Recovery Day

Well, it is recovery day again, and in a recovery week no less. So it is a good time to look back and to look ahead I think.

Looking back, I feel that I've made some real progress this spring. I've completed my first goal ride, beating my weight and time goals for the effort. I've also completed my longest, by mileage, ride ever and set my new personal best average speed for a ride over 1 hour in length. Then I went out on a different route and upped my best average speed to 18.7 mph, so I'm going further and faster than last year by a wide margin. For example, on the same course as my first goal ride, this year's speed was 2.1 mph faster than last year. Granted, I was 35 lbs heavier at the time, but that is still a great improvement in speed I think. And now I've done rides, over different routes, at nearly .5 mph faster still and over a longer distance.

Today I discovered something new that is offered by TrainingPeaks.com. You can setup your workout information so that other folks can look at some of the data and notes for the training rides you enter information about. So I went ahead and set that up. You can find that information here. I don't know as many folks will have cause to look at it, but it is there if you want to.

In looking ahead today, I realized that my training plan wasn't necessarily giving me the long rides I needed to build endurance for my 134 mile goal ride for late August. I posted on the TrainingPeaks forums asking if I should continue to build my longest ride of the week by 10% or so and 'steal' the time from the other rides, trying to keep somewhere near my hours per week. I was told that was definitely the way to go, so I've gone in and redone my schedule for the next couple months. That is another nice thing about TrainingPeaks. You can go in and schedule workouts as far in advance in the year as you'd like and then go back and change things if your fitness or goals change. At any rate, I adjusted my schedule so I'm adding the 10% or so to my long rides and decreased the duration on some of the other rides that are higher intensity workouts. I may have to do a fewer number of intervals to make the workouts fit, but if I run a bit over I'm not too worried. I'll be over on the scheduled time just from doing the commuting I'm hoping to do this summer. That could be as much as 3 hours per week. Anyway, here is a graph of what my training hours are for the next couple of months. The blue line is my long ride of the week while the pink line is weekly training hours. This pink line also includes roughly one hour per week of strength training.

Now of course I need to figure out some new training routes to match up with the new longer duration rides so I can avoid doing multiple laps of my current routes.

Recovery Ride? Endurance Ride? Somewhere in between?

Today's ride is described like this: "Ride in 1-2 zone, mostly 1 zone. Flat course. Low effort--light on pedals. Comfortably high rpm. "

Zone 1 is recovery, zone 2 is endurance, so I guess this ride is somewhere in between, maybe leaning more towards recovery since it says 'mostly 1 zone'. So I went out and did my North Danville loop, which used to be a much longer duration ride for me last year. Last year it took me nearly 1.5 hours to do the loop, this year it is less than 1 hour. In fact, even on a recovery ride like today I was fast enough that I needed to add on a loop out on a dirt road (an old training route when I first started riding again and could only manage a couple of miles [2.8 to be exact]) near my house. The ride was interupted for a bit when I apparently picked up a small very thin piece of wire that worked through the tire and popped the tube. I changed the tube and continued on my way and finished the ride in almost exactly the 1:11 of rolling time the workout called for.

Today was also a day for a commute to work, or another chance to get some time on the bike. I'm trying to keep my commutes to the same standards as my daily workouts, so the commute I tried to keep in zones 1 and 2, mostly zone 2. This is a little more challenging on commute because of the short time period (less than 30 minutes generally for both trips) and the fact that 2 miles of the return trip is an average 4% grade with peak of 12%. But, according to my HAC4, I kept my HR to an average of 104 with a max of 128, the average being in zone 1 and the max being in zone 2. In fact, 0:19:34 was spent in zone 1 with only 0:06:11 in zone 2, so not too bad really.

Tomorrow is a rest day which I'm looking forward to actually. One of my goals this week is to get as much recovery time as I can so I can do well on my TT on Saturday. It will be my first test since switching coaching systems and I probably need to get my more accurate ranges set. That is sort of one of the downsides of TrainingPeaks is that I have TT tests every 3 weeks, but on the other hand they are not the 'super threshold' ones the CTS has. At least that is my feeling before actually doing one. Since the tests are 4 times the length of the CTS ones, you really have to watch the pacing and find a level you can sustain. With the CTS ones it always seemed like it was 'go as hard as you can as fast as you can'. I just never seemed to get into that level of effort. It may be that its just because I have a power meter now and can see the actual effort I'm putting out and will be able to better pace myself.

My plan for right now is to start out the first 5 minutes getting going and working up to a level about 5% above what I've been using as my threshold power (292W). Then the next 20 minutes I want to try and hold 320 W, give or take, maybe a bit higher so that the inevitable downhills won't kill my average too much. The last 5 minutes I wan to try and work my power up say 10 W per minute until the last 30 - 60 seconds when I'll try to go all out and sprint to a finish. That's the plan anyway. We'll see how it works out on Saturday.

Memorial Day Ride

The image to the left is my Mean Maximal Power graph for my ride on Memorial Day. The description of it is the same as my ride from Saturday, except for the duration:
"Group ride. Sit-in today. No hard, sustained pulls. Mostly CP60-CP180. Avoid power harder than CP30. "

Since I didn't have a group to ride with, I just went out and tried to keep to the power ranges suggested. I think I did a pretty good job at it actually. Only one thing kept me from having a higher value on the right hand side of the graph. During the ride I caught up with one of the folks from the cycling group I ride with when I am able to get time off from work to ride with them. I rode with him for about 20 minutes at a lower pace than I had been going. I figured the experience of riding around another person outweighed the little time I lost out on at a bit higher intensity.

The course I rode is actually about the flatest course I have around here, with an average gradient of only .2% with a maximum climb of around 14%. Compare this to my ride on Saturday which had an average gradient of .7% with a max of 10%, or with my Barnet loop course which averages 1.4% with a max of 11.2%. Anyway, for here it is a flat course. Unfortunately much of it goes through villages, making it difficult to use for TT and tests.

Even with the 20 minutes (about 16% of the ride time) at the slower pace, I still had my fastest average speed of 18.7mph. I think next time I do this workout on this route I could average 19mph or higher. Someday I hope to average 20mph+ on a ride of more than 1 hour.

At any rate, as you can see from the graph, power was pretty consistent at the longer durations. Not quite sure why I have the levels dropping down regularly on the left side of the graph, but it is sort of cool to look at.

One thing I'm finding with these 'group' rides is that it is quite challenging, not to mention hard work, to maintain a more or less level power output through varied terrain and to keep pushing that level of power for extended periods. I definitely feel like I'm working on my muscular endurance which I think is something that has been holding me back.

Recovery Ride

Well, one thing about riding with a young riding partner. You definitely take it easy on your recovery days. This is me and Sammy (I'm in the blue shirt) at the turn around point on our ride this morning. To underscore how easy we were taking it, my average power for the ride was all of 70 watts and my HR never got out of my recovery zone (highest HR was 108, a good 9 bpm below my Recovery ceiling). In a way that is pretty pleasing to me since the ride has 1000' of climbing in it, one about .7 miles long averaging 5% or so. Used to be going up that hill at 5-6mph would push my HR up as high as I'd want it to go (higher than I really wanted it to truth be told) and now I can do the same hill at the same speed with a HR 50bpm lower. I guess that is progress.

He is still very new to cycling so we don't generally go very far or very fast. Today was our longest ride together at 14 miles in 1:40:00 of rolling time. This is pretty typical of our rides as far as speed goes actually. We generally go out on Sunday's to ride and in fact this was the first Sunday when it was sunny and warm. Average temperature for the ride according to my HAC4 was 80 degrees and it felt pretty humid, but when we were moving it was nice.

Really a gorgeous day to be out on the bike. I almost wish that I was doing a longer ride today but thats not how my schedule is set up. I've got a recovery week coming up, with the long ride supposedly tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will co-operate but if not I'll switch the ride to Tuesday which looks to be better weather.

Longest Ride of the Year (so far)

Today my schedule called for a 4 hour ride. The description was for a group ride but with no hard pulls and to keep generally in the CP60-CP180 range. Since to get the range you take +/- 5% from the value you have for that range, I had a target for the day of 209 to 257W. I also needed to avoid going above the CP30 range which has a top end of 306W.

I sort of figured it would be a tough ride to maintain that wattage range for the entire ride given it was scheduled for an hour longer than the duration of the lower end of the scheduled range. I was right.

I decided I needed a new route as nothing I had done so far would give me quite the mileage I figured I would need. I guessed I'd need something in the 65+ mile range, preferably a loop since I don't much care for out and backs if I can avoid them, which isn't often enough. I settled on extending a previous loop I've done for 3:30 rides which is 61 miles. Looking at the map I saw I could go to the next town further north and add about 10 miles to the loop, which would be just about perfect. I hadn't ridden most of the route so I wasn't sure what to expect but I was confident I could handle whatever was there. The image above is the profile of the route. As can be seen, there are no real long steep climbs, but a fair number of gentle rises with maybe some steeper sections that didn't affect the average gradient too much. I think the steepest was around 4% over any distance and of course that came towards the end of the ride. The total climbing for this route was just under 3000', so not flat by any means.

I discovered that you cannot always trust the weather radar. I checked the forecast and radar before heading out and there was no mention of rain and there was no green stuff on the radar image. So needless to say I was a little surprised to get pretty well rained on for 30 minutes to an hour in the middle portion of the ride. Luckily I had brought my wind vest and arm warmers. The vest I had actually put on shortly after heading out as it was damp and the wind chill made it fairly cool. I stopped once the rain started coming down to put the arm warmers on and to work out a covering for the PowerTap computer since I really didn't want that to come to harm from the wet conditions. The temperature dropped considerably during the rain shower, from the 70's to the mid 50's. Luckily it stopped raining and the temperature went back up after I made the turn to head back south. The sun even came back out eventually and I had to push down the arm warmers and unzip the vest a bit.

I have to say I was generally very pleased with how this ride turned out. I averaged 211W for the 3:51:00 or so it took me to run the 71.55 mile route. Just inside my range, but inside it none the less. I set a new max for my CP90, 229W. I'm not sure if I could have pushed much harder for the duration of the ride, but I know now that I can push a consistent pace even when my legs are hurting.

Power output was pretty consistent too. The first half of the ride I averaged 216W while in the second half I averaged 208W. Also, in looking at the CP values for various lengths of time, they are generally in a 10% range. Best 6 minutes was 250W, 12 minutes was 239W, 30 minutes was 236W, 60 minutes was 231W. So pretty danged consistent I think.

This ride also gave me my best average speed, this year for certain and I'm pretty sure its my best ever for a ride over an hour. I averaged 18.6 mph over the four hours of the ride. One interesting thing is that my average speed was better in the second half of the ride, being about 2 mph faster than the first half. I guess the extra descents more than balanced out the somewhat steeper climbs. I'm really looking forward to when my average speed for a comparable route is up over 20 mph. That will happen sometime this summer I think.

This ride and power output gave me a TSS of 230 or so (I don't have CyclingPeaks in front of me to double check) so I'm glad I have a recovery ride tomorrow. Then I move into a recovery week with my first 30 minute TT. Still trying to decide what route to use, though I've narrowed it down to two I think. Either the North Danville Loop which I've considered doing as a TT route or perhaps the relatively flat section in todays ride located around the 45 mile mark of the ride. It actually has about a .5% grade on average but I was still able to crank out some watts on the descent so that might be my best bet for an out and back route.

Short Hill Climbs

Another great day for biking. Sunny, just a tad humid but temperatures were comfortable. My scheduled workout was something sort of new. It called for a series of short, 1 to 2 minute, hill climbs. The target power was in the 350W range and the cadence was to be 50-55. So pretty similar to MuscleTensions with CTS but much shorter in duration.

One thing I liked about this workout was that it is designed so you just do the climbs at the prescribed intensity and cadence as you come to the hills, so you don't have to find a hill long enough to do 10-15 minute intervals. While the area I live is hilly, they are all relatively short. It took me quite awhile to find one that I thought I could do 10 minute ClimbingRepeats on and even that turned out to be 3 minutes too short. On the down side, the description doesn't give a specific number to do, just "a series of 1 to 2 minute hills". I ended up doing 5 of them and averaged right in the range I was supposed to be in. I compare these to the last MuscleTension workout I did on the trainer, and think I got at least as good a workout despite only getting about 1/5 the time of the intervals. The last MT intervals I did I only averaged about 210W, which was all I could get from my trainer at that cadence, even with the resistance as high as it could go and the gearing as hard as possible.

At any rate, I really felt this workout in my legs. I tried to keep in mind the correct form and bring all the muscles in my legs to bear, with sort of mixed results. I think the quads got the brunt of it, but the hip flexors and glutes got some at least.

I did one of my 'usual' routes, a 30.66 mile one, and I got my best time on it, 1hr and 44min which is about 5 minutes faster than my previous best and something like 30 minutes faster than the first time I did it last year. Not bad for a relatively short course. Someday I'll have to try doing this loop, along with some others, at a race pace just to see how fast I can finish it.

I know I definitely want to do the North Danville Loop, 16 miles, as a time trial someday just for fun. Odd sense of fun maybe, but it'd be fun to see how hard I could push myself. I wonder if I could actually maintain my LTP for the full time it would take. It would likely be considerably less than an hour since I do it in less time than that now without going full out. Hmm, maybe I'll use that as my 30 min TT test next week.

Anyway, my notes for today:

Another nice day for a ride. Comfortably warm and a bit humid maybe. Rode a bit earlier today as the forecast was calling for thunderstorms this afternoon. Rode the Danville-Peacham-Barnet loop.

Did five repeats of the hill climbs described in the workout description. Was shooting for about 350 watts and a cadence of right around 50. For the five intervals I did, I averaged overall a 53 rpm cadence and 346 watts, so right on target. Really felt it in my thighs, more so that I did the last set of MT I did on the trainer where I only averaged around 220 watts.

Having a real hill definitely makes a difference. Did these five intervals on the hills from Dole Hill til the one leading up into Peacham. I can still feel the effort in my legs now 30 minutes after the ride ended.

Drank 1 bottle of sports drink and a bottle of water and ate a powerbar harvest. Did pretty well eating a dinking regularly. I find eating is easier to some extent than drinking so I may rethink my calorie intake in that light and split my drink between sports drink and water and take more powerbars or other solid food.

Had the peregrine falcon swoop down on me as I passed their nest going over Barnet Mountain. Overall I think I did a good job today, keep my pace right about where it was supposed to be. Workout called for generally cp90-cp180 which with the numbers I have in place now would be something like 209W - 239W. My average power for the day was 216, so right in the range. I'm pretty sure this is my best time for this route.

Corner Sprints

Today was a simply gorgeous day to be out on the bike. Sun was shinging and it was in the mid-70's with just a bit of a breeze. Today's workout was something new from the TrainingPeaks plan, something I'll call corner sprints. To do them you basically sprint into and out of a corner, going hard about 4 seconds on either end, more or less. It is considered a 'SpeedSkill' drill, which is definitely something I need to work on.

Especially as I may have a chance to do some training criteriums later this summer. On the group ride on Tuesday, John mentioned that someone in the bike shop where I bought my new shoes is trying to organize a training criterium series on Sunday afternoons. I need to call this person, John called him "Big Ring" Bob, and get the information. I have to say that I'm a bit nervous about the idea of doing criteriums, but it should be some fun if I can work up the nerve to actually enter one.

Anyway, back to today's ride. I managed to set a new 5 sec current peak power high of 931 watts. My short term goal for this is 1000W which I don't know if that is good bad or otherwise, but it is progress. Only other interesting thing that stands out from my ride is having a flock of geese hiss at me from the side of the road as I went by them. For a moment I was worried They were going to come out after me, but they just sat there and hissed. Also did a bike commute to work tonight which was fun. Its actually not taking me all that much longer to do the round trip by bike than it does by car, and every time I do the bike commute it saves me about $1.00 in gas. I'm thinking I'll rearrange my grocery shopping schedule to do that on Wednesday which is the one day I have to use the car since I have so much stuff I take to work with me. That way I could, weather permitting, ride the bike the other 5 days I work.

So here are my notes from both my afternoon training ride and my commute:

Training Ride:

Gorgeous day for a ride. Started out with arm warmers and wind vest as it was quite windy and only in the mid sixties. By the time I was less than 10 minutes out, I had stuffed the vest in my pocket and pushed the arm warmers down. A little breezy with SW winds gusting to 10 mph or so.

Did my corner sprints in Danville at the spot I found the other day. First attempt I pulled right out of the rightside clip, so the numbers there aren't the best, 622W in and 565W out. I did three more sets that were pretty consitent. They had the following average watts:
In Out
820 858
842 931
822 790
760 810
I could maybe have done a couple more, but I was uncertain how many 'several' is and I felt like I was losing power on the last one, though looking at the numbers I hadn't lost that much.

After finishing the intervals I rode out Rte 2 to Walden and turned around and came back. Tried to keep power right around 220 on the return trip. Did Walden to West Danville down on the drops.

Hit my highest speed ever on the bike today, 47mph coming down out of Danville. Pretty exhillirating.

Interesting note, on the way to Walden I was hissed at by a flock of geese sitting along the side of the road. I thought for a moment they were going to jump out at me. I understand their bites can be painful.

Commute:
Pushed pretty hard on the commute, both out and back. Total time was my best for the commute so far. The last two times I have data for, on May 11 and 9th the times were 24:25 and 28:11. Was a little chilly coming home, with the temp around 57. Should have put my vest on but didn't think I'd need it.

Tuesday is Twice the Fun

This entry is for Tuesday, May 23rd.

Double the workout, double your fun!

This was my first day following a new training program from TrainingPeaks. The workout was realtively short, but intense. The name on TP for it is "Shifting Cruise Intervals", but I've seen the same workout called "OverUnders" in other places. I did this workout in the early afternoon then went home and rested as I had my second ever group ride that evening.

So, my notes for the 'main' workout today:
After replacing the tire on the rear wheel I headed out for todays first ride.

Rode the North Danville Loop, repeating the flat from Rte 2 to North Danville twice to get the intervals in. Forgot to use the aero position (down on the drops for me) in the first couple intervals, but the last 3 were down. Was a good solid workout I though.

I'm still having to 'guestimate' on power ranges for this sort of thing but I think I got it pretty close judging from the results. The last interval was within a couple of percent on average power compared to the third interval, so I probably could have done another interval but as it was it worked out well on time and I got the time in the intervals that was assigned, between 30 and 40 minutes.

Some of the intervals ended up going longer than the 8 minutes in the description but I was losing track of how many ups and downs I'd done. Something to work on. Also didn't drink enough sports drink, only about 1 bottle for the 1.5 hr ride and only ate half the powerbar. I still find it hard to eat and drink properly when doing intervals. Had one odd spike in power up to like 1400 watts which is probably not accurate so I edited it out.

Odd thing just happened as I was working on my notes. Heard a loud bang from downstairs. Apparently I had pinched the tube in the rear tire when I replaced the tire this morning and it finally popped. Its got a 4" split in it so no way to patch that.

My average power for each of the intervals was 300W with the intervals lasting an average of 8 minutes. This would put me roughly at 290 for the 'under' part and 320 for the 'over' part, which is just what I was shooting for. Total time in the intervals was about 33'.

Notes for the group ride:
Well, this was quite a bit harder than I was planning on, but fun. Only 3 folks showed up, including me, so was a fair amount of work for each of us even though we didn't nail it the entire time. Normalized power was 223W which is about my average for a solo endurance ride. Tried to keep my pulls fairly even but given the terrain up over Severance Hill, this was difficult. Should have downloaded the file to a seperate day so I could upload it, but maybe I can do that anyway using different software since CP put the group ride and the workout this afternoon together.

Anyway, still not totally comfortable with riding close enough to get the full effect of the draft of the rider(s) in front of me, but I felt like I made progress. I would slip out of the draft to slow down some rather than always use the brakes, and this seemed to work pretty well most of the time. Need to work on my pacing though when I taking a pull since I'm not sure its terribly even and I have a tendency to go too hard especially on the hills.

Had a lot of fun though.

Averaged only 164W during the ride but had a peak of 692W during the steep climb. CP said my normalized power was 237W or so, which indicates I was working pretty hard during parts of the ride I guess.

Changing Coaching Systems

Well, sometimes I guess you just need a change.

I have been working with Carmichael Training Systems for about six months now and there are parts of the service they offer that I really like, such as the support that can be found in their forums. There are parts that, as a 'Classic' package member, I have become disillusioned with I guess is the best way to put it.

After completing my first 'goal ride', I wanted to make sure that my upcoming schedules were geared towards my new event, which is a 200km solo ride, so I sent an email to CTS member services. The response I got was that essentially there was no 'goal type' to be reset as training plans are generated solely based on your sport. This is sort of disappointing to me, especially given the $39 per month charge for the service. The reason for the disappointment is that if this is the case then the training program generated for someone doing a century is the same as someone training for a 60 mile road race is the same as someone training for a 40km time trial is the same as someone training for a criterium. While there are some things that are common to all of these events, namely the need for endurance, they each have their own peculiarities and I don't believe they can be addressed adequately with a one size fits all training program.

So I investigated TrainingPeaks.com as it appears to be associated with CyclingPeaks who make the software I use to get the most from my PowerTap. I had recently, Sunday in fact, picked up Joe Friel's "Cyclist's Training Bible" and apparently the TrainingPeaks site uses it as the basis for the training plans that are developed. So I played around with their site for a bit, actually I started playing around with it last week, and found a number of things I liked and that are more user friendly, at least for me, than the CTS system.

First is that you can have any number of events, classify those events as A, B, or C and their Virtual Coach system will lay out your training blocks in a way that allows you to have a proper peaking period for your 'A' events, a lesser rest for your 'B' events and use 'C' events as training events. You can also see the entire year at a glance to see how the periods change to have a greater sense of what the program is heading for.

Secondly, you can upload either the data files downloaded from your PowerTap or other cycling computer or heart rate monitor, directly to your log on the site, saving you from having to enter data if you have a device they support. Or if you use CyclingPeaks you can upload the day's file from that which will also copy your notes to the online log. In the case of uploading power data, it also automatically updates your critical power ranges used for workout intensities so that you can easily see what power level a given workout should be done at.

Thirdly, there is a nutrition log that allows you to enter the foods you eat and keeps track of macro nutrients and compares them to your RMR+ the calories burned through exercise. It has default values for calories burned per hour of exercise that you can modify to suit your situation or you can override this in the training log with the results from the power meter if you use one. The only issue I have with the nutrition log is that there is no place to enter in calories burned from regular daily activities, but I found a way around that easily enough by adding a 'RestDay' workout to my day and putting the calories I burned from daily events there. This also gives me a seperate place to put non-training notes in.

Lastly the pricing is less expensive than CTS. I went with a 3 month subscription which cost me $49, so $10 more than CTS but for a period of time 3 times as long. CTS: $39 for 1 month compared to TrainingPeaks: $49 for 3 months. If you wanted to pay a year at a time the deal is even better, working out to something between $9 and $10 per month.

The one downside I've come across is that the community on their forums is not as active or supportive as that on CTS, but I can live with that.

Somedays you should listen to the omens

This post is for Monday, May 22nd.

Well, today was a day where I guess a long ride wasn't meant to be.

Started off getting ready at 11am. Got everything on the bike and went out and found that once I finally got my new shoes clipped in to a pedal I couldn't get it out. Nearly broke the shoe getting it off the pedal and had to take the pedal partially apart to finally get it off. Tried swtiching pedals from the MTB to the road bike but couldn't get the pedals off the Trek to swap them out. So changed the cleats from the mountain shoes to the road shoes and finally got off a little after noon.

So an hour messing around with stuff. Anyway, so I get out on the road and head out Rte 2 towards Lancaster. I work on the FastPedal intervals, getting used to the different feel of the new shoes. I was bouncing a litle when cadence got up around 120 when there was little load on the pedals. Not sure if I need to adjust fit because of the shoes or not.

Just before my last FP interval I must have caught something with the rear tire because it flatted, loudly. Something had cut into the sidewall of the tire and punctured the tube. Called for Mom to come get me. THen I remembered something my boss had said so I tried to jury rig the tire using a piece of powerbar wrapped to help keep the tube in the tire at the cut. Oddly enough it seemed to work so I replaced the tube and remounted the tire and started back towards town, watching for Mom. I guess the ride wasn't meant to be. I'll end up rescheduling the long ride another day later this week.

Daddy needs a new pair of shoes

After my ride today I took a trip over to the town that has one of the better LBS in it. My main goal was to go to the very nice bookshop that is in the same town to buy Joe Friel's "The Cyclist's Training Bible". While I was there I also picked up a book called "The Rider" by Tim Krabbe which I have heard good things about.

After visiting the bookstore I went to the LBS and ended up getting my first pair of road cycling shoes. I've been wearing a pair of Shimano MTB shoes as a friend recommended them as a good place to start since they are easier to walk in than road shoes. I felt it was time to 'upgrade' my footwear and ended up buying an inexpensive, relatively speaking, pair of Specialized Sport Road shoes using their BodyGeometry system and the correct insoles for my feet. They are supposed to balance out how the leg is aligned when pedaling so that you pedal straight up and down rather than the knee tending to push in as you push down. The little blurb on the tag from the shoes reads:

Body Geometry
Biomechanically Correct Shoe Design
Co-developed with Dr. Andy Pruitt, sports medicine expert and Director of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine. Based on three dimensional studies of the pedalling motion, this patented technology is deisgned to measurably increase performance, reduce injuries and increase comfort.

We'll have to see how they work out on a long, 3:30:00, ride tomorrow, assuming the showers miss me.

Recovery Day

You know, sometimes recovery days are the best days on the bike, in spite of the fact that I sometimes find it hard to go that slow. They are days I can just tool along and enjoy looking around.

Things like 'chasing' a pair of birds along a fence line. They would take off as I approached but fly along the fence in the direction I was travelling so that when I got to them they would take off again. This happened several times which I thought was amusing.

Or inadvertantly startling a couple of young horse when I called out "Hello horsies" as I went by.

So here are my notes from this ride:
Rode out Rte 2 to Danville then down Brainard St to Joe's Brook Road. Took a bit of an alternate route rather than going up the short steep hill into town. Took the left turn at the bottom of the hill that went through a residential area, much lower gradient. Has a nice corner there to practice on maybe. Was a bit breezy and a little cool, but was nice. Recovery rides are fun because I really feel like I'm just enjoying the time on the bike rather than having to 'accomplish' something. SOmetimes it is hard to take it this easy, but its a nice change. Drank 1 bottle of water during ride.

My Staple Food - Bread

It's funny. I haven't bought bread in a store for about 6 months. Not since I discovered/modified a very basic bread recipe that suits me very well. I got the original form of the recipe from watching "Good Eats" on the Food Network. The recipe is for a rustic round loaf and takes a day to make (includes an overnight prep time), which is really way to long for me.

So I experimented to see if it would work in my bread machine. I have an older one, but it has a timer on it which is perfect so I can put bread going in the evening and wake up to the smell of fresh baked bread in the morning. I've tweaked the recipe and method a bit to fit my bread machine, but it has remained largely the same. It makes a nearly perfect loaf almost every time. Sometimes if the humidity is a bit higher or I put in a bit too much liquid, the top will collapse, but by and large it makes a nice smooth loaf.

Ingredients:
8 oz Whole Wheat Flour (by weight)
8 oz Bread Flour (by weight)
1 oz molasses (by weight)
9.5 oz lukewarm water (by weight)
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1.5 teaspoons yeast

Pretty short ingredients list huh? To make the bread is pretty simple. I measure out the molasses into a medium sized bowl and add to it the warm water and kosher salt. I then wisk these ingredients together until everything is disolved together. I then pour the mixture into the bread machine. My machine needs the liquids added first, so if your machine is different, follow the instructions for it as far as the order of ingredients goes.

I then measure out the two types of flour and put them together in a sifter. Sift the flour into the bread machine then level out the flour. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the flour and set the timer for when you want the bread to be finished and hit the start button.

You can also make a plain white bread version of this recipe by using all bread flour (16 oz total by weight) and reducing the yeast to 1 teaspoon.

The nutrition information for a 2 oz serving (and one loaf should make 12 of these):
132 Calories
5.22g Protein
28.934g Carbohydrates
.373g Fat
2.839g Fiber

During the Specialization period I eat about 7 or more servings of this stuff per day to help get all the calories I need to fuel my workout and maintain my weight. Nice thing about it is that it has nearly no fat which makes it easy to use when you are really watching the fat % as you do in the Specialization period.

Another CTS Blogger

Another CTS member has a blog up about his training with power. Lots of good stuff there I think.

Cycling with a power meter

And here is another:
George's training spot

And yet another, this one dealing with far more than cycling:
Tricia's Place

PowerStarts on a windy day

Well, today started with a choice. Two hours and fifteen minutes on the trainer or outside in the wind. Needless to say, I took the wind. Apparently a weather system was moving through the area as when I started I had a SSE wind of 10-20mph judging by how the flags were snapping around. By the time I got home the wind had shifted to be a WNW or so, still around 10+ mph. So lucky me, I had headwinds for most of my ride. Joy. On the other hand, its not everyday you get dive-bombed by a peregrine falcon during a ride. There is a pair nesting in a road cut cliff on the top of what we call Barnet Mountain, and they do not like cyclists going by below them and tend to fly around screeching and swooping down on you.

At least it had stopped raining, at least for awhile. We've had more than our fair share of rain here in Vermont, with some places flooding 5'-10' above flood stage in local rivers. Luckily I didn't see any of that on my ride.

So here are my notes from today's ride:
Rode down to Barnet, then across into NH and up Rte 135 then back across to VT on Rte 18 and up over Hurlburt Hill and back home.

Did a really good job of stamping out the PS. Avg power for the first 5 intervals was about 30W higher this time than back on the 6th. Highest power achieved is higher as well with my 5s peak being 47W higher this week than back on the 6th (877W vs 830W) and max power being higher as well, 919W vs 830W. Other than the PS, I mainly (see below) took it easy, my average power for the whole ride only being 193W.

Did some things on this ride that I probably shouldn't have done. I did Hurlburt Hill at CR pace, which was definitely not in my schedule for today. I did it to sort of confirm my power ranges I've estimated to use til my next FieldTest. I kept my HR in my CR range, more or less, and looked at the average power during the 7 minute climb. Since CTS says CR are done at 95-100% of your FT max power, I figure this is a good estimate to use for power for now. My HR averaged 150bpm, right in the middle of my range and my average power was 329W, a tad above what I was estimating for now, so I'll update my figures in CyclingPeaks.

The other thing I did was to really power up Sand Hill just to see what kind of power I could maintain on this climb. This climb which is .6km averages 6% grade with 17% max. It gave me my 1min max power today, averaging 477W for toughest part of the climb. Again, definitely something that wasn't in my schedule and likely put a lot of stress on my legs that I didn't need.

Drank 2 bottles of sports drink and ate 1 powerbar during ride. Had a glass of chocolate milk to start my recovery while I worked on my notes.

Theoretical Ponderings to Avoid a FieldTest

One thing I'm not overly fond of is doing the 8-minute all out FieldTests, two at a time even, that CTS uses to set HR and power ranges for training. Maybe it has something to do with having done 3 of them since January 9th this year, or maybe its just that they are danged painful to do. :)

Anyway, now that I have a powermeter I've been trying to come up with a good estimate of my threshold power without disrupting my schedule for a rest week with a FT in the middle. So today during my training ride I tested a theory.

The theory is this: HR likely doesn't change all that much in a month or two of training, especially if you've been training for awhile. So, if you do something like a CR effort for about 8 minutes or so, your power should be pretty close to your FT power as according to the handbook, CR efforts are done at 95%-100% of your FT power. So if you ride a hill at your CR HR, set by a recent FT, your average power should be your FT power, which in turn can be used to set your ranges for your other workouts.

So today when I was on the return leg of my training ride I happened to be going up over the hill I use for my CR and I decided to do one and see what sort of results I got. So I tried to keep my HR in my CR range, 148-151, and when I got home I took a look at the results. My average HR for the climb was 150, so pretty good there. The average power was 329W, which is pretty close to what I'd been using for an estimate. [I'd been using an estimate of 'real' power based on the 'calculated' power from my HAC4, modified by how much I thought it was under-reporting.] Further agreement with this 329W number is from my Tempo workout on Thursday. In that workout my HR averaged 141, the top end of my Tempo range, and my power was 269W, which at the time I thought was a shade high, but is right in the range you get if you use 329W as FT power.

So, I think I have a pretty solid 'guess' as to my FT power that I can use for my training until I have a new FT scheduled.

Rainy Day Muscle Tensions

The image to the left is the power distribution graph from CyclingPeaks for today's MuscleTension workout. While it is sort of disheartening to be back on the trainer indoors again at least the extended forecast is showing the rain ending after this weekend. So it looks like I've got one more Endurance ride and one Recovery ride left on the trainer before I it looks like I can get back out on the road. Monday is a bit iffy, but I'm hopeful since the chance of showers is only about 40%. At least it looks to be decent weather for my group ride on Tuesday. Since I have to change my work schedule to be able to make it to the group rides, it would be a definite bummer if they had to cancel it for rain as they did last weeks.

At any rate, here are my notes from my workout:

Pouring rain so did workout on the trainer, dang it. Warmed up for 20 minutes and then raised the front wheel on a cinder block for the MT intervals. I'm not sure how effective they are indoors though. Power was averaging just at the top end of my EM range. The first interval definitely felt easy, but by the end I was having to work to maintain the 55 cadence recommended, so maybe it is doing its job after all. I wonder how much more I'd feel it out on the road. Drank 2.5 bottles of sports drink and ate 2 powerbars during the ride, pretty nearly what I had planned on, if a bit low on the liquid side...

Tempo

A first for me today, I did part of my training ride on the trainer then went outdoors for the rest. It was raining when I started, so I did my warm up and then 30 minutes of Tempo on the trainer. I was sort of torn between going with HR or power and ended up doing both to some extent. I had a good idea of what my Tempo range should be based on my calculated FTP of 280W. This gives me a range of rougly 252 to 265 for my Tempo workouts. My average power for the interval was 269, so a little bit high, while my HR averaged at 141 which is dead on for my HR range of 140-143.

Interesting thing though. In the first 10 minutes of the interval, my HR was well below the Tempo range, averaging 137, and my power was above the Tempo range, averaging 283W. In the last 10 minutes of the interval HR was above the range, averaging 146 while power was just within the upper limit of the range at an average of 263W. The middle 10 minutes had both HR and power in the right ranges at 142bpm and 263W. I'm thinking that this indicates that I've got my ranges right and in the future I'll just go with the power trying to hit right around 260 or so and let HR do whatever it does.

After I finished my Tempo workout I noticed it had stopped raining so I took the bike out of the trainer and hit the road for the rest of my EnduranceMiles. The roads were a bit wet still but by the time I got back they were almost bone dry and the sun had come out. Turned out to be a really nice day out for a ride. Tried to keep my power around 200 watts during the ride and ended up with 188W average for the hour and a half I was outside.

Sports Drink

There are a ton of sports drinks out there for folks to choose from and they all seem to make claims about improving performance, aiding recovery or what not. There is an interesting article on velonews.com about a study on recovery drinks that I thought was pretty interesting and sort of indicates that maybe the 'specially designed' drinks are not quite worth the money you send for them.

Which brings me to my main topic, the sports drink I use. I came across a recipe for a sports drink that seems to work well for me, is inexpensive to make and has a very wide variety of flavors.

Homemade Sports Drink:
480g sugar
17g Morton Lite Salt
4 packets of unsweetened Kool-Aid mix

I take all the ingredients and give them ten 1 second pulses in a food processor to get it all thoroughly mixed together.

To make my drink I take 40g of the mix and add 20 fluid ounces of water and shake well. This gives the following nutritional information:
Calories- 138
Fat - 0g
Protein - 0g
Carbohydrates - 35.66g
Sodium - 325mg
Potassium - 362mg

This compares pretty favorably I think to a commercial product like Powerbar Endurance which has the following:
Calories - 170
Fat - 0g
Protein - 0g
Carbohydrates - 42g
Sodium - 480mg
Potassium - 25mg

You could of course make the homemade drink a bit stronger and come up with almost exactly the same numbers as the Powerbar stuff. If you are worried about the extra potassium, you can use a mix of regular and lite salt to achieve the balance you want. The homemade stuff costs less than $0.20 per 20oz bottle while the Powerbar costs around $0.80 per 20oz bottle. So, this recipe works for me and I can get four bottles worth for the price of one of the Powerbar. Win win.

Rest Day

Well, I'm glad today is a rest day. It has been raining off and on all day and I'm still feeling the effects of my goal ride on Monday a bit.

Yesterday when I got "Training and Racing with a Power Meter" I also received "Racing Tacticts for Cyclists" by Thomas Prehn, so I've been starting to read that today. I haven't gotten very far but so far it seems interesting.

The more I'm getting into cycling and being smart about my training, the more I'm intrigued about the idea of actually racing. I don't have enough group riding experience yet, at least I don't think so, to actually enter a race, but I'm seriously thinking about finding one sometime this summer to try things out. There is a road race this weekend not all that far from here, so if the weather is nice I may take a drive down there to watch it and soak up some atmosphere. The race is the 31st Lake Sunapee Bike Race. If I had more pack riding experience I'd definitely go down and try my hand at this one, and I'm certainly going to add it to my list of things to do next year.

Recovery Ride

After my goal ride yesterday, I really felt I needed to do a recovery ride rather than the 2:15:00 EnduranceMiles with MuscleTension workout assigned by my CTS Classic program. Given my TSS score from yesterday I felt it was justified, so thats what I did.

Pouring rain outside today so did recovery ride on the trainer. Sweated a lot, really need to move the fan out onto the porch where the trainer is now. Did a good job keeping power steady throughout the workout, right around 140 watts. Noticed that I was putting out slightly more watts in the last part of the workout for the same HR than the earlier part. About 9 watts more for an addition 1 bpm in average HR. Not sure that means anything or not. Drank bottle of water during ride.

Entire ride (142w):
Duration: 1:14:58
Work: 640 kJ
TSS: 32.7 (intensity factor 0.512)
Norm Power: 143
Distance: 19.093 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 201 142 watts
Heart Rate: 60 111 101 bpm
Cadence: 31 146 92 rpm
Speed: 0 17.1 15.2 mph
Torque: 0 81 62 lb-in

I've included an image of the power distribution for my recovery ride. One thing you can say about working out on a trainer, it is danged consistent.

Today I also received in the mail my copy of "Training and Racing with a Power Meter" by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan. I've done a quick read of most of it already and have added a few more graphs to CyclingPeaks based on things they mention in the book to watch for. It is going to be interesting to see how things look once I have some more data to look at as several of the items they mention you need to have a goodly amount of data, six months or so.

I'm still working with my estimated FTP figure, which I'm refining as I go along. Given that CTS and CyclingPeaks don't use quite the same system I'm likely going to have to fudge things a bit as I go along anyway, so doing my best estimate for now doesn't bother me too much. Given the ranges in the CTS handbook I'm pretty sure I've worked backwards to about what my CTS FieldTest average would be and from there I've taken about 10% to get to my FTP. This is pretty close to what Allen & Coggan suggest, especially as they take 5% from a 20 minute TT effort and the CTS FT is only 8 minutes, so should be pretty close.

Goal Ride

For this first goal ride I decided I would re-ride my longest ride from last year to see how much improvement there was, if any, between the end of my first season of riding and the early part of this one. Last year I did this ride on October 1st after having been riding for about 3 months, gradually extending my riding time from my first rides of all of 15 minutes

The ride is a total of 65.163 (as measured by my PowerTap today) with 3829' of climbing, the biggest climb coming in the last 15 miles of the ride.

Last year I completed the ride in 4:04:00 of riding time at a weight of 205.4 lbs. During the ride I stopped every hour to have a gel or pudding stick. Didn't get off the bike, but did stop for a minute. There was also one longer stop, maybe 5 minutes, about 20-25 miles from the end of the route to get more fluid and ended up talking with a friend who was also out riding.

When I started with CTS in January, I decided my goal would have two parts. First to complete the ride in 3:41:00 (3:30:00 for a stretch goal) of riding time and get my weight down to 173 lbs. At the time I set the goal my weight was 181.6. Taking the advice from the coaches and others here on the forum I came up with process goals as well, the main one working out a ride plan and doing my best to stick with it. I looked at the different sections of the ride and decided on HR ranges to go for in each one, keeping in mind I wanted to have enough left to do really well on the final long climb.

I spent yesterday getting my bike ready, redoing the bar tape, adjusting the rear deraileur, putting a road tire back on in place of the tire I use on the trainer. This morning after having a good breakfast I got my sports drink ready and on the bike, got the bike computers on and made sure they were working. I also made a little 'cheat sheet' that I taped to my top tube so I could refer to it to remind me what my plan was for a given section of the ride.

The weather today didn't look like it was going to co-operate as it started raining a bit an hour or so before I was planning on starting off. I checked the weather forecast on-line and it looked like the showers would move off and there wasn't anything behind them that looked troubling so I pushed my start time back an hour, topping up my fuel supply with a Powerbar and kept drinking water to be sure I was hydrated at the start.

The pavement was a little wet when I started out and I got caught in a light shower and I started to have some doubts about the wisdom of going ahead with the ride. I kept going though and by the time I had gone about 10 miles the shower had long stopped and the pavement was drying out. There was no more rain or showers during the ride but I did get some wind just about the half way point, when I turned east and then north. I figure it was an ENE wind around 10 mph with higher gusts. I just kept going with my plan as best I could and hoped I'd still make my goal time. The longest section of the ride was a ~20 mile section that I had planned on doing at Tempo pace. This section trended generally up (about 1% average gradient) but was rolling. I have to say an hour and nine minutes at Tempo pace is ... interesting. I was actually 1 bpm out of my Tempo range on average but close enough I think

I definitely was getting tired by the time I got to the last long climb (#7 on the route profile). I had my HR up to my CR range for the 13 minutes it took to do the steep part of the climb but my average power output was 52 watts less than I had on a similar duration and grade climb earlier in the ride (#4 on the profile). I kept pushing according to my plan though. The most painful part was the 150 meter sprint I had planned after a 500 meter 12% climb, but after that it was a bit of easier spinning the last 500 meters to house as a bit of a cool down. I have to say my legs are as sore as they have been after a ride, if not the most sore they have been. Otherwise I feel pretty good though.

So, the results:
Process goals- I was able to maintain either the HR ranges I had planned or was within a couple beats per minute of that range on average. As I noted above my power definitely dropped off from the first hour of the ride to the last, but that's something to work on for the future.

Weight goal - my weight this morning was 170.6 and my average weight for last week was 171.2, either way I achieved this goal. Also, I am very pleased that I've kept my weight steady at this level (171-172lbs) for the last 8 weeks.

Ride time - my riding time for today's ride was 3:35:54, so in between my main goal and my stretch. Also, there were no stops in the ride other than for traffic at intersections and one very brief stop on that last long climb to get the sweat out of my eyes. I had enough sweat in them so that I nearly couldn't see for a bit. Guess I need a headband or something under my helmet to help absorb that.

Overall I'm really happy with my results, but can definitely see where progress can be made, mainly in maintaining power output over this long a ride and using that in my ride plans instead of HR.

For those that are curious, here is the information from my PowerTap (via CyclingPeaks software) for this ride. Maybe in the future I'll do something neat with the information but for now just the raw stuff I guess.

Entire ride (220w):
Duration: 3:35:54
Work: 2835 kJ
TSS: 256.7 (intensity factor 0.847)
Norm Power: 237
Distance: 65.163 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 598 220 watts
Heart Rate: 69 165 138 bpm
Cadence: 29 236 94 rpm
Speed: 0 38.6 18.1 mph
Torque: 0 401 96 lb-in

Peak 5s (505w):
Duration: 0:05
Work: 3 kJ
TSS: n/a
Norm Power: n/a
Distance: 105 ft
Min Max Avg
Power: 455 526 505 watts
Heart Rate: 159 162 160 bpm
Cadence: 99 113 106 rpm
Speed: 13.4 14.8 14 mph
Torque: 203 260 239 lb-in

Peak 10s (472w):
Duration: 0:10
Work: 5 kJ
TSS: n/a
Norm Power: n/a
Distance: 213 ft
Min Max Avg
Power: 422 526 472 watts
Heart Rate: 159 162 161 bpm
Cadence: 99 114 108 rpm
Speed: 13.4 14.9 14.4 mph
Torque: 188 260 218 lb-in

Peak 20s (408w):
Duration: 0:20
Work: 8 kJ
TSS: n/a
Norm Power: n/a
Distance: 433 ft
Min Max Avg
Power: 167 526 408 watts
Heart Rate: 159 164 162 bpm
Cadence: 99 124 110 rpm
Speed: 13.4 15.4 14.5 mph
Torque: 78 260 187 lb-in

Peak 30s (370w):
Duration: 0:30
Work: 11 kJ
TSS: 1.5 (intensity factor 1.32)
Norm Power: 370
Distance: 653 ft
Min Max Avg
Power: 167 526 370 watts
Heart Rate: 159 164 161 bpm
Cadence: 99 128 111 rpm
Speed: 13.4 15.4 14.7 mph
Torque: 78 260 167 lb-in

Peak 1min (341w):
Duration: 1:00
Work: 21 kJ
TSS: 2.5 (intensity factor 1.214)
Norm Power: 340
Distance: 0.207 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 246 450 341 watts
Heart Rate: 146 150 148 bpm
Cadence: 72 91 86 rpm
Speed: 10.4 15 12.3 mph
Torque: 126 267 184 lb-in

Peak 2min (323w):
Duration: 2:01
Work: 39 kJ
TSS: 4.6 (intensity factor 1.171)
Norm Power: 328
Distance: 0.491 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 233 450 323 watts
Heart Rate: 130 152 144 bpm
Cadence: 70 99 87 rpm
Speed: 10.4 20.7 14.5 mph
Torque: 77 267 155 lb-in

Peak 5min (301w):
Duration: 5:01
Work: 91 kJ
TSS: 9.8 (intensity factor 1.084)
Norm Power: 304
Distance: 1.414 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 135 450 301 watts
Heart Rate: 130 152 148 bpm
Cadence: 70 138 95 rpm
Speed: 10.4 24.6 16.9 mph
Torque: 45 267 125 lb-in

Peak 10min (289w):
Duration: 10:01
Work: 174 kJ
TSS: 18.1 (intensity factor 1.042)
Norm Power: 292
Distance: 2.42 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 450 289 watts
Heart Rate: 140 153 149 bpm
Cadence: 57 209 93 rpm
Speed: 6.5 25.4 14.4 mph
Torque: 0 401 151 lb-in

Peak 20min (254w):
Duration: 20:08
Work: 305 kJ
TSS: 30.7 (intensity factor 0.96)
Norm Power: 269
Distance: 6.68 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 450 254 watts
Heart Rate: 118 153 143 bpm
Cadence: 33 209 95 rpm
Speed: 0 38.6 19.8 mph
Torque: 0 401 107 lb-in

Peak 30min (235w):
Duration: 30:13
Work: 423 kJ
TSS: 41.2 (intensity factor 0.908)
Norm Power: 254
Distance: 10.395 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 450 235 watts
Heart Rate: 109 153 140 bpm
Cadence: 29 209 94 rpm
Speed: 0 38.6 20.6 mph
Torque: 0 401 93 lb-in

Peak 60min (230w):
Duration: 1:00:02
Work: 827 kJ
TSS: 70.6 (intensity factor 0.84)
Norm Power: 235
Distance: 18.408 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 472 230 watts
Heart Rate: 126 146 139 bpm
Cadence: 40 215 95 rpm
Speed: 0 35.6 18.3 mph
Torque: 0 235 93 lb-in