Pedaling Power

I keep banging on about how changing the way you pedal can improve performance. 

This is because it's worked so well for me, I just regret not doing something earlier and would encourage others to give it a go. The more so since there is no downside. To the contrary I have regained form amazingly quickly after a big break in training and I don't think its coincidence that since restarting a key focus has been pedaling differently.

It's not that I haven't worked on pedaling before, way back my first training guide was Joe Friel's "Bible" and that includes what he calls "speed skills" in his program and I have been doing these in some form or other most always. The problem was that it's difficult to know exactly if you are pedaling right or wrong. (This btw is also an issue with studies into pedaling.)

Using a Wattbike changed that. It has a display that gives a real time view on how you are pedaling (see here for a description).  It also helps demonstrate the changes I have made. 

Three pictures tell the story. First is the "before" polar view below. Its from an hour long 2x20 under/over session when I was in lifetime best peak form.

"Before pedal stroke"

It shows a couple of things:

• I  actually had 2 pedal actions. At low its intensity pretty circular. However when the intensity increases the pedal stroke changes into something quite different becoming distorted and more elliptical. Also right and left legs work differently.
• There are wide fluctuations in power each stroke, especially right leg which peaks near 600W each revolution (to generate at most 320W)

Despite this I was achieving good results with this action. The actual power delivered to the wheel was nice and steady. I could also keep it going high enough and long enough to get some impressive results both in terms of power profile and events. 


I took a couple of years off cycling. When I started again in June the crap weather in the UK meant I did lots of training on a Wattbike so I decided to take the opportunity to see if changing how I pedaled had any effect. It did.

Second picture shows polar view of my action now.(90 minute session including steady power hour, average and peak power same/greater than first picture)

It's pretty clearly different from the first picture.

• First thing to note is this is now my habitual action. It took a while to adapt and while I was doing that I would always have the polar display running. Now however I don't use it much and just focus on maintaining target intensity. 
• There is just one action now, all the same "peanut" shape for all intensities.
• The shape is much smoother with highs and lows during each stroke much reduced. Actual output power during this session was higher than the first picture but the peak power per stroke is much less.
• Left and right are more balanced, if anything now the left leg is contributing more to overall power (something to check out...)    

All this is well and good but what the picture doesn't show is what really matters.

First off, my riding feels completely different. It's hard to put into words but it feels much smoother, more "connected" and "centred" like much more of my body is involved in pedaling. I remember a very good rider describing how he managed to do a sub 20 10TT pre aero and he talked about just focusing on generating all his power from his stomach. I never understood that before but it make sense now. Put simply riding hard feels easier and more fun.

Most important of all though is actual power generated and this has been the most surprising thing. Since picking up from a zero fitness base I have done around 100 hours of training over a couple of months. I never expected in this time to get close to the power I could put out at peak form. So I was surprised to find that over the last couple of weeks  I was posting some good figures. 

I've been training with a power meter since 2007 and over the years have got pretty used to associating power on the computer with how hard it feels to ride. When I started again ofc I was finding this was way off, it felt really tough to generate 20 mins of power I used to comfortably ride all day. 

More recently though things have been going the other way. When glancing down to check power I'm getting surprises and see myself putting out 20W-40W more than I thought I was doing. 

Most of the sessions were on the Wattbike so at first I thought it was a problem with the power reading. However also been doing rides on 2 different Powertaps and both give the same result.  

Best example of how good I feel  was the session below (it's the same as the polar view above). Most everyone who does a lot of training experiences a few "breakthrough" workouts when they wildly exceed their expectations and have to recalibrate their training zones.  This was one of them for me. In the past I have rarely maintained 300W over a full hour and when I did it was hard work.  

This workout I averaged 300W for a full hour and it felt great.  Power was steady throughout, nice negative split and plenty left at the end. HR pretty much flat til I ramped things up for fun as the end came in sight. 

It wasn't exactly an easy workout, just very controlled. It felt exactly the same in terms of intensity  as the way I tackle long mountain climbs. But the power is as least 20W up. 

What's more I didn't peak for this session. To the contrary I was pretty tired, the day before I had spent 6 hours heavy lifting helping my daughter move flat. Prior to that I had done 3 days consecutive training, last being a knackering VO2. Also over the last few weeks I have been concentrating on shedding flab, losing 1-2 pounds per week.

The session while a great example is not exceptional.  I'm now riding pretty much at lifetime best form. This has come as a complete surprise and the only distinguishing feature I can put it down to is my change the way I pedal. 

This seems like a bit of a claim, time will tell once I start doing some peaking for an event. The real acid test will be next time I go mountaineering, when I will set 300W+ as target power. 

Still while slightly incredible it does make a bit of sense. As mentioned my pedal action has changed now, in fact its actually quite hard to go back and try to replicate the pattern in the first picture. In order to do this I have to push hard with my quads, that pretty much dominates the whole of the stroke. It would seem sensible that the way I pedal now will be better because it uses more muscles to generate power. No doubt the quads still do a lot of work but they don't have to push to quite the extremes which reduces stress and consequent fatigue.

Training Going Well

Training is going well.  A little late, I have finally got around to setting up an excellent environment to work out in. 

Key thing is using the Wattbike software on my PC to monitor training. This is much improved over the Wattbike display.

Example above shows ramp up during warmup. HR on left and power on right. Each is coloured, power shows training zones and HR shows steps highlighting those above 164 which is where I sense a cutover from endurance to threshold levels. 

Apart from being better using the above frees up the Wattbike computer so that I can use its race function to help push training.  Good example of this yesterday, I did a VO2 session 2 x (3x3) yesterday pushing 400W. Followed by a drift test that was great, 18 mins at 280W averaging 153bpm and only 1.24% drift.

 

Batman - the plot thickens

I still haven't recovered from quite how bad the last Batman film was. 

So I went back and watched the first 2 films again and came to a rather surprising conclusion. 

With the benefit of hindsight it's pretty obvious while "Batman Begins" is pretty much perfect the rot actually set in with the next film in the series.

Plot-wise  "The Dark Knight" is a mess. At the time of it's release that largely went unnoticed due to it featuring the best of Batman's foes, The Joker.  This was hyped because Heath Ledger did a pretty good job in the role which, unfortunately turned out to be his last which ofc ended up in hype overdrive. 

The two things that are worst plot-wise are:
- Joker spends much of the film acting as a glorified, if rather psychotic,  mob hitman. He only starts to get really interesting at the end once he is done with the mob and he makes it clear he believes himself to be Batman's opposite and that Batman created him this way. Strangely watching the film again I liked the final "boat" scene much more than first time through, this was the "real" Joker at work. 
- Harvey Dent/Two-Face just fails. The transformation is unbelievable and just feels like its been tacked on to give the film a reason for Batman going on the run to bridge into the last film. This is total fail. Reasoning is "Harvey killed some policeman, but he is meant to be a good guy so the people can't know. So Batman must take the fall" Er??? 
>>> With all the chaos going on that night it would have been easy to finger the Joker as responsible
>>> The film couldn't bring itself to show Two-Face killing a woman. So at least one policewoman knows the truth. 

(Other terrible thing was the casting of Rachel. Thank God she was killed midway through.)





 

Armstrong Drugs Cheat

Good day due to some bad news. Armstrong wont be contesting the charges against him.

Nothing to do with the rubbish about him being tired and not getting a fair hearing. It's simply the only way he can escape with any credibility. 

Sad thing is he will get away with it, the vast majority of those who know about Armstrong know little about cycling and will buy his martyrdom act.

Still its good news. Whatever eventually happens with Armstrong the facts are that cycling is cleaner now than it has ever ben  he can be held to account so much later should act as a deterrent for those tempted to screw it in future. 

Some related links 

Paul Kimmage interview Landis


Full list of Armstrongs doping history

The Dark Knight Fails

Saw The Dark Knight Rises last night.  Huge disappointment, utter rubbish. Takes near 3 hours to mash up tired story of evil baddy out to destroy whole of Gotham forcing Batman out of retirement so he can save the day and fake his death so he can retire again (and presumably rinse and repeat next time the studio needs to make some money)

Typical rubbish scene - Hundreds of police armed with batons charge building filled with defenders all carrying automatic weapons.  And win??  

Most memorable moment. Bomb is going to go off, so ofc has a hackneyed timer. It shows 15 minutes to go. I will forever recall my heart sinking at the realisation there is so much time left.

With benefit of hindsight its pretty obvious now that this series failed to learn from previous ones (most notably Tim Burton but also recent Spiderman).

Third/final part is always going to be the hardest to pull off so it makes sense to save the best villain for it.  For Batman this is, by a country mile, The Joker. 

So previous film should not have featured Joker, his role could equally well have been done by, say the Riddler.

Final film may then have been worth watching. 

Something else it could have done would be borrow from the The Dark Knight Returns. Another hackneyed old plot from the "Rises" film is how rookie cop turns into Robin. Way more interesting would have been if Batmans absence had been filled with vigilantes who differ from Batman in being more willing to use violence. (alluded to in Rise when Cat kills Bane). So Batman fights 2 foes, evil Joker creates and evil he has created himself.

Then his death at end becomes way more interesting. Its not just so he can go and drink martinis in the sun. Its acceptance that people need to look after themselves not rely on some super being to make everything right.  Fine sentiment, but leaves hanging the question of whether people really can live up to and desire this???

TDF 2012 - The Pros

Training peaks did a summary of the pros figures from this year's tour here

2012 Stats


Summary of some key stats below, going to show how big the difference is between my performance and that of the pros.



 

(W/kg 
Brajkovic  1 hour 5.90    3 hour 4.98
Eisel         1 hour 4.73    3 hour 4.09
Sorenson 1 hour 5.51    3 hour 4.70

For comparison my stats for the same were

1 hour 270W  3.6W/kg Highest TSS 238


Total load was around 300 TSS per day. Interestingly this compares very closely to the TSS of my events, Tour of Wessex each day was around 310TSS and an major sportive like Marmotte is 400+

End of the Tour

Well it's all over and what a great trip it's been.

History was made in the tour itself, with Bradley Wiggins pulling on the yellow jersey, Chris Froome coming second and Mark Cavendish winning 3 stages including the final one in Paris.

  









My tour went remarkably well too. The TSS chart above shows 3 weeks of solid work and I felt a lot better too. I also lost 2.5kg.

Power went up a lot at the same time. Mean max shows better power from 3 mins onwards. Probably best was the final TT where I  pushed 270W for an hour.

Virtual Tour - 6D TV

Just finished stage 11 so over half way and one of the hardest stages done. 

It's going remarkably well, better than I expected. It's tough though, which sort of adds to the fun, sort of like 6-D TV, I get the added dimensions of sweat, exhaustion and pain. 

Managed to ride all the stages except the prologue, most just the last couple of hours but stages 8 and 11 did the whole thing from start to finish. Both were hilly, stage 11 the hardest yet with 4 climbs all ones I know well, Madeline, Croix de Fer, Mollard and Toissure.  Last 3 were same as the 2006 route and I was surprised how much of it I could remember.

TSS above gives some idea of the workload, pretty high overall.

 Power levels pretty good too. Meanmax graph shows lots of PBs set from 2 minutes onwards. Especially pleased with the first HC climb, 50 minutes at 262W, which was pretty much my target power back in 2009.  

However yesterdays ride was a bit of an eye opener, did first climb fine but failed half way up the second. So still a ways to go power wise.

 

Who Killed Nanna Birk Larsen- Alternate storyline

Looking to get some sort of closure for frustration of the last couple of episodes of The Killing I thought I'd put together an alternate (and imo more coherent) story line. Here it is.

Backstory

• Leon killed Mette. This was a crime of passion, committed in the woods (same as those where Nanna flees)  in a fit of jealous rage when Mette tells him its over while they are on a walk together.
• Leon is distraught  after the murder and plans to give himself up to the police but talks to Vagn first.
• Vagn talks him out of confessing and helps him dispose of Mette's body.
• In the process Vagn takes the black heart necklace (unbeknownst to Leon)
• Vagn makes sexual advances towards Nanna in her early adolescence.  Nanna resists and Vagn desists when he realises how much he is risking.
• Nanna tells no-one of Vagns advances but does refer indirectly to them in an essay she writes at 16.
• Nanna treats Vagn differently following the event but this coincides with  teenage angst and becoming more distant from the rest of the family as well so it's not noticed. 

The murder:

• Nanna does not use Leon's taxi but the one in front of him on the taxi rank. 
• Leon recognises her, follows the taxi and calls Vagn when he finds out where she is, asking Vagn if he knows whats going on.
• Vagn comes to the flat and rings the entrance bell. Nanna doesn't let him into the flat and they have a heated argument that flares when Nanna screams she will tell Theis about Vagns advances.
• This flips Vagn.  He puts on gloves and convinces/blackmails Leon to help him get into the flat.
• Leon impersonates a police officer. He rings the bell and tells Nanna he has a report she is being assaulted and must see her to verify all is OK. 
• Nanna doesn't recogise Leon, since he only works occasionally for her father, isn't in company clothes and she doesn't have much to with his workers anyway. Leon uses his taxi id as fake police id.
• This exchange starts outside the building and is heard by a passer by.
• Leon gets Nanna to open the door, Vagn pushes past him and Leon immediately leaves.
• Vagn beats Nanna up in the flat but does not rape her there. His main concern at this stage is to keep her quiet. He ties her up and takes her, in Hartmanns car,  to one of Birk Larsen's unused warehouses.
• Vagn meets Leon the next day when they need to do the office move, saying nothing about what has happened.  
• The guy at the place they are moving meets them both and they start the job. The office guy goes to the new location to sort things out. Vagn tells says he will be organising things at the old office while Leon will do the transport and help at the new one.
• He needs to get back to Nanna but the office move is a 2 man job. So Leon gets his brother to come and help him, so Vagn can leave.
• Leon's brother is long distance truck driver, not a businessman.
• Vagn goes to Nanna and works himself up into more of a rage as she continues to resist/accuse him. This triggers the rapes and he blames her this predicament and the hurt she is causing to her family. He can't bring himself to kill her directly though, so he ties her up in Hartmanns car.
• He drives this car to the office to sign off the work as completed. 
• He then  copies the way he and Leon disposed of Mette's body causing Nanna's death. 
• He places the black heart necklace in Nannas hand as insurance in case the body is ever discovered.

 Changes to The Killing series.

• Vagn is questioned as a possible suspect right at the start.  Leon also appears and is questioned as routine along with all the other employees.  He and Leon alibi each other, neither mentioning  Leon's brother (who no-one has seen apart from them)
• The office guy confirms the move took place and mentions how pleased he was by it since it was a big job even for 2 people.
• The taxi driver comes forward to say he had Nanna as a passenger as in the series.
• The passer by who saw Leon getting entry to the flat comes forward. This gives a false lead into the police service and gives scope for red herrings including those of tampering with Nannas phone.
• For most of the series Vagn is ruled out as a suspect. Leon is never even considered as a possible suspect.
• Leon starts to become of interest once Lund starts investigating Mette's disappearance. Circumstantial evidence (working for the removal firm, fitting a rough description of Mette's boyfriend) leads to Lund wanting to question him to get some more information.
• The chance meeting of Leon+Lund at Vagn's flat never happens. 
• Instead Lund goes to Leon's in connection with Mette's disappearance. 
• Leon is close to the edge already, combination of knowing the likely truth about Nanna, his role in that and the continuing guilt about Mette.
• He doesn't crack when Lund sees him but she can sense something is wrong, but this overlaps with the news that Mette's body has been found.
• When Lund leaves Leon goes on the run.
• Option: Lund returns to Leon's flat and searches it. Well hidden, she finds a picture of Mette, Leon has kept since he loved her despite killing her.
• Evidence is now pointing towards Leon as Mette's killer which leads Lund to suspect he may also be involved with Nanna. 
• The passer by who saw the "policeman" at the flat picks out Leon's picture as the person he saw.
• Lund questions Vagn again about the office move. He confirms Leon was there but says he left towards the end leaving Vagn to finish up and get signoff from the office manager. The timing seems to make it possible for Leon to get back and rape/dispose of Nanna.
• Leon phones Lund, close to breakdown. Admits of being responsible saying "I killed her" and is obviously cracking up. He claims others are also guilty but won't say who.
• Leon also phones Vagn. Though he tells him he won't give him away it's clear to Vagn that Leon is a danger. He knows where Leon is likely to be.
• Leon returns to the place where he murdered Mette (and Nanna fled so the woods in the opening sequence every episode) and commits suicide. 
• He leaves a note but Vagn finds him first and takes it.
• The case now looks closed. Leon admitted to killing Mette, was seen at the flat, had time to commit the crime and killed himself where she died. His claims others are involved are put down to him being in denial.  The necklace is seen as final proof he is some sort of serial killer.
• Only Lund has concerns. Leon killed Mette but if he also killed Nanna why did he keep saying "I killed her" not "killed them" and why no suicide note. 
• Leon's brother comes on the scene. He has been trucking abroad, tracked down and informed of his brother's death. He mentions he had been helping out with the office move on the day of Nannas death.
• Lund challenges Vagn about Leon's brother asking why he didn't mention it. Vagn says Leon probably needed some help his end, that's all. He didn't mention it and that would make sense if it meant he could get away quicker to deal with Nanna.
• The creepy teacher who had Nanna's essay (about the affair with a married man) during the early part of the series now comes forward. He says he has been researching more essays in connection with language development and had found Nanna's.  (It hadn't been noticed before since her teacher at the time had left) 
• He simply says he thinks the essay may be of interest. Lund take it but then gets interupted by Leon's brother who mentions that Leon had a storage locker that he used since his flat was small.
• Lund decides to check this and brings along Meyer>> events leading to Meyer's death.(Storage contents could be:Leon had a diary where he wrote up everything about Mette's killing including Vagn's role. Also mentioned there he was glad Mette would always have the necklace he had given her so he could not have put it with Nanna).
• Lund now knows someone else is involved but is arrested herself.
• She still has the essay and reads it while awaiting questioning.  This rings warning bells that someone in the family may have tried to abuse Nanna. She calls Pernille who is obviously upset but also sufficiently aware there may be some truth in Lund's suspicions. She mentions that Nanna had some old essay books  from around the time that were not in her room as they had been tidied away and boxed up with othe family junk/momentos. These have just been and moved to the new house already.
• Following Bengts intervention and her freedom on parole Lund goes to the new house. She meets Vagn there and has her "Sara 84" moment with him. 
• It's clear Vagn knows she knows. But this knowledge pushes him into acceptance its only a matter of time before everything comes out.  His only choice now is how this will go down.

 

From here could segue with show end but I prefer:

• Vagn threatens Lund and asks for her phone/car keys. Lund is worried but recognises this means he doesn't necessarily intend direct harm as in this case he could just take the phone anyway. She hands over the phone and Vagn leaves, locking her in.
• Lund breaks down the door but in the meantime Vagn has gone to Larsens birthday party. 
• Lund goes to nearby house and uses phone to call Pernille and warn her, literally at the same time Vagn drives off with Theis. 
• Pernille drives to new house to meet up with Lund, Lund calls police but they are still more concerned with tracking her down now they know Bengt's forgery.
• Lund and Pernille catch up with Vagn and Theis as per the show. 
• Theis kills Vagn. 
• The police arrive shortly after. The series ends leaves unresolved what happens to Theis, it depends on Lund's word, she could tell the truth but also could say it was a matter of self defence following a struggle. 

The Killing (warning massive spoiler alert)

Off topic. Just finished watching first series of "The Killing".  It was utterly brilliant and had me hooked right from the start. Amazing how quickly I didn't even notice it was in Danish.

But...(WARNING MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT)

The series is 20 hours long. For around 18 of those hours the plotting is pretty perfect, false lead follows on false lead each one ratcheting up the tension. I can only recall a few times I thought it went wrong

• Nanna's phone being tampered with. Made little sense at the time and even less when we learn it was done at the behest of Jens. Jens is a fourth rate politician of little power or influence. Its hard to see why a senior policeman with 36 years experience would risk his career for him. 

• when Hartmann sacks Morten when he thinks he was the source of leaks, the option someone else had used his laptop was way more obvious and Morten would have been far more forceful about this as an explanation. Makes even less sense when you find out later Morten was the only one to know about Hartmann's suicide attempt and you the final last minutes reveal of Morten's ruthlessness.
• Olav going to Bremer when he is under pressure. Why go to Bremer, presumably he was talking to Jens on the phone? Closely linked Jens killing Olav, bit extreme a reaction?? Jens committing suicide by cop also a bit extreme but guess borderline credible.

But  very sadly it all went horribly wrong at the end, when you find out Vagn is the killer. This revealed a huge number of holes in the previously pristine script. In no particular order as they occur to me are:

• Standard procedure in all such cases is to suspect the nearest and dearest, since more often than not they did the killing. Vagn would have been a prime suspect from the start, his alibi and all the questions about his background would have come up much earlier. 
• Vagn cancelled a major job to be able to commit the crime. The customer was very upset by this (as we found out later).  99/100 the customer would be on the phone next working day to complain to the boss (and even if not his lie would have been picked up by the police questioning him as above.) 
• Contrary to earlier suggestions Vagn was not a serial killer. In the end the killing was an unpremeditated crime of passion.  So the earlier clues about the killing seem unlikley:
• > Cutting the fingernails. Possible I suppose
• >Using a condom for all the rapes. Highly unlikely especially for the first one. 
• > For Mette's killing Vagn wrapped the body in his own company's material. Not exactly a sign of the most intelligent killer in the world.
• Evidence from the flat showed Nanna resisted her killer. Yet Vagn showed no signs of being in a fight immediately after
• The fight in the flat was intense. Yet Vagn left no trace, no blood, no finger prints. 
• How did the black necklace get into Nanna's hand?
• How did the video rental card/bloodied clothing get dropped?
• Leon either knew Vagn was the killer or would have had a very strong suspicion he did. How/why did he keep quiet about this?
• If he wanted to cover it up why did he go to the police with the evidence he had picked Nanna up, especially since it put him in the position of being forced to lie about the fact he worked for Theis part time?
• All employees would have been suspects. Leon would have been known and already questioned. 
• Why did Leon flee and stay fleeing?  He phoned his brother and Lund while doing so. All he needed to do tell either of them he had told Vagn about Nanna.
• How did Leon die? Suicide makes no sense, he wasn't the killer. If Vagn killed him how did he find him?
• Why did Vagn tell Theis and Pernille about Nanna's passport?
• Why did Vagn keep the sweatshirt with Sara 84? If he was so obsessive about cleaning Nannas fingernails he would have destroyed all the clothes he was wearing while killing a policeman. 
• Why did Vagn take Nanna to the new house? Through his job Vagn would have known of lots of other much safer locations. Taking her to the house was reckless in terms of the risk of leaving evidence behind and alerting/being seen by neighbours. It also shows a degree of callousness towards the rest of the family that doesn't ring true.
• Why did Amir wait so long to tell his story?

 And on the political storyline

• After it becomes clear Morten tried to cover up for Hartmann not Rie why does Hartmann just accept this? He had no compunction sacking Morten for a much more trivial offence just a few days earlier.
• Even if Hartmann rolls over why expect Rie to? She has shown herself to consistently be a shrewd operator with a hard streak. Moreover she has a very powerful father.  Would she just accept being accused of a serious crime that she did not commit?

Virtual Tour

The 2012 TDF has started, with the amazing situation of a Brit being favourite to win.

As a sort of homage to my 2006 ride and to avoid the July summer (wet wet wet) I thought I'd try riding a virtual tour. Idea is simple, watch the ITV4 coverage and pretend to be a tour rider. 

So far its gone pretty well, managed 3 days so far. Will be interesting once they hit the mountains and I'm not looking forward to the 2 time trial stages. 

1KW

Weather a bit on the stormy side so did a Wattbike session

Went well again, new best figures> 30s and first time over 1000W.

Over the Hill

Did a ride yesterday focused on doing some timed climbs, to set some benchmarks for the future.

Here they are:

• Short Hill TT (Driveway>Substation) 9:58 283W av 166bpm max 177bpm 70rpm
• Fac>Ash (Footpath>Village sign) 4:56 286W av 159bpm max 169 bpm 67rpm
• Yew>Ash (Drive>First House) 5:47 285 av 158bpm max 167bpm 68rpm
• Ash Grind (Last Pothole>x-road) 8:06 272W av 156bpm max 166bpm 74rpm
•  

I set season best PBs from 2:40 330W > 10:27 270W.  

4 min was 319W. This gives some indication of the size of the task to get back to previous fitness. My all time best 4 min PB (398W) was done on the Yew>Ash climb back in April 2009. Then I managed
4:12 396W av 166bpm max 174bpm 83rpm 


So a way to go..



 
 

Not a fluke

The results of my last workout were so surprising/good I thought I'd better run a control. It may be that the Wattbike is giving too high readings.

So I did a bike workout today, main objective being to do a 10TT on the road (same as Wattbike over/under 1km over/2km over)

Results were very pleasing, despite feeling a bit tired following yesterday's workout  I was able to better the 10TT power figures, 261W vs 255 on the Wattbike. So pretty confident Wattbike is measuring accurate power.

Also I put in a max effort sprint climb on the way out. This produced figures not too far from my all time PB.  77s PB 477W, today 470W, so something to aim at beating over next few weeks.

Better and Better

Somewhat to my surprise I am continuing to improve and post good numbers. My Wattbike routine is to do 3xmax effort 20-30s intervals, recover then do a 10TT as under/over (1km over, 2 km under).  Latest session I posted new season best for max 960W-40s (501W)


Included in this were all time PB form 16s(784W) - 32s (601W).

The 10 TT was also very good. I posted a season best of 255W. Nothing special compared to the 330W PB but impressive considering how little training I have been doing and the fact I wasn't going all out.

New PB

Did a Wattbike session today and managed to hit goal of beating previous PBs, which isn't bad considering I only just started again. 

Bit where the dotted line is above the solid is the good news. Pretty much due to me doing some all out 20-30s intervals which wasn't something I used to do much of. Still I must have done some efforts like this during racing, just goes to show what some focused training can do for you.

Back in the saddle

Summer has finally arrived and its lured my back onto my bike after a while off.  I'm taking things easy, not actually training for anything specific and not following a rigid plan, just riding as I feel.

That said I wouldn't be me if I didn't have some sort of goal in mind so I've decided to see how close I can get to my peak fitness form and set at least a few PBs. Should be interesting, given I've had a couple of years off and am now more mid than early 50s so firmly in the "masters" category. 

WKO makes tracking this goal quite easy, It's all captured in the picture above, the dotted line are my PBs over the past 2 weeks, the solid is all time PB. 




Above 1.30 there's quite a gulf, with 100W difference. But around 20s things are not so different. Couple of reasons for this, I always slacked at these in the past and this time I've been trying out a few high intensity intervals. 


I'll focus on this area first, then see how things progress.

5 key training drills

Taken a break, now I'm back training albeit not as intensely as I used to.

I just do a session on my Wattbike once every other day or so. But it's going well and I'm getting fitter.

I thought I'd just make a note of the sessions I do, they are general purpose and would suit anybody wanting to get fit regardless of what they actually do, cycle, run, row, swim, whatever.

The only thing you need for all is a clock and a measure of distance covered.

There are 5 different exercises. First time through I'd suggest doing them each in order which will help get a good feeling for the pace to use.

Thereafter you can pretty much do them in any order you like depending on how you feel and aiming overall to do all the exercises a similar number of times. Ideally you will do 3-4 sessions per week with a days rest between each. You can do more if time permits and you feel fresh. Try to do at least 2 per week at least.


Notes:

• Clock/distance measure is the basic way to set pace. Depending on circumstances others can be used, like resistance on gym equipment or hills if training outdoors. Key thing is that whatever you use is easy to monitor and repeatable. You need this in order to train optimally, also seeing yourself go faster with less effort is a great motivator
• All but the first exercise have rest periods. During this time slow to minimal pace but keep moving, do not stop completely.)
• Failing: you will have bad days when you cant complete a whole exercise. Don't let this get you down. Make your next session the same exercise, easing back a bit if it guarantees you will complete it, then use this as benchmark for progression.
  

1: Steady state 1 hour

From cold start and increase pace until you are exercising quite hard but at a pace you feel you can maintain for a full hour. I find monitoring breathing is best indicator for this. Raise pace until you feel you have to breathe through your mouth but its a controlled breathing: you can force yourself to breathe through nose for a short while and still maintain pace.

Progression: At the end of the hour record distance covered. Next time go further.
Variety: This can be a boring workout. To make it more interesting vary some technical aspects of the exercise, e.g. on a bike do 30s at 100rpm every 2 mins or so. Another variant (and very good training) is to do a negative split: second half hour is done at a faster pace than first. If you feel up to it then a more advanced form of this workout is to sprint for 15s-30s every 2-5 mins.

2: 2x20s

Warm up for 5-10 mins then do the following:

• 20 minutes at pace above that from exercise 1 above. As a guideline you should be pushing at a pace that forces you to breathe hard and often through your mouth.
  
• At the end of 20 minutes ease right back and rest for 5 minutes
• Do another 20 minutes. Aim for this 20 minutes to be at at least the same pace as the first.

Progression: Try to increase distance covered in each 20 minutes every time. Good approach is try to set a 20 minute best on the second 20 then make that PB the target distance for the first 20 next time round.

3: Under Overs

Warm up for 5-10 mins. Then do the following:

• Exercise for 2 mins at the steady state pace from exercise 2.
  
• Push hard for 1 min. You should already be breathing hard through your mouth>> during this minute you should feel a shift from where you are under control of your breathing to a point where you feel you have to really suck deep on every breath just to keep going. However don't push so hard you give max effort and sprint (except for the first 2-5s or so to get pace up). You have to maintain a high pace for the full minute, not peak and fade.
  
• After the 1 min ease back and do another 2 mins at steady state.
• Push hard for 1 minute
• Another 2 mins,
• Then another minute hard.
  

Ease right back and do very easy pace for 5 minutes

Repeat all above again and again. So in the end you do 3x9 mins, each 9 min consisting of 3x 2 mins steady, 1 min hard.

Progression: Record the distance covered each 9 mins. Aim to cover more each time you do this drill. Another progression is to do 2 mins steady then 2 mins hard, making each interval 12 mins long.

4: VO2s

Warm up for 5-10 mins then do the following:

• 5 minutes at the 1 minute pace from exercise 3.
• 5 minutes rest
• repeat 3 times (so total 20 minutes exercise)
  

That's it. If time permits you can take a long rest (10 mins or so) and repeat.

Don't push too hard on the first interval. You need to complete all 4. The first 3 should be at a very similar pace. Your body takes a while to warm up fully to working at this intensity, so don't be surprised if the third feels easier than the preceding two.

Progression: If you feel up to it push harder on the last. If you succeed in keeping a higher pace to the end use that as a benchmark next time round.

5: 1x1s

Warm up for 5-10 mins then do the following:

• Go as hard as possible at a pace you can sustain for a full minute. Breathe really hard just before starting then first 15s or so sprint to get up pace. (you won't breathe much if at all during this time. Sprint should be hard but not max effort, you need some reserve for completion). Hold pace for 45s. You will be breathing very very hard.
• Rest 1 minute
• Repeat for at least 4 times.

Fully rest for 10 minutes or so then repeat. So total of 8 minutes very high intensity exercise.

Progression: Increase pace of each minute or add extra minutes (so 5x1 minute> 6x1 not just 4x1 minute). Hard alternative is to repeat until exhaustion. So just keep doing 1 minute effort, 1 minute rest until you can't complete a full minute. Keep a note of pace and number of minutes completed and use this as benchmark for the future.

War on Drugs

Not really been been updating this blog but thought I would just quickly for posterity record my thanks to Bob Ainsworth for having the courage and conviction to stand up and say "the emperor is stark bollock naked!!" when it comes to the "war" on drugs.

Today Interview

His views got the predictable parrot reaction from his leader. However others do support him. People like Tom Lloyd. Especially interesting, his being an ex Chief Constable. This interview with Peter Hitchens is fascinating and its very much a shame that it got cut off.

Tom Lloyd

For the record in the latter interview I have some sympathy with Peter Hitchens's views. The current policy is feeble. If the end objective was really to end drugs use then there is no choice but to pursue and prosecute drugs users.

Truth is, as both Bob Ainsworth and Peter Hitchens agree, there is no real end objective of the current "war". I don't hold out much hope that anything will change soon, but hopefully more people like Bob Ainsworth will speak out.

Ventoux 2009 - Pro Comparison

Been a while since last post. Done lots of riding! So catching up bit by bit.

Did the Etape 2009 a couple of weeks back, stage 20 from Montelimar to Mt Ventoux. I had a pretty good ride. My target was to get gold, which for my age was 6:35. Based pacing on combination of the Dragon + WKO file of a cycle club mate who went up Ventoux in around 1:35 at around 245W.

Dragon to 140km looked similar to Etape. So I guessed from that I should aim too get to Bedoin around 4:30 which meant a 1:40 or so climb would mean comfortably getting under target.

Worked scarily well. Went reasonably hard up the early climbs, moving through field well. After first made the mistake of trying too hard to catch group ahead but learned on future climbs just to be patient as sure to be another group coming along. Lost a bit of time on descents but still managed to find quick groups and hit Bedoin dead on schedule.

Climb of Ventoux was a bit tough, especially through forest. I decided not to push too hard and just maintain pace/position. Helped by Cyclefit guys lending me a bottle. Hard towards end but finished OK.

Ended up with comfortable gold around 6:10. Surprised to find self in top 200, top 170 in terms of Ventoux. Beat Erik Zabel, Stephen Rooks and Cedric Vasseur up the mountain and at some point must have passed Alain Prost!


One thing the Etape offers is a unique chance to compare a ride with the pros. Chris Anker Sorenson (Saxo Bank) rode the stage a few days later and finished 30th only 5 minutes behind. His files were shared by Training Peaks and comparison with my ride is summarised below (ride broken down by 3 minor climbs each with a descent/bridging sector, then Ventoux. Latter broken down into first easier stretch then second hard stretch starting in forest).

Interesting to note how in early stages my figures dont vary too wildly from Sorenson's. (though note for Watts he weighs 63.5 to my 70kg). Difference is that I was trying while think the pros were taking it a bit easy.

The last 3 sectors, (run to Bedoin and Ventoux) show the difference between pros and mortals. Power kicks up in run to Bedoin at over 300W (while I am easing back at less than half that).

First "easy" section of the Ventoux is frenetic, over 400W for the pros over 6W/kg. Even they "ease" back up the final climb to a mere 344W.

Total for Ventoux is pro: 360W (84rpm) to climb in 62 mins. (compared to my 242W (72rpm) and 99 mins.

HR graph interesting too. Mine slopes downward with time as I start strong but get tired towards end. Sorensons slopes other way, especially impressive given how many hard days riding led up to this day.




Comparison Spreadsheet (ODS)

Chris Anker Sorensen WKO file

My WKO file

LINK to ALL file

Full Results

Other stuff:

Review/Photos (in French)