Mike's Bike Blog

Before I get into the numbers for 2009, one disclaimer, I don't set a goal amount of miles to ride, nor do I set a goal for average speed. I train on too many hills to care about my overall average speed as doing hill repeats at 10 mph tends to bring the overall number down.

Here's my numbers for 2009:

Total Miles: 7,356
Total Climbing: 307,316
Calories: 285,606 kJ
Avg Speed: 17 mph
Max Speed: 69.68 mph
Avg Cadence: 77

For 2009 I set some lofty goals and my direction in riding got a bit more focused as I got my feet wet in bike racing. 2009 saw me pin on my first race number at the Tour of New Braunfels after missing out on the Copperas Cove road race.

    •    A 40K Time Trial in 1 hour or less - I never pursued this goal, this will turn out to be a longer term goal than one set for 2010. First I will need to average 25 mph in the Run Far Time Trial and once I can do that then I think I can start thinking about a 40K in under an hour.
    •    Ride 200 miles in 1 day - This is another one that I didn't go after. I had hoped to do the Texas Time Trial 12 hour race and get the 200 miles in during it. But as the season progressed I didn't train for that type of distance and concentrated solely on the Cat 5 race distance <50 miles. It is still something I'll keep as a long term goal but nothing I'm putting down on paper that needs to be completed in 2010.
    •    Ride up the 3 sisters in 3 minutes flat, (2008 goal was 3'30 current PR is 3'24) - This was my big goal for 2009 and I did it!
    •    Join a team/club - I started racing for Southwest Cycle Sport in 2009.
    •    Ride the Outlaw Trail 100 in 5 hours or less - I ended up not riding in the Outlaw Trail 100 in 2009 as I was focused on other races like the Chappell Hill Bank Classic and the Texas State Road Race Championships. I did come close to a sub 5 hour century when I did the FatCyclist.com 100 miles of Nowhere ride. Again this is not something I'm going to carry over for 2010.
    •    Increase my FTP by 20% - That's a big jump for 1 year, I've seen some increases in my FTP this year which is good. I did raise my FTP by 14 watts this year. For 2010 I'll continue to raise FTP as it will be needed to meet some of my other goals, but I'm not going to make it a line item for 2010.
    •    Increase my 5 second and 1 minute power to balance out my power profile - I was able to raise my 1 minute power this year as well as my 5 minute. I spent a couple weeks focusing on VO2 Max and was able to raise my 5 minute power. I'm going to carry over working on my 5 second sprint for 2010 as this is an area that is a limiter for me.
    •    Get my body fat tested so I know how much to lose. In High School my body fat percentage was 11%. Ideally I want to get it down to 13%, I'll have to see how realistic that is, but at this point I'd rather focus on body fat than solely on weight. If anybody has recommendations on where to get a true body fat test in Austin let me know. I want either the calipurs or one of the newer tests that use professional quality dual electron machines, not the consumer level scales that give you weight and body fat. - I did lose about 15 pounds this year getting down to my lowest weight for the Hugel (162 lbs). I'm going to carry over this goal for 2010 to get my body fat % down.
    •    Raise $1000 for Team Fatty and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. - I fell short of raising $1,000 for Team Fatty, but did raise money for the cause.

2010 Goals

• Average 25 mph for a Run Far Time Trial
• Get body fat down to 12% currently 16%
• Place in the top 10 in 3 targeted Cat 4 races this season
• Improve 5 second sprint power
• Ride up the 3 Sisters in 2 minutes 30 seconds
• Ride up the 3 Sisters 20 times in one sitting
• Get my USA Cycling Level 3 coaching certificate

It's been a few weeks since I last posted that doesn't mean however that I haven't been riding. Far from it, albeit I've scaled back a little in the on the bike training and I've been supplementing it with other forms of workouts. I've started to throw in some running in place of a morning or evening ride. Nothing too far, I started out small, 1 mile and I'm up to 2.5 miles. At the pace I'm running I'm not overdoing anything, the last thing I want to do is get a running injury that will keep me off the bike. My mile splits are almost identical, with the 2nd mile usually faster. I guess if I go any slower it would be walking, not sure.  In 2010 I plan on doing 1 Triathlon, it will probably be the Rookie Tri. I doubt I'll do more than 1, but I'll do one just so I can say I've done one. I just don't have the time to train for 3 sports. I like concentrating on only 1 and perfecting it as best I can. For now throwing in some running doesn't seem to bad. Lucky for me my wife is a swim coach and not only swam in school but ran track so she can help with those disciplines. I've also been lifting weights, about once a week and doing the slideboard (That's Zeb demonstrating).

As for on the bike workouts I've been doing primarily sweet spot training (SST). These intervals are at around 90% of threshold wattage. I've been doing 2 x 20s, 1x30 or 1x60 training efforts. SST is the training zone between level 3 and level 4, the sweet spot if you will. After the 1x30 I then like to follow it up with a run, I believe the triathletes call this a brick. It's these types of workouts that will compose my winter training schedule.

Speaking of winter I believe there's a correlation between how much cold I can handle to my body fat percentage. For every percent of body fat I lose I also lose 2-5 degrees of tolerable temperature. Last winter I occasionally wore arm warmers and on days it was below 35 leg warmers. The year before that I didn't even own arm warmers or leg warmers. This year if it's 40 degrees I'm in at least arm warmers. With each percent of body fat I lose it's taking off a layer of toughness to tolerate the cold.

How's everybody else's winter training going?

For the past 3 weeks I've been having a heavy dose of intervals in my training. All Intervals have been at my 20 minute critical power level of 292 watts. They have ranged from 7 x 2, 9 x 3, 10 x 3, 4 x 4, 1 x 8. For the most part the intervals have gone off as planned, but on a couple occasions it has been a struggle to hit the target power.

There will be days where you feel off and have the power output of a 117 year old on a beach cruiser out for a Sunday stroll. I had a ride like this this week, I was to do 10 intervals at 292 watts for 3 minutes with 2 minutes of recovery between each one. The first one went off without a hitch, but I went out too hard and my average power was 321 watts. I did this first one up a hill (3% grade) on Old Manor Road.  The next one I struggled on a flat road but into the wind and only averaged 279 watts.  For the 3rd one I returned back to the hill and averaged 299 watts. Then again on the flat I averaged 283 watts. It kept going down hill from there with 277 watts, 271 watts, 287 watts and 285 watts. The entire ride just felt hard, even the 2 minute recovery seemed difficult just turning over the pedals. I ran out of time to complete the 10 intervals over my lunch so I completed them later that night after dinner with 2 intervals both at 304 watts. There again this ride just felt hard, it was like riding around with the brake engaged, just felt hard.

Luckily the following day was only 1 hour of recovery riding, but I skipped out and didn't get on the bike at all. Instead I spent an hour  doing pylometrics. Jack and Zeb joined me as my workout partners. We did standing box jumps, jumped hockey sticks set up on pylons, long jumps across the yard and several other moves. The kids had a good time and topped it off by running through the sprinkler.

The little time off the bike was exactly what I needed I think as yesterday's workout was 3 intervals at 302 for 3 minutes with 2 minute recoveries between. From the time I first got on the bike and headed over to Old Manor Road to do my intervals everything seemed to be clicking. On the way out I remembered I needed to reset the zero offset of the power meter. Every so often a power meter needs to be calibrated to make sure the 0 point is registering, when you are coasting with no pedal force it should read 0 watts. Anything plus or minus will throw off the values. My legs felt strong and had great snap to them. The first one up the hill on Old Manor road felt easy at 364 watts. I began to suspect that maybe something wasn't right as when I was coasting the power was registering 5 to 30 watts (when coasting power should be 0). I recalibrated.  The next interval on the flat road into the wind wasn't killing me like it did the day before. I was able to average 372 watts. The final one again on the flats but into a cross wind I averaged 388 watts. I calibrated after each interval and finally got it to read 0 watts. Since I was feeling so good on the way back into the office I threw one more interval in to make sure everything was copastetic, I averaged 357 watts on this last interval. That number was still big but it makes me question the results of the other intervals, even if they are off by 30 watts the numbers were good. I didn't really work the zone I was going after though, but at 350 watts it felt about like the effort on my 1st interval from the day before. It will be interesting to see if there is any progress next week when I retest my FTP.

Since I was questioning the numbers produced I went back to see if there was anything out of the ordinary with my other files. I didn't see anything wrong with the power data, but I did see why I was having trouble with the prior interval workout this week. Last week in Washington was a hard week, I put in a lot of climbing that week, 18,991 feet of climbing to be exact. With two days off I thought I would be caught up, but Sunday's ride on Limecreek to attack the 3 sisters depleted my energy more than I realized. By the way I bettered my time up it by a few seconds, I'm at 3 minutes 09 seconds. I also set peak power bests at 1 minute, 2 minutes and 5 minutes on that ride.

Today's intervals were 4 x 4 again at 292 watts. My legs were feeling it and I didn't have quite the power I was packing yesterday. They were quite sore. The route I selected for the intervals turned out to be problematic because of the stops. The first interval started on Sprinkle Road I turned left onto Sprinkle Cut Off and then right onto Samsung Road. The route worked, there were no stops, but a couple hard turns where I did have to ease up on the pedals though. I was off on my average power by 11 watts however and only maintained 18.1 mph. On the 2nd interval again I was off on the power and only averaged 283 watts but averaged 23.5 mph. A problem with this interval was the traffic, there was one time I had to come to a complete stop to check for traffic to make a right turn. The 3rd interval I was able to do a better job on hitting the power and averaged 299 watts and averaged 26.4 mph. The final one saw my power at the lowest at 275 watts, with an average speed of 24.6. This interval was broken up with 2 stops to negotiate turns into traffic. I had thought by going out to where I did that the roads would offer a more suitable venue for 4 minute intervals, but it didn't turn out that way.

With my legs feeling worn and not so fresh I might rethink my riding plans for this weekend. Instead of a group ride on Saturday I might go out for 2 1/2 hours solo so I can be sure to stay in my target ranges and not overdo it. This will hopefully leave me in better shape for Sunday's Le Burrito ride, I won't want to miss that one and I want to be able to get back to the burrito festivities with the main 60 mile group before the burritos are gone.

When I first got my power meter last July I did the rider profile testing which includes a 5 minute test. Basically you go all out as hard as you can for 5 minutes. Since that initial test I never went back and retested. I mainly test in the 20 & 30 minute ranges to get my FTP.

I haven't thought much of it until a thread on the Wattage google group came up regarding VO2Max and a formula was presented to get an approximation based off of the 5 minute power result. People started throwing out their numbers and how accurate or inaccurate their computations came out to versus a lab conducted vo2max test with drawing blood.

I pulled up my power profile up on trainingpeaks.com to find my 5 min power at 353 watts. This seemed low, just like my 1 minute power. I looked at the ride that this number came from and it was a hill route I did with Jeff, Joe and Scott. It wasn't an overly hard ride and not one that I went out of my way to ride hard on.

Beforehand if I had to guess what I'd do on my retest I was thinking 390 to 400 watts. Well after retesting my final was 358, not the big jump I was expecting so what went wrong or what was different with this test?

After analyzing the effort I did too much at once. For this test instead of doing 5 minutes I did 6 minutes. I did this because some of the workouts use the number from the 6 min critical power effort. I figured I'd do 6 minutes and have both numbers. The surprising thing was my 6 min and 5 min power numbers were identical, my 6 minute number held steady at 358. That seemed very odd, I was expecting some drop off. On the really steep sections of Ladera Norte I was running out of gears and had to stand on these sections compared to spinning at a higher cadence. This is due in part to changing out the compact cranks for standards a couple months ago. Plus I had on my 11x23 cassette, not the ideal choice for the 20+% grade sections.

I thought one more test was in order to see what would happen if I just did a flat out 5 minute test and with a 12x26 cassette. Well that test happened last week. I lined up at my start point and let it all hang out on Ladera Norte. The taller gear felt a lot more manageable and it allowed me to hold a cadence of 72 rpm which was faster than last time which was only 67 rpm. At the end of the 5 minutes I was ready to poop a lung. I didn't have anything in the tank to make it up the last tenth of a mile climb to the top of Ladera Norte. So I turned around and went back via 360.

On this last test I came out with a number of 380 watts for the 5 minutes. Plugging that into the formula:

VO2 max= 1.8*((P5min*6.12/Kg)+3.5)+3.5

My VO2 Max comes out to 62. What does that number mean? Well according to this site  I would be at the low end for a male bicyclist. I'm on the high end for hockey players, I guess I  made a good choice in my sports growing up.

Jesper over at Training4Cyclists.com has posted  How to Increase your VO2 Max in 14 days  I will have to give this plan a go. Jesper has a good post on why training at VO2 Max that's worth reading. Not only is a high VO2 Max the prize for cyclist but also building up your body for a faster recovery after such efforts. Not only is my VO2 Max a limiter but I don't think my body has gotten accustomed to recovering quickly from such efforts. Anybody want to join in on the fun and join me in doing the 14 day VO2  Max test? I'll probably start next Tuesday. If you don't have a power meter you can do it the old fashioned way and ride up a hill for 5 minutes and record how far you get for your base 5 minute test.

Just in case I use some terms that might be unfamiliar to you check out the glossary.

Yesterday my training plan called for Crit Sprints, which are sprints at the 1 minute Critical Power (CP) or CP1 power level. The goal is to do these sprints on straights and corners and after the 25 second interval the recovery between each one is as long as it takes your heart rate to drop back down to zone 2. For me my best 1 min power was 516 watts that means I should be holding the 25 second sprints at 516 watts. My one minute and below power numbers are on the low side, it doesn't look like I'll be making it on the track or have a great sprint. My numbers start to rise after the one minute mark, it's like it takes me a little while to get going but once I do I can hold it.

I had no problem reaching the 516 watt range, in fact I was well over on all efforts. My heart rate while doing the intervals was not maxed out and I recovered fairly quickly. This got me thinking that maybe I needed to retest my 1 min CP. Most of the critical power numbers that make up my personal best in my power profile are from the early races this season, but that is slowly starting to change as I haven't raced in almost 2 months. My best 20 and 30 minute numbers were from 1 1/2 weeks ago when I was testing my FTP (Functional Threshold Power) and a 30 minute Time Trial I did on Saturday. Another CP test I need to do is the 5 minute test. The 5 minute test is a good indication of your VO2 max when plugged into this formula:

VO2 max= 1.8*((CP5min*6.12/Kg)+3.5)+3.5

I'll go over this in another post, so back to the 1 minute test. I went out on the Twin Creeks hill to perform a 1 minute Critical Power test. The idea is to go as hard as you can for 1 minute. At the bottom of the hill I got some momentum going, I was in my big ring, 53, and stayed in the big ring the entire effort. For the 1 minute effort I averaged 569 watts. The entire effort was very consistent with the wattage range I held, no sharp spikes and it didn't fall off at the end. For the first 40 seconds I averaged 587 watts.

Once my heart rate dropped back down to zone 1, I was going to give another effort. This time start out in the 53 and to shift down to the 39 and finish out on the 39. For the second effort I started out with higher numbers but at 44 seconds I completely died, for the first 44 seconds I was averaging 602 watts and then I lost all power and finished up with an average of 503. It was like a switch had been turned off, I was going great and then bam! It was all I could do to turn the pedals at 200 watts. Those final 16 seconds were rough, who am I kidding I still had to ride up the rest of the hill. This leads me to believe that I might have been holding back on the 1st effort so it would be prudent to test again in a month.

I think I've fallen victim to focusing a bit too much of my testing for FTP, the 20, 30 minute ranges and neglected the shorter tests. Part of my problem with the shorter tests, especially the 5 to 12 second ranges is I can't seem to hit high numbers unless I'm riding in a group or races. I've went out and tried to do a 12 second test and my numbers are nowhere near the numbers from a sprint in a race or a sprint for a city limit sign with a group. For example my best 5 second number during a test might be 980 watts and that's on a very good day, typically it might be in the 800s. But get me out in a group and fire off a sprint for whatever reason and I can go up to 1100 watts without thinking about it. On the second test I did set 20 and 30 second peak power records, but it was the first attempt that I set the 1 minute peak power on.

Tomorrow I do a 5 minute all out test on the backside of Ladera Norte to come up with my VO2 Max.

Here's what I'll be doing this week (5/4/2009 - 5/10/2009). I'm starting the first week of the Build 2 phase. I'm looking forward to the hill workouts, I've been missing the hill repeats. These are a little different as I'll have to hold the power at 347 watts compared to putting out a 2 minute effort at 500+ watts. One added twist that I don't throw into my climbing is the sprints at the 30, 60 and 180 second marks. Whenever I've had a sprint in there it has only been at the top of the hill.

5/4/2009
Workout 1 
Day Off 0:00 None
Actively focus on recovery today: 1) stay off of legs all you can, 2) watch nutrition closely (healthy carbs, lean protein, and good fats), 3) stretch, and 4) drink when thirsty. Other common recovery aids include massage, napping, elevating legs, floating in water, and listening to music.
 

5/5/2009
Workout 1 
Bike 2:29 P3a
BT: Crit sprints. After warm up do 3 sets of 3x25 second sprints at CP1. Include corners. Recover until heart rate drops to zone 2 between each repeat. 5 minute recoveries between each set.
 

5/6/2009
Workout 1 
Bike 1:39 E1b
Very easy recovery spin on a mostly flat course in small chain ring. Heart rate zone 1. Light on the pedals. Comfortably high rpm focusing on pedaling skills.

Workout 2 
Strength 0:45 MS
BT: Warm up 5-10 minutes. Then 3-4 sets of MS. Cool down 5-10 minutes spinning in easy gear/resistance at high rpm.
 

5/7/2009
Workout 1 
Bike 2:29 A3e
BT: On 6-8% hill do 6-7 x 2 minutes at CP6. At 30 seconds, 60 seconds, and 90 seconds attack at CP0.2 for 10 pedal strokes (4 minute recoveries after each 2-minute interval). Then sit back down and continue CP6 climb. High rpm.
 

5/8/2009
Workout 1 
Bike 1:39 E1b
Very easy recovery spin on a mostly flat course in small chain ring. Heart rate zone 1. Light on the pedals. Comfortably high rpm focusing on pedaling skills.
 

5/9/2009
Workout 1 
Bike 3:19 E1b
Very easy recovery spin on a mostly flat course in small chain ring. Heart rate zone 1. Light on the pedals. Comfortably high rpm focusing on pedaling skills.
 

5/10/2009
Workout 1 
Bike 4:59 A3g
BT: Group ride. Ride how you feel today: If tired, sit in at CP90-CP180; if fresh, ride race effort. Be smart.

Thought I'd try something new here, I'm posting up my training plan for the week. I've been looking forward to this weeks workout for a couple weeks. It offers a variety of workouts and breaks away from the endurance miles at relatively medium to low power that I have been putting in. Particularly the Break Through (BT) workouts look challenging and fun. I can finally start hitting it harder!

       
4/20/2009
Day Off 0:00 None
Actively focus on recovery today: 1) stay off of legs all you can, 2) watch nutrition closely (healthy carbs, lean protein, and good fats), 3) stretch, and 4) drink when thirsty. Other common recovery aids include massage, napping, elevating legs, floating in water, and listening to music.

4/21/2009
Workout 1 
Bike 2:37 F3a
BT: On a course with long & short hills. On long climbs stay in the saddle at CP12. Attack very short hills at CP1.

4/22/2009
Bike 2:06 E2d
Ride a rolling course at CP30 on the climbs. Otherwise, heart rate 1-2 zones. Mostly in saddle on hills to build & maintain hip strength.

4/23/2009
Bike 2:37 A1c
BT: 'Sprintervals.' 3 sets of (3x6-8 seconds at CP0.2 with 1 minute recoveries, then 5 minutes at CP6). 8 minutes between each set. High rpm. Aero position.

4/24/2009
Bike 2:16 E1b
Very easy recovery spin on a mostly flat course in small chain ring. Heart rate zone 1. Light on the pedals. Comfortably high rpm focusing on pedaling skills.

4/25/2009
Bike 3:30 M2a
BT: Shifting cruise intervals. Long warm up and then 4-5 x 6-8 minutes (2 minute recoveries) mostly at CP30. During each interval, after 1 minute at CP30, shift to higher gear for 30 seconds and hold CP12. Then shift back to a 'normal' gear for 60 seconds at CP30. Continue this pattern for 8 minutes. So it's 60s @ CP30 - 30s @ CP12 - 60s @ CP30 - 30s @CP12-3 etc. Aero position.

4/26/2009
Bike 4:22 E3d
Ride how you feel. If tired stay in heart rate 1-2 zones alone. If feeling fresh ride in all CP zones and this may then be a group ride. Be smart!