time period followed, providing a final build of CTL which reached a maximum of 98 TSS/day on 7 January. The focus during this period was on solid chunks of work in and around the "Sweet Spot" (i.e. lots of time from the lower end of L3 (tempo) through to higher end L4 (Funtional Threshold Power) work - the link takes you to an article by Frank Overton on the concept).

Sweet spot training is pretty useful as it enables maximum gains in your Chronic Training Load (CTL), perhaps the best "CTL bang for buck" in terms of the intensity/duration mix and is a great way to boost your Functional Threshold Power to boot.

After that phase, training stepped up a notch in terms of intensity but this has a trade off in terms of overall volume. Accordingly, you will see that CTL has pretty well been bouncing around in the 90's over the last month.

This is where the importance of the composition of the training load needs to be highlighted as much as the overall training load itself.

Lifting CTL is fine but it only gives you an understanding of the bigger picture. Unless training is composed of the right elements to elicit the physiological adaptations required for your target event(s), then relying solely on lifting CTL may result in sub-optimal performance. As training moves towards higher intensities (L5+), it may be unrealistic to expect CTL to continue to rise, particularly when you are time limited. It can be done but it is a very tough ask and likely requires an athlete to develop the capacity to cope with such a load. Good recovery is vital.

Keep in mind that I had never trained for any duration prior to this season with a CTL > 90 TSS/day.

In this final race preparation phase, we are emphasising the need to develop the higher end of the engine and hence incorporate plenty of L5, L6 and L7 efforts, either through structured intervals or via track racing.

Examples include: thumping it over shorter hills during tempo rides, structured L5 intervals such as 5-7 x 4 minutes L5 efforts on the pursuit bike, several sets of 4 x 30 second L6/7 efforts and track racing. The mix of all these varies through this phase.

So that's where I'm at. I have another few weeks of the hard stuff before tapering prior to the Nationals – I won't have much of a let up before the States.

Aaahhhh, aahhhh, Andre !!

* For those wondering, L7 is an American (?) hard rock band which had a bit of a hit here in Oz with their song "Andre" – made it onto JJJ's Hottest 100 album in 1994 or 95 I think.

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Power Crash!

Last Saturday night I raced the 25th Clarence Street Cyclery Cup track carnival at Dunc Gray Velodrome.

It was a pretty good night of racing, with a crowd looking for some entertainment and a better than expected number of events (six) to race. Actually, I ended up with seven race starts.

Here's why....

My fourth race of the night was a points race...

Here I am at the back of the attack with one lap to go to the first sprint. A nice sit, ready to smoke 'em without burning up much juice (note club mate leading out).

125 metres later at 58km/h.....

I'm actually in the above photo somewhere under the guy somersaulting. As he cleared over the top, I emerge....

The cause of the crash was the guy with the green sleeves from the top photo, who had overlapped the wheel in front and looked behind him - not a good combo - and well, the inevitable happened. I had nowhere to go but over the top and use all my cat like skills to land softly. The hands went up once on the deck as I was looking back down the straight and could see more riders heading right for me!

You can see the Powertap CPU had dislodged - I found it on the Apron after I got up. Not a scratch!

There was plenty more carnage to follow....

So the race was stopped with and the cleanup began. That got the crowd talking!

I got up, seemed OK, checked the bike, strapped back in to the pedals and waited for the restart. Here I am taking out sprint #2, after a 4 lap solo break.

Along with those points, I scored minor points in sprints #1 and #3 (only three sprints - it was a short points race) which gave me second place overall, missing out by one point.

I picked up a couple of other prize money envelopes on the night, including from the Div2/3 miss'n'out race.

Gotta love track racing!!

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The Second Coming (back)

Back in November, I wrote about using the Performance Manager to aid the planning and management of the comeback to cycling for my friend Tanya, who had started riding again following her surgery to remove a sizeable bowel cancer (see post here).

At the time, we set our sights on getting Tanya into sufficiently good shape to ride the Alpine Classic Audax event on 27 January 2007.

Well the Alpine has come and gone, so I thought I'd write an update on how things have been going. The day after I wrote the last item, Tanya of course comes out and wins her local crit! Maybe I should have held on for another day.

Just to recap:
4 Jul 06 - Surgery to remove bowel cancer
28 Aug 06 - First ride on bike following surgery
28 Oct 06 - 1st bike race since starting back
25 Nov 06 - Wins local club race!

Tanya's Performance Manager Chart(click/right click to see larger version)

Since the last update, we kept up the endurance focus and began introducing Tempo (Coggan L3 / Stern Z3) level riding. As her training progressed the focus began to shift towards bumping up Tanya's Functional Threshold Power (FTP) with some specific interval style workouts riding at an intensity near her FTP.

Some additional testing including simulated time trials and Maximal Aerobic Power (MAP) test demonstrated Tanya's MAP and FTP had improved and her training levels were re-set accordingly.

During this period of training, Tanya had her good days and not so good days. There were a couple of training interruptions, one requiring a hospital visit and others a check with the Doctor. Fortunately, no major issues but they are unpleasant experiences when one still has cancer surgery fresh in the mind. So we had to continue being careful to ensure the progressive load was not overly stressful but sufficient to ensure she would attain the desired physiological adaptations.

Tanya was also busy running her cycle coaching courses, so her training schedule needed to take into account her on-bike work time. At times the day to day workload would be a little inconsistent but by and large, we can see a steady ramp up of Tanya's Chronic Training Load (CTL) the blue line. The Performance Manager was a perfect aid in this respect as it enabled the scheduled training to be adjusted with the ebb and flow of interruptions and work commitments.

Since Tanya was progressing so well, before heading off to Mt Beauty her thoughts began to shift beyond the Alpine, indicating a desire to return to track racing. Indeed her talk included riding the State Masters Track Championships in March and she had already booked her place to go to Melbourne a few weeks after that for the National Masters Track Championships. So we began to incorporate regular track sessions into her programme. She was ready for it. Indeed Tanya was champing at the bit to get back on the track!

I really knew Tanya was going well when she kept "pestering" me about whether she should ride the Individual Pursuit at the States Champs!

The Final Countdown
A few weeks out from the Alpine we gave Tanya a couple of workouts involving longer climbs to help her adapt to the demands she would face at the Alpine and to help her practice pacing her efforts (not to mention the FTP benefit). These were invaluable, as she now knew what to expect on the long climbs.

Tanya's CTL hit a max of 80 TSS/day one week out from the Alpine, enabling us to a back off the training in that last week, raising her Training Stress Balance (TSB) into positive territory and seeing Tanya hit the target event with good fitness and freshness.

Since we had Tanya commencing at a CTL of zero on 28 August, that was an overall CTL ramp rate of 4.8 per week.

Results

So how did she do? Well here are her own words:

" "Free to Ride" was painted on the hill and as I climbed I felt incredibly grateful that I could be out there in the scenic alpine region of North East Victoria with 1,980 others climbing up mountains. A trackie riding up mountains!?

My husband loves this event so I have tagged along since 2000 and have chosen the shorter rides to do. This time because of my surgery, it seemed appropriate to make it my fitness goal so I started the ride feeling good about my training leading up to it and for a trackie, I would survive the mountains OK and have fun on the descents! That's exactly what happened.

I had a few comments thrown at me like "You descend like a brick" to when I was being passed on the hill: "What happened to you, you were leading the bunch?" to when I did a 5km turn for all these strong guys who were just sucking wheels: "What a great turn of speed coming into Bright".

I sat on my threshold power up the long hills and did a power PB for a 3-hour ride.

So that is the aerobic stuff out of the way. Onto the track!"

How about the numbers?

Shown below is a picture of Tanya's WKO file for the day (click/right click to see a larger version). Two climbs of 42 minutes and 45 minutes respectively, both ridden at FTP (indicated by the horizontal dashed yellow line).

Overall Tanya's ride scored 258 TSS and was ridden at an Intensity Factor of 0.89, so that's pretty good going for a 3:17 long effort!


After the Alpine, Tanya remained in country Victoria on holiday, riding bikes and returns this week, where training focus will now firmly be with the track in mind. Tanya's favourite events are the 500 metre Time Trial and the sprint derby (she is a multiple State & National Masters Track Champion).

Despite all the aerobic focus up to now, I have a funny feeling she'll do OK.....

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Darth Vader Rides the Teams Pursuit

MAOD – Maximal Accumulated Oxygen Deficit is the theme of today’s chat.

This is something I first learned about via The Book (Training and Racing with a Power Meter) and also in subsequent analysis of power meter data kindly undertaken for me by Dr Andy Coggan last year. It’s pretty funky stuff, so hang on for the ride if you can.

Original Wattage list reference here and the Excel file used to generate such analysis is here.

For those interested in delving further, Andy has also prepared a Powerpoint presentation on the topic of the demands and preparation for individual pursuiting which is available for download at the Fixed Gear Fever download page. It's worth a look.

First, let me go back a step or two…

Technique plays a big part in Team Pursuiting

As some would know by now, I’m targeting two predominantly aerobic events, which have an anaerobic twist – the individual pursuit and points racing. Along the way, I get the chance to ride in one of my favourite events, the Teams Pursuit. A description of all these events can be found here. A quick glance at my recent posts and you’ll see that my team had success this past weekend, winning the NSW State Master’s Championship.

Two members of the team (Phil & myself) used power meters during the qualifying and final rides. We also both have power meter data from previous individual pursuit efforts. So, what can we learn from such data, in particular what can it reveal that may assist us?

As is already explained in a discussion about the Individual Pursuit in the book (pp 189-192), the performance of a rider in an Individual Pursuit is primarily determined by the combination of their aerobic and anaerobic work capacities. The discourse demonstrates that power meter data from an individual pursuit can be used to estimate the proportion of a rider’s power that is being generated from each of their aerobic and their anaerobic energy systems.

In particular, it is possible to use this data to estimate a rider’s Maximal Accumulated Oxygen Deficit (MAOD) – the best measure of a rider’s anaerobic capacity.

Based on this information, conclusions can be drawn about a rider’s individual capacities and it can help decide the type of training specific to that individual which is most likely to optimise performance (i.e. what specific training leading into the event will make me go the fastest I can go?).

Of course, in an individual pursuit, a rider typically accelerates up to speed and then settles into a quasi-steady state power output, typically at a level equivalent to their power at VO2 Max. See example here. The time taken to reach that VO2 Max power level does vary by rider and is proportionally longer for athletes with higher anaerobic work capacities.

In a Team Pursuit however, the demands are subtly different. While the overall aerobic and anaerobic demands are similar to an individual pursuit, the Team Pursuit also requires a greater degree of technical skill (for riding at 55+kph in an aero pursuit position just inches from the wheel in front, riding a good line in the bends and to effect smooth change overs of the lead rider).

It also places a greater emphasis on neuromuscular power (as the power demands are significantly variable compared to an individual pursuit – e.g. going from following a wheel to being on the front without changing pace demands a significant & rapid change in power).

So in a sense, not all aerobic monsters will necessarily make good team pursuiters. Riders like Brad McGee, Stuart O’Grady and Graeme Brown however all possess sensational aerobic engines and have the skill and top end power required for success in such an event.

Meanwhile, back in the Death Star....

So can we apply the MAOD analysis to Team Pursuit power meter data given that you never reach a quasi-steady state in such an event? Well originally I didn’t think it would be valid but as is his way, Dr Coggan showed it was possible (there are a couple of caveats which I won’t go into here) and he came up with some pretty interesting results.

Let’s start with Phil’s data. Rather than rewrite what Andy has already written, let me simply quote him here:

“In a laboratory setting, the gold standard for measuring anaerobic capacity is maximal accumulated O2 deficit (MAOD), i.e., the summed difference between the energy you produce aerobically and the overall energy demand. While we obviously don't know Phil's VO2 during his efforts, his VO2 kinetics, his VO2max, or his efficiency, it is possible to make some reasonable estimates and thus to estimate MAOD, as I did for Phil last year.

Evolution of O2 Deficit
(click/right click on chart to see an enlarged version)

As you can see in the graph titled "evolution of O2 deficit", during the individual pursuit his O2 deficit (the dark blue line) increased progressively for the first ~2 min of the event, after which it apparently became strictly "pay as you go", i.e., all of the power was apparently being generated aerobically.

This is exactly what you expect and what you typically find, with the only real difference between individuals of differing ability being the absolute values and the time point at which all of anaerobic capacity is expended (e.g., for me, it only takes ~1.5 min, whereas for my wife it takes 2.5 - 3 min).

So, what happens when you extend the same logic to analyze the team pursuits? Interesting stuff, that's what! :-)

Specifically, during the qualifier Phil's O2 deficit (the purple line) grew rapidly during the first 40 seconds, then held steady while he was on the wheels, then grew again when he took a pull, recovered a bit, and so on. Notably, however, at no point did it achieve the same value as during his individual pursuit last year. Assuming that he's in roughly the same shape now, this implies that he was never completely at his absolute limit, and thus was able to call upon his anaerobic reserves when he had to elevate his power above his aerobic maximum while taking his turn at the front and then getting back on again.

In contrast, during the final the power requirement was significantly higher from 40 seconds on, such that his cumulative O2 deficit (the yellow line), while flucuating a bit due to being in a paceline, essentially followed the same time course of that seen during the individual pursuit. IOW, in this case he *did* appear to be at or near his absolute limit throughout almost the entire race, so he simply couldn't recover after taking that final pull."

~ Andy Coggan

Now I should add that the final was ridden at a pace ½ second per lap faster than the qualifier and that Phil played the role of lead rider (I knew Phil had the experience to pace the start to schedule). In the final after his third pull, Phil had reached his limit and withdrew from the pace line, leaving the three remaining riders to complete the final three laps (in team pursuits, it is the elapsed time of the third rider across the line that determines the result – assuming you don’t catch the other team).

½ second quicker per lap may not sound like much but as you can see from the chart, it can quickly take someone from being “comfortable” to being right on or over a their limit.

Use the Force, Luke

OK, Andy has shown us something pretty funky with Phil’s data, so what did mine look like? Click/right click on pic to see an enlarged version:

Well at first glance it looks similar to Phil’s chart, however there are some significant differences:

- My cumulative O2 deficit in an individual pursuit (the dark blue line) is of a lower overall magnitude than Phil’s

- In the Team Pursuit qualifier (the purple line), it is apparent that I never fully depleted my anaerobic reserves, whereas Phil did slightly during the initial laps (Phil was the lead rider, so that is not unexpected). Indeed looking at the O2 deficit line, it is apparent that I was recovering quite rapidly when back in the pace line.

- In the Final (the yellow line), once again I did not exceed my anaerobic capacity until it was time to do a pull on the front. But note my recovery when back in the paceline compared to Phil’s. While Phil’s cumulative O2 deficit effectively kept climbing (indicating a depltion of anaerobic reserves), I was recovering sufficiently to enable another two strong pulls on the front, especially the final effort on the last lap and a bit (which took us from behind to in front of the other team).

- So it appears that I too am in at least as good a shape as last year but one should never discount the positive impact that motivation has on one’s ability to find a little more from somewhere within. I have always been a highly motivated rider in a group scenario.

In summary, once again this demonstrates the value of power meter data. Would have I done anything differently armed with such information? Perhaps. With data from all riders I may have decided on a different rider order. Certainly we rode as hard as we could but could have we used our resources more effectively and achieved an even faster time? Next year I expect all squad members will have power meters and perhaps I’ll be able to back up my intuitive assessment with a more objective look at the data.

One thing is for sure, be careful when you ask a sprinter to provide sideline-pacing instructions to a team pursuit squad!

Photo courtesy of Action Snaps photography

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A Winning Formula

More on Team Pursuiting...

The 2007 Bicisport Train in Action @ 55kph
In order: Andrew, Alex, Phil, Alan

Our masters team pursuit squad (an event we raced successfully on Sunday), did one or two specific training sessions per week in the weeks leading up to race day. All other training was responsibility of individual.

In the first couple of weeks it was about familiarity with each other's wheel (and each other for the newer club member) and riding in formation/pursuit bike set up. Then the pace of our efforts was lifted and rider order changed about to find out individual rider's form and to iron out technique and pacing.

Three weeks out from the event the sessions were:

Sunday morning: After a warm up, 2 x standing starts, maximum of 1.5km (often less than 1km) - just enough to have everyone do one (maybe two) short turn(s) on the front and get the start pacing right. Then the boys could do what they liked (starts/sprints etc). I'd already done my endurance training beforehand so that would be it for me.

Monday night at race venue: After a warm up, 2 x Flys at or near race pace: 1 x 2.5-3km just under race pace as an opener; 1 x 2km at race pace. This served to reinforce technique at full pace and provide confidence to team members since a 2km fly is significantly easier than a full pursuit effort. Indeed, I specifically avoided doing a full pursuit effort.

Along with the data from my power meter (especially pacing information by rider*), this gave me solid information to:
(a) select riders to make the first choice team,
(b) decide on the rider order and

(c) decide what race pace I thought we were were capable of.

* Pacing info/data from the power meter was especially helpful since:

(i) I didn't always have someone with a stopwatch to record splits and

(ii) more than half the training sessions were conducted on a 333 metre velodrome and not the 250 metre track we would race on

(iii) I could match what actually happened with the PM data (e.g. did a rider slow down because they were slow or because the rider before them was going too fast). Retrospective analysis of PM data helped keep objectivity in the decisions.


Final week efforts were done in race order and full race kit used for flys at race venue in final two weeks to make sure everything was tested OK.

Team BalanceWe had a mix of track pursuit/enduro and track TT riders with different levels of experience of the event (from 10 years of team pursuiting to second attempt), so blending the unique characteristics of each to maximise team potential is an interesting exercise. I certainly learned never to start with a TTr, they go out way too hard (can't help themselves).

We were fortunate to have five guys going well enough to ride so we had a reserve rider on the day in case we needed him. Most of the guys were training right through this event as our goals are more the Masters track championships in March. I certainly hadn't done anything special to taper for it, indeed I was doing VO2 Max work and raced a hardish crit in the days leading up. In fact, my Sunday training sessions above were preceded by a 80-100 min of high end tempo (L3) in a 3 hour ride and the Monday flys were my "rest day". Despite this, my TSB remained in a relatively neutral zone.

Result: A State Championship win.

Winners are Grinners!
L->R: Alex, Andrew, Alan, Phil

Photos courtesy Ernie Smith Photos

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Gold! Gold! Gold!

With apologies to Norman May.

State Masters Team Pursuit Championships

He he - we had a win today, taking out the NSW 3,000 metre MMAS 1-4 Team Pursuit Championships. Event was held at Sydney's Dunc Gray Velodrome.

Photos not available just yet but I'll post some as soon as they become available.

Our time in the final was a 3:30.46, just 1.8 seconds over the State record set last year by the same team we beat in the final today. We qualified with a 3:36 (about 2 seconds slower than I'd have liked but it was enough to make the gold medal ride).

In the final we were down on every lap (including #11), Andrew had picked it up on lap 11 and I hit the front with 1.25 laps to go. After being certain my 3rd rider was back on I just gave it my all and we over powered the other team to take it out by 0.4 seconds (approx 5-6 metres). Being ahead on lap 12 is what counts!

The boys were fantastic. Phil, Alan & Andrew all did great rides. My form was good, I was especially pleased to finish so strongly and it was great to be team captain as well.

A huge thanks to both Dave (for being our reserve rider, supplier of spares, general gopher and all round good guy!) and Pete (for the gee up, sideline calling and general technical assistance).

Now how many teams get to have two world track champions:
(a) not selected in the starting line up and
(b) have them attend to our every need?!!
What a way to go. Thanks boys, really appreciated. ;-)

Great team work = great results.
That was the first Championship win for each of us in the riding squad. I've been trying for seven years and I think Phil has been trying for a decade to crack this nut. We both have a series of bronze and silvers but hadn't quite got to #1. The event is not contested at National level so State championships is as far as we can go.

The stats for the final were:

Time: 3:30.46 (1.8 seconds outside the State record set last year)
Speed final avg 51.31 kph (by the clock)

Power Avg: 397 Watts
Power Max: 844 Watts (nice starting Phil)

We rode the last 2 laps at 54.6kph (with Andrew & Alex powering home)
FYI my max speed was 59.0kph (yikes!)

Gear: 50 x 14 (nominal 96.4", actual 93.5")
Cadence at average cruise speed: 118 rpm
Cadence at maximum speed: 132 rpm
CTL: 94
TSB: -6.3

Here's the wko screen shot of the final showing the power and speed every second (well every 1.26 seconds). Click/right click to view larger image:

I set the smoothing at three seconds to reduce the noise of the yellow power line. The horizontal lines mark average power (yellow) and speed (blue). You can clearly see the power spike at the start and then the period where I was either in the paceline or on the front (where the power is much higher).

Just for comparison, apart from the first few laps where the acceleration happens and you settle in, when in the paceline I was averaging around 300-320 Watts and when on the front I was averaging 480-490 Watts.

As you can see we started pretty fast but we had to, the other team were going hard. I had faith that as long as we rode close enough, they would crack eventually. But it didn't happen until the last lap. That sure was close!

I couldn't believe it when I came round for my first turn on the front, saw 58kph on the screen and Pete was calling me to lift it!! No way I thought, they will crack. From there we kept powering on but remained behind every lap.

Note the final surge for the line and the win. Woohoo!

And just as a sideline, apart from myself, Phil rides an SRM, Alan uses a Powertap track wheel (but rode a disk today) and Andrew is waiting for his Powertap wheel to arrive. That only leaves Dave without a power meter (but wanting one) as Pete has a Powertap as well.

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Australia Day

Australia Day (26 January) means many things to this nation. Technically it's a celebration of the anniversay of the 1788 British arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove and the establishment of a new colony, New South Wales. Of course many indigenous Australians don't necessarily see that as something to celebrate and in reality Australia Day has become more of a day to mark things that we enjoy most about being Aussies. Being smack in the middle of Summer, typically there are lots of outdoor festive activities. Of course it's a public holiday and us Aussies like our days off. A little more on the topic can be found in this Wikipedia entry.

One of the many thousands of activities on this day includes the annual Joseph Sunde Memorial criterium races at Sydney's Heffron Park. The race doubles as a fund raiser for the Children's Cancer Foundation. There are open graded events including a Masters 1-3 race.

I usually race it, although as a race it can be a bit of a non-event. The organising club, Eastern Suburbs CC, has a tendency to stack the field with their best riders and play the usual games that result in a break away with the remaining 10 or so Easts riders sitting on and marking any attempts to bridge across. Any time the gap is shut down, the rested Easts boys would counter and so on until they get someone away. It's pretty dull racing really and indeed I think the numbers of entrants will fall if this trend continues. Already I noticed other local clubs poorly represented (this is not home turf for my club).

And that's exactly what happened.

Not that it mattered much, I was really just interested in a good training hit out and it served its purpose. Here's a pic of the race file for reference.

Joseph Sunde Memorial Criterium

In this case I wanted to sit in the bunch a bit more than I tend to and it shows with the regular coasting (see how often the yellow power line drops to zero). I was zero power for approx 17% of the race (even though this is a flat crit) and less than 100 Watts for 24% of the time. But when you pedal you have to pedal hard.

The race stats show that with a Variability Index (the ratio of Normalised Power to Average Power) of 1.18. That's pretty typical for a flat scratch race criterium.

Just to spice up an otherwise dull race, I went to the front with 1.5km to go and wound it up hard in a final attempt to bridge the gap, peeling off with 500m to go after getting them to within 50 metres of the leading two riders, however the rest of them couldn't continue the surge and they ended up sprining for third, while I coasted in, happy to have a solid hit out.

Happy Australia Day!

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Getting there....

Raising the Bar

A couple of weeks ago I reported on my difficulties (see this post) in transitioning to (Coggan) Level 5 workouts. Variously known as VO2 Max workouts or Aerobic Power Intervals, these are designed to improve your power at VO2 Max, something that's pretty important as my key goal events draw nearer.

Hopeful that my troubled transition was just an aberration, I went into week two hoping that I'd have a bit more success. Unfortunately week two didn't end up any better with circumstances meaning these were simply unable to be completed. I won't bore you with the details but I was getting a little anxious. Still I was not overly concerned, I had some track racing and team pursuit training as well, so I was already getting some intensity...

A New Level

Level 5 is described as working at an intensity between 106% - 120% of your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) for interval durations of around 3 - 8 minutes, for a total time at that level of up to about 30 minutes in any one session. For me that means around 330-370 Watts.

In this case the target coach set was a range of 335-355 Watts, with six four minute efforts with four minutes rest in between each (a 1:1 work:recovery ratio).

Here's a pic of the wko showing what happened. I cut out the warm up/down sections. Click/right-click to view larger image.


OK, so in order to see if I could do these without the problems previously encountered, coach suggested I start a little conservatively, slightly under the range but to get it into the target power by 1 minute mark and then keep ramping it up through to end of the interval.

So that's what I did. These are done on my track bike in pursuit position, in this case at my local outdoor velodrome. It was really blustery and pacing was quite difficult. But I got through the first three efforts OK, using the pacing strategy as best I could in the conditions.

For ease of reference, I marked my conservative starting level and the upper end of the range with the horizontal lines in the wko chart.

I then needed a drink, so I got off quickly and had a drink and then back on the bike to get into effort #4. Well as you can see from the chart, that didn't go so well. I simply couldn't sustain the power level and cut it short. That was too hard. Hmmm, surely I had more than three efforts in me? OK - so perhaps in stopping I lost my rythym.

So I tried again (effort #5) and this time it was worse and there was no way I was going to keep it up so I pulled the pin again.

It was then I realised what was going on.
My speed had lifted quite a bit but the reported power had not.
My PT's torque zero needed re-setting.

Torque talk

I stopped, unstrapped from the pedals and reset the torque zero (which I had done at the start of my set). Then I went out and tried again (effort #6) - well wouldn't you know - I was able to complete the interval this time. While the RPE* meter in the brain was telling me one thing, the power meter another, I wasn't making a sound judgement as the blustery wind was simply confusing the whole picture.

So, whenever you restart on the fixed gear bike, it pays to ensure torque zero is reset each time.

I thought about trying one more but enough is enough, a successful night's effort and learning.

All in all, I am really happy to be getting these efforts happening and being able to do them on the pursuit bike is a real bonus. Generating power is one thing but doing it in an agressive TT/pursuit position can take some time to adapt.

* RPE - Rate of Perceived Exertion

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Christening

OK, I wouldn't exactly say I'm a highly religious man but when it comes to bikes, well I have new one and it needed to be "christened " so to speak, so what better way than to get it out on the track and race it. I'm trying to organise some decent photos which I'll post but in the meantime here's what the frame looks like:

Viva el Presidente!

Last night was the President's Cup Track open at Dunc Gray Velodrome. I'm not sure which President and of what but no matter, presumably President of CNSW (my State cycling authority/administration). It was a new carnival on the track programme - it appears that the powers that be are starting to look at the major summer carnivals and create a series from the big events each year - spacing them out a bit better.

The Sydney 1000, Bankstown Open, President's Cup, Clarence St Cup - all big(ish) prize money events on the summer track calendar. I sat out the Sydney 1000, raced the Bankstown, and last night the President's Cup. Clarence St Cup is in a couple of weeks.

OK - back to racing - so we all get inside the velodrome very late as the Youth Olympics had been in the velodrome all day and we had to wait for them to clear out. Then the organisers generously gave us 15 minutes to warm up. Ha! Nevermind - it was the same for everyone.

The top seeded rider was Shane Kelly, who was off scratch in the wheelrace.

So the opening race is a standard scratch race and a qualifier for the Wheelrace final (click the link for an explanation of what a wheelrace is). I found myself with pretty favourable grading and promptly won the race, thereby qualifying for the final and picking up some prize money for 1st place.

So the new bike is one for one in open track racing!

In the other grades all my regular training buddies all qualified as well. Next up was - ah - another scratch race (imaginative lot these programmers) and this time I got pipped on the line for 2nd place. Not too bad as during the race I was forced to bridge a 40 metre gap that some dill in front created by not going with the attack and then I had to lead out the sprint. I'll never complain when a multiple world masters champion is the guy that gets you...

Then the Wheelrace final. Since all my club training buddies qualified for the final we basically had a plan to get one of our guys to the finish. It went perfectly, with yours truly being the final lead out rider for the big unit Andrew Burne, who powered away to take the win by eight lengths. We were way too fast for the back markers, even a rider of Shane Kelly's awesome capabilities struggled to reach our committed mid-marker train. So the big money came back to the boys - nice work!

Then one more race to finish off the night - a - you guessed it - another scratch race. Gee, there are so many different types of track races, you wonder if maybe they could have thought of at least one slightly different event but no matter. With legs still reeling from the wheelrace, I rolled around and as the race panned out, I swung off after a short turn and promptly slotted myself in front of two team mates, hit the front again with four laps to go and just started winding it up before the last big surge to give my buddies the perfect lead out for a 1-2 finish. Nice work again boys!!

So a pretty successful night for the new machine.

Team Pursuit

Next weekend I have the State Masters Team Pursuit Championships. I'm team captain (in my new club colours) and we have a good unit going. We've been training together for a few weeks, mainly to sort out the technique stuff and for me to make decisions about who will ride where (and who makes the team). It's one of my favourite events and indeed was the first ever race on the track I attempted many moons ago.

Will report in on how that goes....

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Perrshoot !

Trial & Error

On Tuesday I had an ordinary day, not being able to complete my set intervals. Then yesterday morning I was not feeling too good, postponed my ride to the afternoon, only to get slight stomache cramps, so I figured my body was telling me something and I ended up with a no ride day (shock, horror !!).

So that left me with this evening's scheduled trial pursuit run and general track racing. Idea is to set a benchmark and see how I'm going.

This week, one of the local clubs started up a regular Thursday night track racing series at Tempe velodrome (which is only a 10-12 minute drive from my place), so they kindly let me start warming up early so I could do my pursuit effort with a clear track before racing commenced.

Windy

Tempe is an outdoor 333.33 metre concrete velodrome. A bit bumpy but in reasonably nick - some surface refurbishments were undertaken last Sep/Oct which smoothed out some of the bigger bumps. Conditions, while warm, were not ideal as it was quite windy - not something I'm used to as most of my pursuits have been conducted inside covered velodromes. The headwind was particularly bad in turn 2 and down the back straight and into turn 3. You didn't notice any assistance until well out of turn 4 and about half way down finishing straight.

Anyway, here's the wko of my effort (click/right click to view larger image):

Trial Pursuit 11 Jan 2007

Times as per stopwatch were:
1 km: 1:20.04
2 km: 2:36.50 (1:16.46)
3 km: 3:54.38 (1:17.48)

Gear:________ 52x15 (93.6" nominal)
Avg Power: __ 365 Watts
Avg Speed: __ 46.9 kph
Avg Cadence:_ 108 rpm
CTL:_________ 93
TSB:_________ +6
(Given unscheduled breaks this week, I was not originally expecting to be TSB positive)

So judging by all that, I'd say my pacing was pretty good considering the conditions. I didn't watch the power meter that much, just the occasional glance, preferring to go by feel. Certainly the jagged speed line shows the impact of the wind - typically it's a much smoother, more "sinusoidal" type of line.

One good sign is it's a faster time than I rode at the State/National championships last year.

I then backed up OK for the rest of the night's racing, riding A grade and picking up a 2nd in opening scratch race and 3rd in the elimination and basically attacking the other races hard(ish). Max speed of 63.8kph was fairly respectable too.

SBS Television were out there filming, so I might even make it onto TV this week! Cycling Central on SBS 5.30pm Sunday afternoon.

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One of those days...

Best laid plans.....

Yesterday I was to start some new interval work - a change in training focus as workouts become more specific to my race goals.

Aerobic Power Intervals, intervals working at a power level equivalent to Andy Coggan's L5 or near enough to pVO2 Max (power at VO2 Max). Intention was up to 6 x 4 minutes efforts in a zone around 110%-115% of FTP. On the pursuit bike.

So I have the day off work, the velodrome is open and I have my new bike ready to rock 'n' roll.

I had a good warm up, rolling steady for a while and then 15-20 minutes riding behind Commonwealth Games kilo champion Ben Kersten with Aussie bike legend and NSWIS coach Gary Sutton on the derny. Perfect.

OK - so it was time to get cracking. Shame my legs didn't want to play ball.

Effort #1 was tough (they're not meant to be easy but it was a bit too hard if I was expecting to do up to 6 of these) and well, I was simply unable to complete remaining intervals at the set power. I tried an extended break in the forlorn hope of maybe coming good (but having done similar before I knew it was a slim chance). Forlorn it was.

So if the legs won't do it, no point trying for a lower power level as that's not going to achieve the desired adaptations, so I pack up and go home.

Phil Thuaux was also there about to start a similar type of work out with Gary Sutton on the apron, stopwatch in hand, yelling out the pacing intructions. His medal at the UCI Track World Cup Sydney round in the Individual Pursuit was a great break through (I was right there cheering him on). Not sure if he's off to LA for the next round in a couple of weeks.

They all like my new bike. A carbon fibre Teschner Track Pro.

It was my first formal set of these type of intervals, coming off a fairly solid block of training, a new track bike and pursuit position .... Perhaps it was just a little ambitious.

All up I'm not that worried but it's frustrating when you have the time and facility available and the legs weren't up to using them. As long as I can see an improvement next time....

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Two by Twenty

Surfing the Pain Curve

On many cycle training forums and in several training articles or books you might see reference to a type of training workout acknowledged as being most useful in helping to increase one's Functional Threshold Power (FTP) - the maximal power output sustainable for about an hour (usually attainable when not overly fatigued). Sometimes these are called Time Trial workouts.

FTP is a pretty important fitness marker, especially since it is readily testable by anyone using a power meter, but mainly because it is the single most important physiological determinant of performance in aerobic events from 3km individual pursuits to grand tours.1

Everyone has an FTP of course, we just may not know what it is (FTP is determined via testing or actual race performance), or it may not be as high as we'd like (is it ever?).

Of course there are other important attributes necessary for cycling performance and they cannot be ignored - undertaking training specific to your event is critical. That said, improving your FTP will go a long, long way towards improving performance. Hence why cyclists like me want to improve their FTP.

So we do what (legally) works best - Level 4 workouts (Level 4 as defined by Andy Coggan's training levels). These Level 4 (L4) workouts commonly involve efforts of between 10 and 30 minutes duration at an average power ranging between 91% and 105% of your current FTP. Often, more than one interval is performed with a short period, say 5 to 10 minutes, of easy riding in between. Apart from the duration of each interval (and the number of intervals), the next factor to consider is the intensity at which to ride them.

Other training schemas refer to them as Time Trial Intervals, or 60 minute Critical Power efforts (CP60). All are similar in concept and serve to induce the same physiological adaptation - namely improved FTP.
2 x 20sA commonly used L4 workout is the "2 x 20", meaning two intervals of 20 minutes each. There is a big difference between riding these efforts at 91% of FTP to riding them at 105% of FTP. Typically there is a trade off between intensity and duration, depending on where you are in your training cycle, the composition of your total training, current levels of fatigue etc. Riding in the 91%-95% range means you could do more of these efforts (or more frequently) than if you perform them at 100%-105% of your FTP.

At the moment, part of my training involves doing these 2x20s at and just above FTP (100%-103% of FTP). Hence, in the context of the routine of other fatigue inducing training, these are quite tough to do.

So tough in fact that last week I was unable to complete the 2nd interval. This week however, I managed, just, to get through. Here's a pic of the workout from Cycling Peaks (click/right click to view larger image).

A "2 x 20" L4 workout.

For me this was a breakthrough as (aside from racing) I hadn't ridden L4 efforts at this power level before (I'm currently at PB power levels). I had done L4 work before, sometimes with a twist involving L5/L6 efforts but not at this average power.

Effort #2 was particularly hard - if you look at the power line (the yellow line) you can see how just a few minutes into the effort I was struggling to maintain power within the set range (marked with the horizontal dashed lines). But somehow I managed to convince myself to keep trying and for some reason I can't quite explain, a few minutes later I seemed to improve and once I got past halfway, I knew I could make it the whole way. I just managed to complete the set within the desired power band.

It certainly showed me it is possible to surf the pain curve, sometimes you just need to use a bit of positive affirmation when the legs are really suffering.....1. Training & Racing with a Power Meter, Allen & Coggan, pp 43-44.

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Making a Point

Happy New Year everyone!

My goals this coming year are primarily focussed on performances in pursuit and points racing. So I thought I'd post a picture of the file from my last State Masters Points race to remind me of what I am trying to better (no pic of Nats - I crashed unfortunately).


All things going well, I won't miss the podium on a count back like I did in this race. But even if that doesn't happen*, at least with the power meter I'll have a pretty fair idea if I've improved or not.

For me this is a 20km event with a sprint every 2.5 km (8 sprints). In this case no break was successful, and the file shows that with the surges on points laps occuring at regular intervals.

Training is going well, coach has me thumping out some solid stuff right now - I know today I'm feeling the training fatigue a little. Rest day tomorrow.

* Apart from my own form, to some extent it does depend on who shows up on the day as I have several world class competitors in my State/category so if they all present on the line, then it will take some cunning riding to beat them. I can be pretty cunning though....

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TSS vs. kJ

Recently I've noticed a few discussions in the on-line forums about using the CPU read-out on power meters showing work performed (usually expressed as kilojoules) as a proxy for cumulative TSS. Many have noticed a roughly linear relationship appears to exist between the two measures.

This comes from a desire by some to know their cumulative TSS while riding.

But is the kJ read-out a valid proxy for TSS?

For those that use the newer ergomo power meter, they already have this feature built into their CPUs, so they have no need for using kJ as a proxy for TSS. However, for the rest of us, unless you do the same type of ride every time you head out the door or get on the trainer, it is unlikely that this linear relationship will hold true.

The Practical Example

While the mathematics shows this relationship to be a spurious one, there's nothing like real data to emphasise a point.

The above chart is a plot of kJ vs. TSS for 161 rides so far this season.

While the relationship is roughly linear, there are major differences in work performed for rides of a similar TSS, even rides with TSS around 100-130, the energy spread is greater than 1,000kJ or up to three times the difference for the same TSS!

So I won't be using the kJ display on my power meter as a proxy for TSS.

Besides, I'm better at estimating what TSS to expect per hour for certain types of rides. While you can do this by estimating the Intensity Factor (IF) of a given ride (or sections of ride), I simply know from experience what to expect since I have probably already done similar rides as a part of my regular training and racing.

The Maths

Here's a quote from Andy Coggan on the matter to explain the maths:

"The relationship between TSS and total work not only varies with the individual, but also with the nature of the workout. That is evident by looking at the respective formulae:

Total work = duration x average power

TSS = duration x (normalized power/functional threshold power)^2

Thus, during long workouts the ratio of TSS to total work will tend to be lower, since normalized power and average power will tend to be closer together. Conversely, during shorter, higher intensity workouts (especially, e.g., with trackie style "go hard, puke, go home" level 6 intervals) the ratio of TSS to total work will tend to be higher, since normalized power will be much higher than average power. Of course, if practically all of your workouts are "middle of the road", then these differences won't be apparent and you may find a fairly high correlation between total work and TSS. As should be evident from the formulae given above, however, the two are not equivalent, i.e., such a correlation is simply spurious."

So until TSS, IF etc are incorporated into the CPUs of more brands of power meter, I guess most of us will just need to get to know our own data better....

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