Winter Performance Testing

Who wants to go out and do a 40K time trial this time of year? Better yet, who wants to do a one hour threshold test on an indoor trainer???

For everyone that went "Eeewwww! I'd rather be stuck in a cage and poked with sharp sticks for an hour" I am developing my own indoor performance testing protocol using a MAP test and a simple follow up field test to round out the power profile.

For starters, my findings and prescriptions are based on the Coggan Power Levels and the teachings of Hunter Allen. I apologize to the both of them in advance for mangling your intellectual property hahaha! But, so far it's working for us, and my friend the ER Doc is interested in my rebel methods, so I'm laying it out for all to see. Hi Suzanne! Keep in mind that I mostly work with amateurs, women, and masters bike racers, so this protocol is developed for us.

I use a CompuTrainer, a PowerTap, and WKO+ power analysis software.

Okay, the first thing I do is estimate the athlete's FTP (functional threshold power - what the rider could do in a well paced 40K time trial). I'll use myself as our example. This past season my FTP stabilized around 300 watts and I figure it has dropped to about 270-280 watts in the off season. We'll be optimistic and go with 280 watts. I take that number and figure my Coggan threshold power level to be 255-296 watts. From there I divide the lower number by 2 and that serves as my starting watts for the MAP test. 255/2=127.5 rounded down to the nearest multiple of five (the CompuTrainer manually goes in 5 watt increments starting at 50 watts) giving us a starting point of 125 watts.

The reason I jump through all these hoops is that I want the test to last from 10-15 minutes, give or take a minute or two. The other part of the equation is I like to do winter training blocks of about six weeks with a rest week between blocks. The testing comes immediately following the rest week.

The other thing about the CompuTrainer, which works out to be a good fast warm-up, is the unit needs to be warmed up at 150 watts for 10 minutes and then a quick calibration is performed. I like to start with some easy spinning at 50 watts and gradually, over the course of 15 minutes, work up to and hold 150 watts for as long as is practicable. For those with higher FTP this means holding 150 for the last 10 minutes. For those with lower FTP this means holding 150 watts for the last minute or so. I also include some high rpm pedaling to shake things loose. Then we do the quick and easy coastdown to calibrate the CompuTrainer and off we go.

I started my test at the previously mentioned 125 watts and hit the +5 watts button every 20 seconds until failure, which last time around was in the 13-14 minute range. Then I do a little easy spinning at 50 watts until my vision returns and the birds stop chirping.

Next I take the PowerTap, download it into WKO+, and find the peak one minute. That is what I consider to be the MAP or roughly power at VO2 max. I averaged 327 watts for my best one minute. I take that number and subtract 15% and use that as my FTP. 327-15% = 278 watts.

Confirmation time. Lucky for us we can usually ride out of doors several days a week, even in the dead of Winter, but the confirmation test can be done on an indoor trainer as well. Just be careful not fall over, or better yet, don't bother with the jumps and sprints and do the one minute intervals seated...

The confirmation test is one five minute all out effort followed by a 20 minute time trial, 2x1:00 flat out, and several hard jumps and sprints. All efforts should be done after a minimum of 5 minutes recovery. More if neccessary.

My five minute test was 320 watts and the 20 minute time trial was 278. The one minute intervals hurt like hell and the better of the two was 530 watts. My best 5 seconds was 1139.

These numbers are solid enough that I can confidently use them as a base for the next block of training. Remember there are no set on/off points between training levels and the grey areas between our metabolic systems are broad enough to absorb the errors of my math. Also, this time of year is about building and maintaining fitness while eliminating race limiters, so if you need to fudge the numbers, err to the conservative side, so when the peak racing season arrives, you can spend like a drunken sailor. I hope this helps!

Until next time, ride fast and swerve...

Think "specificity" when a weather advisory cancels your workout.

So, I was planning on doing the River Ride on Saturday, and was really looking forward to being aggressive and mixing it up, but the weather did not cooperate. 20-30 mph wind with gusts over 40. Now, I like riding in the wind as much as the next bruiser, but I do not go out training when there is a weather advisory in effect.

Period.

End of discussion.

Whaaaah! Booooohoohoo!!!

Now what?

Well, after another near perfect week of training, adding sets and weight in the gym, getting out on the road for some solid threshold work and completing a power profile and MAP test, I decided some race specific work on the rollers would be the ticket. I am considered an endurance racer at the track so I want to work on some race specific endurance. And what do we do in a mass start track endurance race? We go 28-32 mph for 10-30 minutes and sprint at 40 mph. There are many variations on this theme but that is the base we need to have.

So I get on the rollers and crank it up to 30 mph with my watts just below threshold and hold it for ten minutes accelerating to 40 mph at the end. With the low resistance of the rollers it feels like motorpacing or drafting in the pack and even though the sprint wattage numbers are not nearly as big as a live sprint, the effort to bear down and squeeze out that 140 rpm at the end is the same. And to do it repeatedly in my garage with that kind of focus is priceless!

I also cranked out 5 sets of alternative dumbbell exercises to mix it up, including one set of dead lifts. And oooooh, my hammies are barking! Alright, enough trade secrets for one night. Ride fast and swerve!

recovery week

So I am gonna let you in on a little secret. It is in all of the literature but is the most overlooked (or flat out ignored) aspect of training to race at a high level. It is the recovery week. I can't figure why it's so hard to back off and let the body heal itself to come back stronger after a period of hard training. I can't tell you how many times I've heard some jackass proclaim on a group ride that they are just sitting on because they are in a recovery week or on a recovery ride. WRONG! Recovery rides are noodling along for 45-90 minutes on the small ring at 12 MPH. Hello? Did you catch my drift? Cruising along at 18 MPH is NOT a 12 MPH recovery pace.

Anyway, some programs do three weeks hard and one week easy, or two weeks hard and one week easy, or my favorite (especially in the off season), six weeks build with one week easy. What is the use of doing everything right on schedule for six weeks including all of the lifestyle sacrifices we make only to skip the one thing that will make you the fastest...RECOVERY??? Maybe we need to drop the term recovery and use supercompnsation in it's place. "I can't make the group hammerfest tonight because I am supercompensating." It sounds like you are really doing something special. And you are. You do a hard block of training and then you rest. While you are resting your body is coming back stronger than when you started the last block. It's the most basic law of progressive overload. Why interfere? You think your DNA is the exception to the rule? I think not.

So following are my guidelines for my own supercompensation periods...

1. Start by taking a day completely off. No work, no training, period.
2. Continue strength training (you are cross training right?), but only do two days on the current weight and repetition schedule, and only one set of each exercise. This is to keep those hard earned neural pathways turned on.
3. Pay strict adherence to a well balanced diet with a small but consistent calorie deficit. This is a weight maintenance week!
4. 7-10 hours of sleep every night. This is true in all training periods, year round, but is easy to ignore. So I'm reminding you again.
5. Do at least three days of easy spinning for 45-90 minutes at 12 MPH with some granny gear cadence drills of 6x1 minute at 120-140 RPM thrown in to keep those hard earned neural pathways turned on.
6. End the week with a power profile test and record your body measurements.
7. Learn a new skill or do some homework that will help you accomplish your goals for next year. I am learning how to use a computrainer to do MAP testing and torture my friends and clients.

Okay, off to bed I go. Toodle pip and cheerio. Ride fast and swerve!

specificity...so, what do YOU want to do?

This season was an experiment to see what would happen if I tried to be two completely different types of racer in one year. The first half was an ultra-endurance road racing season which culminated in a 272 miles effort at the Davis 24 Hour Challenge on May 2-3. I did some HUGE solo rides and some randonnées in the six months preparing for that. The biggest question, with an eye to the Furnace Creek 508, was could I ride through the night without going mental. The answer is yes, so there is some unfinished business there, with the possibility of the 508 in 2014. The second half of the season was dedicated to racing on the track with the focus being on becoming an all around omnium racer. I had some respectable rides in both disciplines, but not one ride was totally satisfying. I never really found my legs on the ultra rides and then I never got out from under the fatigue of the long stuff when it came time to go fast at the track. But it was a calculated risk and I never embarrassed myself, so I must rate the season a success. Especially considering the great support I received and the friendships that developed over the course of a looooong year. Training began on October 20, ended on September 18, and included 21 race days.

Somewhere over the course of the summer I decided that I would really like to give track racing a try. It was probably in the Hellyer tent at Alpenrose that I knew for sure that the next few seasons would have a single focus. After nine years of dabbling in many different kinds of racing I am dedicating all available resources to pedalling fast and turning left.

So what, specifically, does that mean as it relates to training? Well, for starters, we need to define the characteristics of the races we want to do. I like the idea of becoming a well rounded track racer that can do well in the omnium format. The typical races at an omnium are the time trials, the mass starts, and the sprint events.

The time trials consist of the flying 200m, the flying lap, the 500m 750m or kilo from a standing start, and the 2K 3K or 4K Pursuit also from a standing start. All of these require us to make a big acceleration and then hold on for dear life. Some winning riders will get up to speed then hold a consistent pace for the remainder of the race while others will consistently accelerate all the way to the finish.

The mass starts are the miss and out, the scratch race, and the points race. In the miss and out we sprint every one or two laps until we are one of the last three standing and then we sprint again for the podium spots. The scratch race is like a criterium, they specify the number of laps and the first one across the line on the final lap is the winner. The points race is the same as a scratch race except every few laps we sprint for points (4,3,2,1) and the rider that collects the most points throughout the race wins. The mass starts can last anywhere from ten minutes to an hour.

The sprint events are the match sprint and the keirin. The match sprint is a tournament where 2-4 riders race at a time in heats until the last two standing race for the win. The keirin is also raced in heats but in groups of six with the final race competing for the top six places. The match sprints are two or three laps from a standing start and the keirin is motor paced for 5-10 laps until the final 500m when the motor pulls off, signaling the mad dash to the end.

So basically what we need is a well developed aerobic system, steady power at VO2max, a highly repeatable anaerobic capacity, and a vicious sprint...all with one gear and no brakes. So for me that means I will spin a 96 inch gear (50x14) at 28 to 32 mph for many minutes with a cadence in the 100-110 range. For power at VO2 max I want to do the same but with my nose in the wind for 2-8 minutes. The anaerobic capacity efforts are 20 seconds to two minutes at 32-36 mph and the rider who can do 10-20 in an evening gets to dish the pain. And finally the vicious sprint should top out around 40 mph at a cadence of about 140 rpm. And if that's not enough to think about we will want to do all of this madness for 3-5 days in a row on consecutive weekends. It's gonna be a fun year! Until next time, ride fast and swerve!

Winter Training...a week in the life

I've been asked several times recently what it is we are trying to do with our training this time of year. The more I think about it the more I realize that training to race at the national level is as much about lifestyle management as it is about repeating race winning moves. It's about all of the little decisions we make on an hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year basis. What I am trying to do (and why I charge 300 bucks a month for coaching) is integrate several different systems, each with it's own set of rules, unspoken truths, and limitations. A book could be written, and maybe I should do a separate post, about each. These systems include but are not limited to:

1. social network - family, friends, and colleagues
2. bio energetics
3. bio mechanics
4. health, nutrition, and hygiene
5. bicycle equipment and maintenance
6. training tactics and logistics
7. race day tactics and logistics

So with all of that in mind, following is a typical week for this time of year...

Monday - endurance ride and strength training, this is my work at home day so I have been cooking beans and rice and chicken for the week, in addition to maintaining our equipment

Tuesday - recovery ride to the shop, recovery ride home

Wednesday - recovery ride to the shop, recovery ride home, strength training with cadence drills on the rollers

Thursday - morning bike training of jumps and 2x20:00 sweet spot intervals on the way to the shop, recovery ride home

Friday - recovery ride to the shop, recovery ride home, and strength training with cadence drills on the rollers

Saturday - River Ride, hill ride, or mixed intervals and no matter what the format several sprints, then free play time from about 2PM on...

Sunday - The Day of Rest - Farmers Market and quality time with the family - lately Dillon and I have been working on bunnyhopping our BMX bikes, it's an active lifestyle day but no training or commuting

Our focus is on the three cycling basics - endurance, force, and speed skill. We will continue this early winter phase through the holidays, then change it up the first of the year adding some threshold and VO2 max work. Everything we do is specifically geared toward a successful 2010 track racing season.

This time of year recovery is key. We are always recovering to 100%. We are always avoiding illness. We are always sleeping 7-10 hours per night. We are always fine tuning our diet and eating mostly nutritious food. We count calories and percentages of macro nutrients six days a week. And there is absolutely no stacking workouts or block training.

Alrighty then, that's it for now. Until next time, ride fast and swerve!

Winter Training Day 1

Oh my God what a beautiful day to officially start winter training for 2010! On the plate today was 3-4 hours at a good solid endurance pace. So I cued up Verdi's Otello (yes for you Shakespeare scholars it is missing an "h"...maybe you can tell me why?) and headed out to do a quick warm-up then 3 hours, with each hour being 10 watts harder than the previous. At the start of the first hour I dialed up 190 watts with a nice steady 95ish cadence and waited for the heart rate to settle. After about 20 minutes, when everything seemed to be running well, I began to razor it up to the two hour mark and then I dumped it into the 50x14 and proceeded to hold on for dear life. You can see the watts and speed hold steady and then begin to decline while the heart rate steadily drifted up up up until I was almost at threshold heart rate for the final 10 minutes. This time of year that cardiac drift is the marker I like to watch. Once I can ramp the watts all the way to the end AND have my heart rate stay parallel to the effort, then I know I am ready for hard tempo intervals and some sweet spot training.

In the evening was weight training. I am up to two sets of 12 squats with 185 lbs. I was a little worried that today's workout would make the gym work difficult but I was pleasantly surprised to find this not to be the case. Right now I'm doing squats, incline pull-ups, push-ups, back extensions and crunches...2 sets of 12-20 reps of each and really concentrating on form. In and out in about an hour then off to the hot tub! Tomorrow is a working rest day with 90 minutes of commuting at 12 mph. Hopefully I'll be back to full strength for another hard workout on Thursday, in addition to weights on Wednesday and Friday. Until then, ride fast and swerve!

favorite cycling accomplishments of 2009

1. coached Katie over the winter to hang with the big girls in 2009
2. coached Andy to some good results in ultra-endurance MTB events
3. built up to and competed in a 24 hour solo road race
4. held my own at the American Velodrome Challenge at Hellyer
5. held my own at the Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge placing 5th in the points race
6. learned how to race omniums and collected plenty of data for my 2010 campaign
7. made many new friends in the track racing community
8. had Rick Adams describe my last points race of the season as brilliant
9. learned how to periodize training programs for all types of athletes and races
10. finally started a sensible and sustainable strength program
11. celebrated ten years of freedom from alcohol
12. celebrated one year at a job that I love
13. began racing on custom fitted handmade bicycles
14. learned that most people are incapable of hearing the truth, hear only what they want to hear, and project their own bullshit on to others...and that's okay