An Officer if not a Gentleman

A few weeks ago an A4 letter popped through the door and I was delighted to find on opening it that I had received a promotion...to Officer in the OCD.

The OCD is not Obsessive Compulsive Disorder but is close: The Ordre de Cols Durs: a dedicated band of cyclists who aim to take on hills and climb them.

Of all the things I've done in cycling I think this remains my favourite. I'm just in the process of putting together my claim for 2008 which will add another few thousand metres, that may even be enough to bump me up into the next rank....happy climbing:

Hillingdon race 4: Snowballed...

Hillingdon race 4 turned out to be a bit of a washout. Day before I woke up feeling fine and headed off to work.

There we had a bit of fun, celebrating Burns Night (a couple of days in advance).. Whisky wasn't an option and haggis wasn't expected to be very popular..

So the social committee laid on plentiful supplies of IrnBru and Tunnock's sweets..

http://www.tunnock.co.uk/index1.htm

These were a real blast from the past. As a child their caramel biscuits and marshmallow snowballs were a regular Sunday afternoon tea-time treat. I never knew they were part of the Scottish gastronomic heritage and can't remember having any for ages.

Unfortunately I am afraid I rather took advantage of the plentiful freebies and got through several caramel bars and even more snowballs, all washed down by lots of IrnBru.

I felt OK during the day but as evening drew on my tummy went into rebellion and I passed a very uncomfortable/queasy night. I woke up feeling pants and not in best form at all.

At Hillingdon I chatted to a few others about getting into a break and they seemed keen. But once race started plans went awry. I dawdled along at the back of the group for half the ride, then tried stirring myself into action.

But combination of feeling flat and big field meant gettting to front was tricky and by the time I got there all I managed to do was, ironically, pull back a break that was already in progress. Didnt have the energy to go for it myself so just held back and tried for a decent finish.

This worked pretty well, though I was in slightly too high a gear. But still managed a 7th place which gets me half way towards points target.

December Training Review

Bit late but quick review of December. It was a very good month and saw me feeling great. As above pies show, again spent much more time in tempo/sweetspot compared to last year.

I relaxed a bit over Xmas and lost a bit of form and gained a bit of weight. Back training again now, will be interesting to see what remainder of January brings....

Snow Trouble

Last weeks road race was held in slightly inclement conditions.....here are some pictures

(sadly picture above taken on second to last lap, didnt make it to the end....)

and...excitement... a video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm7DEMv51Jg

Strong and Smooth: First Road Race Points

Strong and smooth??? /\

First goal of this season is to get 10 points and make it up the road race ranks from lowly 4th cat to not quite so lowly 3rd.

This quest has taken me to Hillingdon for the last 3 Saturdays to take part in the Imperial Winter Series. After a couple of "essai"s getting to know the course and other riders I took the last race a bit more seriously.

I went hard on the first lap and broke to do the first half of the race solo. The conditions didnt offer a realistic chance of staying away but this let me get to know the fastest route through the various corners and get a feel for what I could do solo.

After halfway I was caught at which time I applied a lesson learned from previous rides and stayed at the head of the group. There were various badly organised attempts at breakaways before the sprint on the final lap. Another lesson was applied and I stayed in correct part of the course, though I stared my windup a bit late. Some fun and games on the final straight as someones foot came loose and caused some riders to go cross country. I managed to avoid trouble and came in 8th. Not great but first 2 points....

My solo attempt got a mention in the race report:

http://www.imperialracingteam.com/imperialracingteam/results0809.html?

4th cats
Surprisingly a smaller field today lined up for the start than for the freezing artic conditions of last weeks race. Although a strong southerly wind provided a different challenge down the back straight, although helping the riders up the drag to the finish.

The wind was not a deterrent to Martin Sigrist (Newbury RC) who attacked from the gun and quickly gained a gap that at one point was in excess of 30 seconds, and he continued to look smooth and strong as he led for over half the distance. Eventually the bunch woke up, however, and within a few laps his lead was reduced to a few seconds and he was swept up by the bunch half a lap later.

Several more abortive individual attacks were launched from the bunch, but without the safety of numbers they were soon brought back as they entered the headwind into the back straight.
A bunch sprint saw Antony Leeson (Addiscombe CC) take the honours on the line from Charlie Pearch (London Dynamo/Cyclefit)

Replacing Batteries In Ergomo Head Unit

My original Ergomo head unit died a few months ago due to its batteries becoming knackered.

I got a replacement but decided to have a go at replacing the batteries in the original.

It proved quite easy to do:

Required:
Replacement batteries: HR-4U needed, 1000ma with solder tab. I got them from here
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=SY153T-ND (Very helpful service with ability to chat with technical support before buying). I bought 10 batteries, total cost was $50 of which $30 was shipping to UK. Arrived promptly 5 days after ordering.

Torque Screwdriver 6 : Luckily I already had one of these.

Mediumstandard flat blade screwdriver: (around 1/4 inch tip)

Soldering iron: with smallish tip

Procedure:

• Unscrew the black handlebar mount on the back of the unit.
• Unscrew the 5 torque screws on the back of the unit. (I had to enlarge a couple of the deeper holes so as to be able to get to the screw, just used a penknife for this)
• Open unit and unscrew 3 torque screws that hold pcb/display to case. 1 screw is smaller than others.
• You will see the batteries, AAA size.
• Unsolder connecting wire (opposite end from main wiring)
• Tricky bit: Hardest part of the operation is getting the old batteries out, since they are firmly glued in place. After bit of trial and effort on first one here is procedure that worked for me:
• Score down the length of the green plastic battery casing (I used my soldering iron to do this but guess should really use a knife...)
• Put tip of flat blade screwdriver between end (the one unsoldered) and case, then use a bit of carefully applied brute force to lever out the battery, which should pop clear of the sleeve.
• Now the battery is out its quite easy to unsolder the other end connection (before doing so make a note of terminal polarity.
• Before doing anthing else I would now suggest checking that the batteries are the problem. Just use some standard batteries, link to unsoldered ends and check that the display comes on.
• Assuming it does, clear out as much as possible of the green sleeves from the battery case.
• Solder up the new batteries in the correct polarity.
• Put the batteries back into position (I didnt bother with any glue, the fitting is very snug and I didn't want to cause problems when I need to replace again).
• Reassemble. When screwing back first 3 screws check the pcb fits comfortably over the batteries. If it doesnt then may need to remove some more of the green sleeving.
• Charge up and hopefully continue.
• I found all settings had been retained so no need to re-enter, apart from date/time.

PS: If you're reading this far probably got an Ergomo. In this case worth knowing that there is a google group http://groups.google.com/group/ergomo-users?hl=en for Ergomo users

PPS One enterprising lady has put a Youtube movie up of how to do the procedure...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4IQOjaSbY4

November Training Review

First 4 weeks of new season's training is now complete.

Been quite hard, total of 63 hours, 1500km, 41K Kcals and 2977 TSS points.

Three staple workouts, SST intervals (on rollers), long rides (around 200W for 3-5 hours, mainly on fixed though also winter Giant for club runs) and level 3 rides 1-2 hours around 250W.

Also been doing club turbo training, short SST intervals of 4 mins x 7. Strangely these have felt hardest though long way from most difficult power/TSS wise. Think due to hot room and me not being used to short intervals/short rest.

Feeling good despite level of work. CTL currently running at 88 and TSB -23 (following 3 hard days of 3 hr long ride/2 hr level 3/3 hr long ride.

Morning RHR is nice and low, low 40s following rest building to low 50s following several workout days. Also keeping to target weight which is good, 8-10lbs lighter than this time last year and no evidence of feeling any less strong or weaker on long rides.

Managing to get feeding sorted out bit by bit. Long 5 hour ride at 200W (3500kJ) seems to be OK on 500cal breakfast + 1500cal on bike. Will use this as benchmark for future.

Compared to last year, figures above show that I am spending more time generally on training but most especially in key tempo and sweetspot zones. 46% of time spent here compared to just 23% last year. Also shows I am pretty much keeping below threshold.

All in all then pretty much on target. Interesting to see how things shape up December. Will have first mini test of sorts Boxing day during our festive 10TT....

Aero power savings

Excellent article on aero savings from a full on TT frame compared to normal bike.

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/fitness/article/how-aero-is-aero-19273?source=newsletter&attr=road/2008/11/27#post_comments

Tested indoors and out in various combinations. Results of outdoor test:

Speedway data

Set-up	Estimated Ave CdA (m^2)	Speed (km/h)	Power (W)
Tarmac SL2 | Road Helmet | Drop bars	0.310	40.10	306.6
Tarmac SL2 | Road Helmet | Clip-on aerobars	0.267	40.27	268.6
Tarmac SL2 | TT2 Helmet | Clip-on aerobars	0.256	40.38	261.0
Transition | Road Helmet | Aerobars	0.265	40.17	262.9
Transition | TT2 Helmet | Aerobars	0.230	40.05	229.0

So I could save 70W when I get my tri bike. Put another way if I can get to a drag of 0.23 then Analytic cycling reckons I can do 30mph! Will be interesting.....

Biking Glossary

My note that I rarely bonked in an earlier post caused some splutters. So just for Mrs M (and other non cyclists) here is a short glossary of cycling terms and what they do (and sometimes don't) mean.......

Bonk: Means- running out of energy, usually on a long ride. Caused by not eating enough, solved by eating something... Does not mean: bonking

Rollers: Means- gadget that lets you emulate a hamster in a wheel, pedalling furiously, getting nowhere but getting very hot and bothered. Used for winter training, often in garages due to smell of sweat...Does not mean: things put in hair to make it curly.

Turbo: Means: - another gadget to make like a hamster. Smell of sweat often mixed with smell of burning rubber as back wheel engages with a brake of some sort. Can be very noisy....Does not mean: thing I put on the bike to make it go very very fast.

Wiggle: Online shop that sells bike parts... Does not mean....

Crank: Bit of the bike that connects pedals to bottom bracket...Does not mean: someone who spend his time in garage on Wiggle's turbo rollers.

Assos: Well known, expensive brand of clothing worn by good self on account of it being Swiss like what he is.....Does not mean: what most cyclists have a very big one of, made obvious due to overtight Lycra

Bibs: Shorts with shoulder straps to keep them from falling down when riding a bike. Very inconvenient if suffer pre race nerves....Does not mean: proof that cyclists are all big babies at heart.

Wedges: Something that you put between cleat and shoe to correct bow legs...Does not mean..what wearing too tight Assos bib shorts feels like

Cassette: Something that fits on the back wheel with lots of sprockets. Current record is 11. Does not mean: 70s precursor to cd that made music sound rubbish and that involved spending more time winding/rewinding/getting out of tape recorder when it came unwound than actually listening.

Compact: Smaller chain ring. Used to make it easier to get up hills whilst still looking like a "real" cyclist. Only drawback is that most compacts are used by those who are not compact....Does not mean: what lady cyclists carry in their saddlebags so as to be able to do a quick bit of makeup before crossing the finish line.

Durace: Top of the range brand of bike bits and pieces. Does not mean: Brand of contraceptive

Purring away

The other thing about Fitday (see previous post) is that it lets you check out your calorie balance in terms of protein/carb/fat/beer mix.

I've got pretty used to keeping the amount of carbohdyrates up, which is a good thing now that training season has started in earnest.

However does have a slight side effect, which has been particularly notable over past couple of days. It does lead to you having a tendency to "purr" a lot (euphemism courtesy of our cat, who really does purr quite a bit).

This isnt too bad at home as others there all have their own smells and we rub along fine. But may cause problems on daily commute as purrs may not be able to escape overtrousers without considerable noise which will make it hard to pretend it was someone else.....

Fitday - latest

I've been using the excellent Fitday program for a while now, to keep track of what I eat/drink and monitor my weight. Slowly but surely my weight is coming down to target of 150lbs and to celebrate progress to date I treated myself to a pair of 30" Levis yesterday..

One thing I am finding is that the usual advice "you need to burn 3500 calories to burn a pound of fat doesnt seem to work in my case. Over the past 28 days I've eaten an average 3,100 cals per day and burnt an average of 3,700 cals. (Pretty sure these figures are right, the cals per day comes from logging most everything I eat and most of the extra cals come from Powertap). So this makes a total of nearly 17000cals burned up which should be near 5lbs of fat. However my weight has just come down by a 2-3 pounds.

I'm not too stressed over this, I guess it shows everybody's metabolism differs and this may explain why I don't bonk, can get away with not eating much on long rides and why I put on weight on cycling trips abroad when I dont worry too much about what I eat.

Long Rides

I did my second long (5 hour) ride of the new training season yesterday. Weather was a lot better than the first which was nice, but ride itself was a lot better as well.



Focus for ride was to spend more time in the endurance zone. I managed well:

As the above shows I spent a lot more time in the endurance zone on the second ride and the power trace is smoother and more concentrated in the target zone.

Riding fixed puts some constraints on how much further I can push this but I will aim to do similar on future rides and ride same route on a geared bike to see what that can achieve.

I got some reliable HR readings on the ride as well, very encouraging. Power was endurance but HR was recovery at a very comfortable average of only 129bpm. Decoupling great, only 1.5% for the ride. Proves I still have very good base level fitness.

Faster club runs

Our club runs have never been particularly fast but even so have proved too much for some of the older members. (Which considering one of them is 78 is hardly surprising).



So they have started to organise a "slow" (aka wrinklies) ride. Followng this I decided I might as well use Sunday mornings for training. Rather than forsake the club ride altogether my plan is to turn up at the usual start point and head for the same mid-point cafe.



However rides will be fast and focussed on providing training benefit with socialising left until the cafe stop.



Tried it out for first time last Sunday and was happy to find a number of other riders wanted to join me. Unfortunately we had a couple of punctures in first half hour which didnt help but after that we made good progress. Post stop some of the riders found it a bit hard going and I eased up a bit. However ride was still a different beast than previous club runs. Average power was 187W/227NW. A more normal is 160W/204W, though we had one "hard" one a few weeks back that was 173W/240NW. This was far from typical however even so the ride last Sunday was a much better training ride for this time of year. The pictures below show why.

On the typical run most of the ride had little or no training benefit with over 50% of time being in recovery. Last Sunday less than 40% of time was spent in this zone and as a result all the other zones got larger. I plan to continue to do "fast" club runs with plan to get even more time out of recovery and into useful work zones

Allen/Coggan FTP Test October

Road test

Roller Test

As a start of season exercise I did a FTP test according to routine in Coggan/Allens "Training and Racing with Power" guide that I got with my Ergomo. Did this for a couple of reasons: felt it would be useful to have some sort of measure to base 2009 on and wanted something I could do indoors as well as out (not especially fancying riding a hard hour, which was basis for my previous FTPs).

Drill is quite complicated:

20 mins at endurance: 3xminute @100rpm with 1 min rest between each: 5 mins endurance

Then "true test" begins

5 minutes all out (VO2max)

10 minutes endurance

20 mins time trial aiming for max sustained power.

I repeated the test on consecutive days, first on the road, second on rollers.

Road went well on 5 minute test, I averaged 346W and it felt OK.

TT was hard to pace and was a bit all over the shop. I started at Hungerford on A4 heading east, then turned up B4000. Finished just after Stockcross. For future tests I think I will go a bit further down A4 before starting, so as to get more time on B4000. Finished up with 304W result. This equates to FTP of 289W after applying reduction of 5%.

Rollers next day I changed routine slightly so that 3x1minute were at 400W level. These went well, but 5 minutes was a bit of a washout and I lost energy midway through, only hitting 331W.

Not surprisingly the 20 TT was much easier to pace than the road and this went well as I slowly ramped pace up through interval. Result was 305W, which surprised me as I expected it to be less than road.

Will be interesting to repeat exercise end of November and see how things are progressing.

October Training

My time of, relative, rest is over and I've started structured training again. Broadly plan is to repeat 2008 in terms of training effort (TSS) but to make a couple of key changes
- Leave FTP at 310W, 30W higher than 2008. So same effort actually means more effort *
- Do more intense work sooner, especially sweetspot.

So far on plan on both counts as above pictures show:

On the PMC - Blue CTL has started to move up, at roughly same gradient as it did last year (though from slightly higher base and a month earlier)

Graphs comparing time by zone 2008 v 2009 show more absolute time spent this October vs last in every zone. November will be even more clear cut as November last year was very easy.

Pies show relative time decreased in Endurance/Tempo and Anaerobic and increased in Sweetspot/Threshold/V02Max.

* In theory my FTP has declined to around 290W now. See other post re FTP test.

Chameleon Commuter

http://www.airnimal.eu/Chameleon/Ultra.php

Its been a while since I started commuting with my Airnimal Chameleon.

Beforehand it was an experience that I was not at all looking forward to but I have to admit that it's not turned out to bad. Like most commuters I have got into my little routines.

Up at 6.45 & downstairs to put on coffee, Planet Rock & feed the dog
6.45-7.02 Eat cereal, drink coffee, boot up PC and update Fitday/WKO
News at 7.00 trigger to go upstairs and get showered/changed
7.30 leave and get bike out of garage
7.40 Arrive Newbury station
7.45 Catch train for Reading (touch wood only be late a couple of times so far
8.00 Stop for a few minutes outside Reading (always seems to do this)
8.07 Arrive Reading platform 5
8:12 Catch Ealing Broadway train
8:33 Arrive Burnham
8:48 Arrive work

16:50 Leave work
17:21 Catch Reading train
17:45 Arrive Reading platform 10 and go to platform 4
17:55 Buy something from ATM
18:02 Catch Paignton train
18:15 Arrive Newbury
18:30 Arrive home

During this time the Chameleon has served me fine. Its relatively quick and easy to fold up (though took a while to get exactly right) though not as quick as a "proper" folder like a Brompton. Once folded its quite easy to carry and once reassembled a joy to ride. Lugging it off and on train/across platforms has turned out to be a useful weight training session, while the short rides from home-station-work have been a bit of recovery.

So far the weather has been kind but on the few times it has rained my riding gear has kept me snug, warm and dry.

Getting on and off trains is proving no hassle and I am getting the commuter knowledge of knowing exactly where to stand on the platform to get into the right carriage for transfer.

Only thing I would fault the Chameleon on is the bag that the bike is meant to fit into when folded. It is exactly 1cm too small so while it takes under a minute to fold, it takes several minutes to squeeze into the bag. Fortunately this has turned out not to be an issue as the bag is not really needed. So instead I use it to lug my turbo around in.

Ironman - Hints and Tips on Pacing/Nutrition

The big Ironman in Hawaii has just taken place and following on from it a few interesting blog entries:

http://blog.trainingpeaks.com/2008/10/ask-the-experts-asker-jeukendrup-on-ironman-performance-and-nutrition.html - Using 16 gels in a bottle for nutrition. Certainly a simple solution. Will give it a try.

http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/10/most-common-ironman-mistake.html - Importance of keeping smooth power profile during a long ride (VI target should be less then 1.05. My rides are more like 1.18, however will be different for rides like sportives I guess)

http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/10/llanos-power-hawaii-2008.html Top performer stats: 4 hour power of 270W/3.75W/kg. For same weight my 4 hours is 230W. Not quite the same but not bad as Joe Friel's rule of thumb is 2.9-3.3 W/kg for young amateurs with half a percent knocked off for every year abover 35. So I should be around 221W, so actually a bit better.

BIG - Isnt the internet wonderful (again)

Same source as provided the excellent link to map of UK climbs, also directed me here:
http://www.challenge-big.eu/

Heaven sent site for climbers like me..just updating with list of my cols....

Hills I have yet to Climb

A while back I made a rather forlorn effort to start another blog that would feature the various hills I have climbed...however it has not made much progress (as Mrs M reminds me from time to time..)

Anyway even if I had done more, it would not be half as good as the info contained here http://www.hodology.com/

Once again..isn't the internet wonderful..

Winter Training Webinar

The wonders of technology. I got the chance to hear Hunter Allen present his views on winter training via a webinar. It cost $39 but I think it was money well spent. http://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/store/store.php/categories/buy-previous-webinars-216

Key points were:

• Most people dont train hard enough in the winter
• Carry on doing threshold + workouts, but do less often (1x 2weeks for VO2/anaerobic)
• Aim to charge up to 100% of capacity, so max of 2 hard workouts per week and one at weekend.
• Keep FTP up (even suggested one goal might be to improve)
• Do weights if appropriate (e.g. if over 50, so I will keep doing)
• Cross train
• Stretch/yoga
• Think of plyometrics if sprinting is a limiter (which it is for me). Suggested looking here: http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/plyometric.html

An e.g. week was

Mon/Wed/Fri weights and a bit of x-train cardio.

Tue 3x15 mins Sweetspot (88-93% FTP) (5 mins rest) then 5x1 minute fast pedalling

Thu 30 mins 110rpm, 30 mins normal rpm with 8s sprint every 2 mins in + 2 gears

Sat 3-4 hour ride 10 power bursts in hour 2 and 45min sweetspot hour 3

Sun 1-2 hours cardio on trainer.

So not exactly easy...but overall in line with my feeling that last winter the "base" months were a little too easy and I would have benefitted from doing some more intense training earlier. So will give ideas above a try this time round.