A New Dawn

Well I've been very quiet lately. I trust by now most regular readers would understand the reason being my accident back in April and hospitalisation since then. I have unfortunately had to have my lower left leg amputated.

That is not of course an ideal prep for the world Masters Track Champs so I now have to completely reset my goals and aspirations for the bike. I fully intend to get back to riding and racing and will get there with some support from a lot people.

I will chart my progress and keep up the chat on the power meter in my training. I will be very interested to find out how strong I can get compared to my able bodied state.

Enough for now, not a lot of energy while confined to my bed.

Cheers and safe ridinng to all

Alex

Read More......

Season in Review

For those interested, here’s a pic of my PMC for the season:

Endurance build phase – pretty good
Transition / mid season racing – all good and had some great form

Race prep phase – getting harder to continue CTL build with the lift in intensity. Some training/racing interruptions (mostly unavoidable) in latter stages of phase saw an unintended mini-peak for State Champs.

Final race prep (hard!), taper and competition yielding great results.

Recovery period now for a couple of weeks.

The end of the beginning...

I’m calling the National Masters Track Champs the end of my season. In reality there is no start/end of season any more, just a change of season. Focus now moves to road events and getting ready for the World Masters Track Championships in October.

So how did I go for the season?

Goals (Actual Outcome):

• October 2006: Credible performances in State Masters Road race (7th place) & Criterium (4th place & big power PBs). Very pleased with form.


• March 2007 PB in Individual Pursuit at State/National Masters Track Championships (PB at both Championships by 2.2 seconds and > 6 seconds in competition). Nice work, especially at States!


• March 2007: Improve on 2006 Points Race performances of 4th at States and crash at Nationals (4th at States but took a lap on the field and Bronze medal at Nationals). Sensational!

Other notable performances along the way:

• September 2006: 1st ever win in Div 1 Friday Night Track Racing
• October 2006: Member of Bronze medal winning team in State Team Time Trial Championships
• November 2007: Winner B Grade open Brindabella Crit
• December 2007: 1st B grader at Open Heffron Pudding Crit (only B grader left standing actually)
• January 2007: Member and Captain of winning team at State Masters Team Pursuit Championships – 1st ever State Championship win
• All summer: Multiple placing in track opens

Personal stand outs were the National Points Race result, the Team Pursuit and Mum coming along to watch me win the Brindabella crit and Dad visiting and seeing me race the track for the first time ever.
Me on the podium with Stuart Vaughan (Left) and Graeme Albon (Centre):

Other items to note:

• MAP (+11%) & TT power (+17%) lifted nicely - as measured per tests although pre-comp numbers not tested so quite possibly better than that.
• Mental approach better, more positive than before.
• Training overall significantly more consistent than before.
• Training specifically tailored to event demands and personal power profile.
• CTL peak (100 TSS/day) much higher than previously attained.

So in essence, I attained all goals set and had other success along the way. So it’s pretty hard to pick faults with that lot!
What can I improve? Lots but that’s between coach and I at the moment ;)
Other activity:

• Cranking up the coaching business and becoming an RST Associate Coach.
• Guiding Tanya’s comeback. Seeing this cancer surgery comeback kid win two National championships, a silver & a bronze was pretty special.
• Performance Manager Beta tester and associated learning.
• Starting/maintaining blog.

Looking ahead:

My racing goal(s) for remainder of 2007 remains the same:
Make the Points Race final at World Masters Track Championships
and
continue to improve on my IP performance.

I am convinced (for some reason) that continuing to improve my IP will make me a better all round rider (even though I’m not a naturally gifted IP talent). Around the same time as the Worlds are the State Road and Crit Championships. Also, making the #1 TTT squad for the State Club TTT Champs would be nice. And have a great time racing along the way.

Beyond that, it is likely I will continue to focus on the same events at the State, National and World championships through 2009.

A great season and another step up for me – thanks to everyone out there for their encouragement and support. In particular my coach (Ric Stern), all my training buddies at Tempe who were all willing me along last week, fellow competitors for keeping me honest, my friends, workmates and family who put up with this strange obsession of mine, and Andy Coggan for his influence on many things.

Looking forward to the next phase of my cycling development.

Read More......

Bailing Out

So what happened in my crit?

OK - I'm back home, back to work (thud) and still getting back to normal. So, some time to update what happened....

On Saturday afternoon I raced the National Masters Criterium championships, held in the town of Bacchus Marsh, Victoria (about 90 minutes drive North West from Melbourne). But before my race there were plenty of others, including Tanya's race in which she rode exceptionally well in a decent sized and quality field (which was good to see) and she finished up winning the Bronze medal. All that aerobic training paid off! That capped a great week for Tanya after her Gold medals at the track in the Derby and Scratch races and Silver in the 500m TT.

So my race was looming and as always I start right at the front of the field. These races can be all over red rover in the first lap if you are not attentive.

Here's a map of the circuit:

The orange shows the circuit used and arrows indicate direction. The double corner at the right (Grant St end) was the trickiest - not overly technical but with riders taking some interesting lines it made it a challenge. Certainly any race finishing in a bunch sprint would mean position exiting these corners would be critical.

I kind of figured that made the race a bit of a lottery, so I decided the best thing to do was what I normally do in these races and stay at the pointy end as much as possible, keeping in the top 10 riders and make sure I was going to be in any serious break. I pretty well managed to do that for most of the race.

Several riders attempted to force a break but there were enough willing workers to shut down any attempts (including one by yours truly) but no-one would keep an effort going. Lots of other shadow boxing along the way but nothing was sticking so it was going to end up in a bunch gallop, hence positioning was going to be critical.

With a lap and a bit to go, I was 6th wheel, pretty well perfect position to move up to 2nd or 3rd wheel before entering the final turn and to have a great shot at the sprint. I hit that double corner for the 2nd last time and, well, I left just enough space for someone to attempt an inside run (my mistake), got a bump and had to take evasive action, skipping up and over the side of a strategically placed bail of hay covering the street sign and gutter.

It was a pretty funky maneuver which entertained the crowd and would have made any MTBer proud but the end result was I was now about 15th wheel with a lap to go. Sod it!That's no man's land I'm afraid and by the time I got to exit that last corner the sprint was already well and truly on and 50 meters up the road.

Did I have the legs? Who knows? Nevermind.

Race stats are nothing to shout about - to be honest I didn't think it was all that hard a race.

Crit Nationals 31 March 2007:

CTL:_________80.2
TSB:________+23.8
Duration: ____42:38
Work: _______731 kJ
TSS: ________72.3 (intensity factor 1.009)
Norm Power: 313
VI: __________1.09
Distance: ___30.03 km

_________Min__Max__Avg
Power:____0__1190__286__ watts
Cadence:_23___128___95__ rpm (includes zeros)
Speed:___4.5__54.8__42.3_ kph

What now?

Well they say there's no rest for the wicked. Well since I'm not wicked, I get a couple of pretty easy weeks before it all starts to wind up again in prep for the Worlds in October!

A bit of time to do a season review, sort out the forward race calendar and fix all those things that need fixing. Including a PT track hub that's toast I think....

Read More......

Bronzed Aussie

Crikey!
(with apologies to the late Steve Irwin)

Well I did it. I made the podium at the National Master Track Champs in the MMAS 3 Points Race, finishing in third place behind the super pursuiters of Graeme Albon (NSW - Gold) and Stuart Vaughan (Victoria - Silver).

Having trouble with blogger, so quick report only, hopefully some piccies and a wko file to share next time I report in (we are not allowed to have computers on the bike's bars in mass start track events, so I wired up the PT CPU under the saddle). I will view the file with some interest when I get the chance to download it.

All my buddies had a great championships and they were fantastic in their encouragement and support for me. So a super result. I'm now told I'm entitled to wear the Aussie skinsuit at the worlds in the points race, so that's pretty cool (although it doesn't quite feel right yet I have to admit). Yikes, I better make that final in October!!

It was a pretty brutal race but no laps taken by anyone - no one could do it. Given the quality of the 3 top pursuiters, I was surprised. I picked up points in 5 or 6 of the sprints (finished on 12 I think) and needed to leap frog the 3rd placed rider (Anthony Bishop) in the final sprint, which I did with a good kick to the line and take the bronze.

Thanks to everyone for their help and support - not least of which Ric Stern who's coaching and training is taking me to new levels; but also to Peter Barnard, Tanya Bosch, Alan Townsend, David Willmott, Michelle Crawford and the "mechanic without a cause" - Anthony as well as all the others that cheered me on today. It really helped and I was pleased my result was a popular one.

Congrats also to the other guys in the race who made it a corker! Sluggo said it was the hardest points race he'd ever ridden. I'm not gunna disagree!

Still have a crit to ride but that will be a big unknown quantity.

Cheers
Alex

Read More......

National Lampoon Pursuit

Ouch!

Wow - that hurt. Today was my Individual Pursuit qualifier. I rode a PB, which is good but I was hoping for a better time.

Time was 3:47.770 - about 1/4 second faster than Sydney a fews weeks ago. I set out to ride a 3:45 schedule and was on bang on target at the 1km and 2km marks but the last km got me I'm afraid.

But here's the rub....

Average power: 420W - that's 35+W more than Sydney. I'll have to check the atmospheric conditions but that's a whole lot more power for not much extra speed. Yikes, no wonder I was crawling on the floor looking for somewhere to be sick after that.

Leading riders in my Div were doing low 3:30s. Wow.

World and Australian Masters champs were getting knocked off their perches everywhere today.

Anyway, for the record - here the pursuit file with three second smoothing applied. Click to see a larger version.

When I get more details, I'll post some stuff about my buddies who all did well. Tanya rode her target time (4 seconds better than Sydney) and Michelle won gold with a solid 3:36 in the final as well as catching her opponent.

Tomorrow is sprint day, so I get a day off from competition although I have a ride planned.

Cheers!

Read More......

Which Vector, Victor?

Shirley you can't be serious?

OK, Flying High (aka "Airplane!") jokes aside, not a lot to report today. It's rest day and travel day. The week so far has been all taper. My body usually hates recovery periods, I typically feel dead and sore for a 3-5 days and then come good again once the pressure goes back into the training. This week, apart from a bit of wooden legs while doing warm ups, the legs and body have been pretty good.

Come Monday, when I ride the Individual Pursuit, I'm expecting the legs to say: "We have clearance, Clarence"!

Wednesday will be the points race.

Saturday the Crit.

With any luck I'll be able to post the week's happenings as we go.

"Roger, Roger".

Read More......

A Claytons Power Meter

Older Aussies will know what I mean, recalling that famous '80s TV ad campaign with Jack Thompson delivering the punchline of a joke to his mates at the pub and then asking for a Claytons - "the drink you have when you're not having a drink". The concept of a spirit-like drink without alcohol is strange, I mean if you're gunna consume something that taste like spirits but has no alcohol in it.....

But the term Claytons became part of the local vernacular and so when something isn't the real deal (fair dinkum) or a poor substitute, then it's a Claytons .

So what am I talking about?

Well here's the power file from my first taper workout last night:








That's right, there isn't one. Huh? It was all recorded on my Claytons Power Meter.

Well I did the workout but the PT wiring harness decides that the last week before Championships is the right time to fail.

Now I had some specific efforts, specified by time and power, to do - so I ended up doing them by feel and that's probably OK. I mean we can't all sit there PM watching while rocking round the boards at 49km/h....

I was meant to do a large handful of 90 second efforts at around 320-330W. I figure that's about 4.5 laps or so. I find out later that I was circulating the kilo in around 73-74 seconds, so I think that was a little quick for the target power! Sans aero wheel/helmet - it'd be more like 360W I'd say. Oh well, I did them and wasn't trashed.

Fortunately I have another wiring harness on my road training bike, so it will be moved to the track machine. I have two new harness units on order. I like having spares....

Read More......

Sneaky Peaky

Peter Barnard on my wheel at the Bicisport Track Open last Saturday evening.
Note the "team issue" bikes and PT power meters. We both had some results.

It's been a solid week.

Aerobic Power intervals (VO2 Max work), Lactate Tolerance intervals, high-end tempo and track racing amongst solid endurance workouts. Next up is an endurance ride with a Time Trial pace interval to finish off the week.

Then taper commences. Yay!! Pursuit is nine days away, points race 11 days.

Here's Wednesday night's track workout. APIs in pursuit position followed by some LTIs. Nice n jelly legs after that lot. 10 second smoothing applied to this chart.

Torque zero out again on #1, which you can see by the speed being high but power reading lower than it should. Ongoing issue that torque zero - hub is getting very sensitive ("poor widdle hub") and is changing its zero point way too regularly for my liking. Never used to, so not real sure what's going on there. Saris have no pointers for me unfortunately.

Efforts were not exactly smooth - hard to be perfectly smooth riding a bumpy older outdoor velodrome with variable winds and then there's the traffic to contend with, mostly juniors, so you have to keep your wits about you as they can be a little unpredictable. Best example was the 5th API where I simply had to wait for safe place to over take the motorpacer, while others were sprinting etc etc.

I did try one new thing - using clipless pedals (which was nearly my undoing as one of them is failing and I nearly had to go home before I started). I have replacements thanks to the uber cycle fit specialist, Steve Hogg at cyclefitcentre.com. I want to move to clipless on the track bike, at least for the pusuit, so I can gain just that fraction more aerodynamic advantage. It was good to ride them and make sure my riding position was not impacted.

Anyway, just about at taper and looking forward to exploring some good form in the championships.

Here's Pete again, this time in the invitation motor pace sprint,
where he clocked a 10.74 second flying 200. That got him into the
"Irish Kierin" final with the likes of Ben Kersten, Danny Ellis & co.

Would liked to have had a pic of the finish of my wheelrace heat to show you, where I crossed the line with Danny Ellis but super photo man Dave Lane at Action Snaps didn't capture my brief moment of glory! So here he is chucking a wheelie at the finish line in the wheel v foot race challenge.

Danny Ellis throws his bike into the air on the line but comes up short against
the Ramsgate Sprinter Travis Clark in the Wheels vs Foot challenge.

'til next time, power on!

Read More......

Elimination

A Devilish Ride

In track racing carnivals, there is an event known as “The Elimination”, also known as the “Miss ‘n’ Out Race” or “Devil Takes the Hindmost”.

The race is pretty simple. The bunch rolls out and after one “neutral” lap, one rider is eliminated from the race each lap. The rider withdrawn is the one judged to have had the rear of their rear wheel cross the finish line last.

It’s a crowd favourite, with the action at the back, lots of positioning and mini-sprints going on as riders jostle to stay in the race. There is a race happening every lap and it is quite fun to watch, especially if you have a lively commentator.

It requires plenty of cunning, experience, skill, positioning and a good engine to be successful in this race. There are several ways to ride the race successfully. Two common approaches are to either ride at the front to stay away from the trouble happening behind (which requires a good aerobic engine) or to ride at the back and out manoeuvre and sprint past your hapless opponents (which requires good neuromuscular power and skills). This latter approach is known as “playing the Devil”.

What you don’t want to do is get caught underneath and behind riders, as you have no where to go. Here is an example:

Rider trapped underneath

Notice how the rider above in light blue (a national champion BTW, #78 – the 8 is obscured in this shot) has ended up in a poor position trapped underneath. They are trying to follow wheels to conserve energy but when the time for the sprint to the line, they have limited options and are hoping other riders get caught out. Eventually this will result in elimination. See the result:

and no-where to go.... you're out!

It is not legal in track racing to improve your position in a bike race on the cote d’azure (the blue band on the inside of the track), nor is it legitimate to encroach on a rider who already occupies the sprinter’s lane (between the black and red lines). Trying to get across the line first this way will see the officials pull you from the race quick smart.

For some reason, I’ve become quite good at these races. My general approach is to position well near the front of the pack but sometimes you need to call on other tactics. Things happen very fast and the race is usually pretty quick as well, so riding at the front is quite taxing (but then so is sprinting every lap at the back). Here’s an example of how good positioning can take out a strong rider:

You're gawnnn buddy!

Rider 46 is strong but was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The rider caught underneath was kept there by yours truly just by riding above him. He can’t (legally) escape the trap. This rider went on to win the MMAS 2 points championship recently, so he has a good engine and a sprint to boot. But position is everything is this race of track real estate.

Who was eliminated here?
Hint, it wasn’t me (#44).

What about the power requirements for these races?

Well I can only talk about the grades I ride but here are some stats from my last four elimination races at open track carnivals:

Miss n Out Handicap: 25 Nov 2006 (Placing: 3rd)

Duration: 8:27

TSS: 18.3 (intensity factor 1.139)
Distance: 6.378 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 1131 341 watts

Speed: 6.2 52.6 45.3 kph

Miss'n'out: 3 Feb 2007 (Placing: 2nd)

Duration: 4:47

TSS: 11.9 (intensity factor 1.22)

Distance: 3.718 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 1179 374 watts

Speed: 9.1 58.3 46.6 kph

Elimination: 15 Feb 2007 (Placing: 2nd)

Duration: 5:20

TSS: 11.6 (intensity factor 1.14)

Distance: 3.786 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 1314 345 watts

Speed: 3.9 58 42.5 kph

Elimination: 10 Mar 2007 (Placing: 2nd)

Duration: 7:01

TSS: 18.1 (intensity factor 1.245)

Distance: 5.043 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 1160 361 watts

Speed: 4.2 52.8 43.1 kph

Note the Intensity Factors for these
short races of between 5 and 10 minutes duration:

1.14; 1.22; 1.14 & 1.25, which are
pretty typical for elimination races.

Here’s a sample wko from my most recent elimination race:

A typical miss'n'out power file

I put 10 sec smoothing on the data to show up the regular surge each lap.


And the end result of the last pic above?

Well the young pup took it out in the final sprint but I gave it my all:

Damn. 2nd Again!

Looks like I just haven’t quite managed to do better than 2nd this season in elinination races....

Read More......

Shoot 'em up

OK a few piccies for you! All from the State Masters Track Champs last weekend.

I'll have better resolution and real copies before long but these will suffice for time being. Thanks to David Lane of Action Snaps for being the resident photographer.

OK - one from the points race. Here I am (#52) getting taken up the track a bit in an early sprint by a Hunter rider not holding the lane (tsk tsk). Albon (#44) wide in front, with Gascoyne (orange stripes) behind me on the blue and behind him Bishop (Canberra, blue, white & black jersey) - the three riders that finished 1,2,3. I'm the only one in the shot not riding a rear disk!


Next I'm on the tail of this 3 man breakaway on the way to taking a lap in the 2nd half of the race.

Now for the pursuit. Here's me in the start gate just checking the count down.

And another couple showing me from side on and again riding the turn. I ride pretty good lines, you won't see me ride too far from the black line too often. Some riders ride wide in the straights but I've never perceived any advantage so I just take the shortest route to the finish line.

My aero position could probably use a bit more work. My head needs to come down a little some how and eventually a move to clipless pedals. I just like the security of straps.

And one more - this time a bit of fun at the end of the championship - a team sprint with a couple of buddies. I was 2nd wheel. This is the first changeover - pretty well textbook perfect, except perhaps for the contorted look on my face ! Note - 2 x SRMs and 1 x PT power meter in this team. So we could do an analysis of sorts if we really felt like it!

So there you have it - championship racing! Nationals are in two and a bit weeks.

One more hard week and then my taper starts. Good, getting grumpy lately!

Read More......

Track Champs - Day 3

Toot, Toot!

OK, time for a little horn tooting amongst friends....

I rode a PB in the MMAS3 3km Individual Pursuit today. Stats:

Time: 3:47.9
47.4 km/h avg
384 W avg

CTL 88.4
TSB +11.3

Splits:
1st km: 1:18.86
2nd km: 1:15.23
3rd km: 1:13.75

So I came home strongly. Here's the wko shot (click to see a bigger pic):


Pretty happy with that pacing, especially the start where I seemed to get it just about right. I just bided my time from then and with 1km to go, knew I needed to lift some to beat my set time of 3:48. Very happy to have it in me to do that as so often it's the last km where riders fade badly.

So that's a PB by 2 seconds and by 6 seconds in competition. Still, it didn't get me a finals ride but I'm getting closer and knocking on that door. A 3:45 qualified for bronze ride.

So far I've knocked 18 seconds off my individual pursuit time in the last two years. Guess who's training and racing with a power meter?

Coach & I weren't intending for me to be TSB positive as my taper doesn't start until before Nationals but some poor weather this past week cut me out of some track time and so there you go. A tough couple of weeks ahead of me now.

The two gold medal ride finalists both rode a 3:37 ! That is fast going - they were 2 of the 3 guys that made the podium in yesterday's points race (the other didn't ride the pursuit) in which I got 4th. Some serious engines there.

Others buddies that did really well today:

Michelle C: Gold WMAS 2-4 Individual Pursuit (about 2 secs off a world best time)
Bicisport: Gold 135+ yrs Team Sprint (my club - not me in team, I ain't quick enough!)
Michael P: Gold MMAS4 Individual Pursuit

Nice work from the Tempe track training squad!

Look out Nats.

Read More......

Track Champs - Day 2

Groundhog Day

Day 2 of the NSW State Masters Track Champs.

My buddies did great again today.

Sprints / Derbys

Dave W: Gold in MMAS5 sprint
Peter B: Gold in MMAS4 sprint
Alan T: Silver in MMAS3 sprint
Andrew B: Gold MMAS2 Sprint
Michelle C: Silver in WMAS3 sprint
Tanya B: Silver in WMAS4+ sprint derby

Scratch & Points Races:

Dave W: Gold MMAS5 Scratch race
Michelle C: Gold WMAS 2/3 Scratch Race
Tanya B: Gold WMAS4+ Scratch Race

Way to go guys!

And me....

Well, I have to be satisfied with 4th place in the MMAS3 points race. Would like to have added to the team tally of medals but not to be.

Ended race on 26 points. Manged to get a lap on the field in what I thought was the winning break with Graeme Albon and Charlie Gascoyne but didn't count on the Canberra rider who also got a lap. Was completely cooked - last 25 laps I was just hanging on, thinking my 20 point lap bonus plus sprints was enough for 3rd place but I couldn't go any harder anyway.

Very hot day, difficult to keep fluids up. Was not the smooth rider on the bike that I normally am. Very hard ride for a pretty average power.... Dunno - thought legs might have been better but that was a good effort (have never taken a lap before in a points race). It's another step up as far as I'm concerned. I'll just keep knocking on that door.

Graeme is the benchmark rider (silver medallist at World Masters points race) and he took two laps on the field and Charlie is a hard man who picked up several sprint wins as well as the lap. They were 1st & 2nd. Canberra guy beat me by 4 points. Bummer! Same end result as last year (same 2 of 3 riders in front of me) - at 47km/h average speed, the race was 2km/h faster than last year's.

Pursuit in the morning. This will be interesting....

Read More......

Track Champs - Day 1

Just a real quick one tonight-

Day (evening) 1 of the NSW State Masters Track Champs:

My track training buddies did well in tonight's Track Time Trials:

Dave W: Gold in MMAS5 500m
Peter B: Gold in MMAS4 750m TT
Alan T: Silver in MMAS3 750m TT
(Note: Darren King rode a 48.5 sec 750m to take MMAS3 Gold in a world best time)
Michelle C: Silver in WMAS3 500m TT

and

ta daaa....

Tanya B: Gold in WMAS5+ 500 m TT (0.4sec inside target time). Nice work team!

Now I said she'd do well in my last post on Tanya.

I don't ride the TT. My Points race is tomorrow afternoon but the sprints are first up so hopefully some more precious metals for the squad.

Read More......

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!

Read More......

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.

Read More......

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!!

Read More......

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.....

Read More......

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

Read More......