ride joe ride

The off-season/vacation mindset is tough to shake. I have lots of recapping from the season to do here, I know, but it’s almost time to start the prep for a new season. To that end, I’ve gone ahead and put together the preparation and base periods of my training plan for next year in case you’re interested in following along. Some important things:

1. It’s a two peak year: once in June for some mountain bike races and then more seriously in mid-november for the cross season. Yes I decided to do two peaks again, and though its ostensibly for mountain biking, its really because I am missing being on the bike.

2. Unlike last year, I am going to use heart rate (HR) for guiding training effort. I’ve made the program based around training levels which are set by your HR at lactate threshold. You can determine this number in a few different ways, one of which I list below.

3. In order to do this plan you’ll really need to have some sort of HR measuring device which allows you to keep averages of HR during intervals. If it allows you to capture whole workouts, so much the better. Garmin makes a couple of devices which fit this bill for sub-$200. There is some snazzy freeware software which allows you to keep track of your workouts too. Much more on this whole system later.

For now, the early part of the plan is here. Also there are the dates for the remainder of the season as well as the breakdown of my HR levels. I’ll be filling in the details with race specifics over the next month.

The pre-season starts Monday!

Heart Rate at LT protocol:

1. Get a device which will give you an average HR for a set period of time.

2. Warm up. As much as I don’t like them, this works best on a trainer.

3. Do a 30 min time trial. As hard as you can go evenly over the whole 30. This is hard.

4. After 10 min, start the process of recording your average HR

5. If you paced well your HR at LT will be a bit less the average of the last 20 min.

Before talking about the iBike starts to seem as useful as talking about my Selle Italia SLR (well to me anyway, you may have already reached that point) I should wrap my test of it up as promised. The short version is that I haven’t used my remaining Powertap in a few weeks.

Before I give the pros and cons of the iBike as I’ve found them, I should note a couple of things. One is that I’m using one of the very early iBikes, and the newer ones are much improved by all accounts. One of the chief improvements relates to my second note. A very important part of the iBike system is the software which analyzes the ride data post-ride. On the early units (like mine) the difference between the numbers you see during the ride and post-ride can be pretty significant — think 15 watts difference in average shown on the iBike and in the software post-analyzation.

That said, the biggest pro of the iBike is that it’s accurate. I compared the PT and iBike post ride averages, max watts, normalized power etc, and with very few exceptions they were within a couple of watts of each other. The only time there was a significant variation was when riding in a pack, and this is something which was a known problem with my early unit — it’s fixed in the newer model. And significant variation is like 20 watts or so average for a long group ride. For the vast majority of my training, even this very early unit gives data accurate enough to meet my needs easily.

Speaking of data, the iBike generates a whole slew of interesting data, much of which I think I’d seriously miss if I switched to another power meter. How cold is it really? How much of a headwind is there? How steep is this hill? All questions which it answers and my powertap didn’t. Sure I could add a second computer alongside the powertap to have that information as well, but then my handlebars start looking like the bridge of the Enterprise. Not to mention weight. Okay mentioning weight: I also am enjoying the lack of the leaden rear wheel immensely. I am enjoying simultaneously rolling on deep dish carbon AND having power data even more.

Probably the biggest con to the iBike system is the importance of having accurate profiles for different equipment. Because of the way the device calculates power, the difference between a wool kit and lycra kit is actually enough to impact data. So I might have a racing profile and a training profile (to account for wheels) but then I also need a racing profile for wool kit etc etc. When you include different seasons, it’s not hard to imagine 10 profiles in a place like Chicago where we go through several phases of clothing. Each of those profiles must be made on the bike and essentially means time on the bike spent messing around with the power meter instead of riding. Given how limited riding time always is, this could be a problem for some people. The new model does have a mode which allows you to skip the profiles with some sacrifice in accuracy. While these might be useful in a pinch (i.e. an emergency large gear change maybe) or for getting started, I’d imagine most people wanting as much accuracy as they could get.

So yeah, I am an iBike fanboy I guess. It is certainly not without flaws, but no power solution is. I’ll likely upgrade to the newer generation model at some point but this one is working well enough to tell me that I need to work on my 5-minute power (duh). The graphs from the iBike software are really pretty amazingly geek-cool so I’ll post some of those soon.

I remember when Sony stopped making the Cleo, their cool Palm OS running PDAs. Actually, they didn’t stop making them. They just stopped selling them in the US, and I remember reading that they pulled them because so many were returned as defective when they weren’t. Americans, it seems, didn’t want to read the instruction manuals and mistook complexity for faultiness. This has always seemed like a cardinal sin to me — wherever it appears in life.

The iBike has intrigued me since I first read about it — it’s another, and somewhat maligned, device used to measure power. It uses a very different method of measuring than either the Powertap or SRM. I am not going to even attempt to describe what it’s up to: if you haven’t heard of it and are interested, you should check out the iBike site.

So when I learned that friend and teammate Eric had one of the first generation iBikes that wasn’t being used, the thought sorta stuck in my mind. Why would I even want to mess with this thing? I have a Powertap (okay two) and it takes only a minute or two of web searching to find someone complaining about how the iBike can’t possibly work/doesn’t work/is vaporware etc.

I like gadgets. I like comparing numbers. I like rooting for the underdog. I used an Apple Newton Messagepad for several (okay many) years after Steve axed them. What if, like the Newton, the iBike was that crazy device that really was awesome but nobody was paying attention?

Besides, do you know how much lighter an iBike is than a Powertap wheel?

After Eric graciously lent me the iBike last week, I installed it with a moderate amount of annoyance. Then I attempted to calibrate it, also with a moderate amount of annoyance. Then I used it for two days and — this will shock you I am sure — it didn’t produce results anywhere nearly in line with the Powertap. This annoyed me. The supplied crank magnet was horrible, and on the second ride it fell off. I took the iBike off and boxed it back up.

In a moment of clarity the next day, I realized that I’d never really done a proper calibration and I was looking a whole lot like the Cleo owner who gives up when he realizes that using the device requires an hour of invested time. I decided that if anybody (remember the Newton) could make this thing give accurate results it would probably be me, so I might as well try properly.

I’ll have more specifics as I ride it in different conditions– especially a few interval sessions. For now I can say that the calibration process, if followed properly, makes a huge difference in accuracy. The few rides I’ve done with both iBike and Powertap showed average wattage variance between Powertap and iBike of less than 10 watts. This is a first generation unit, and by all accounts they have improved vastly in the following two iterations, so I’d say that’s pretty good. I’ll post some ride files showing the comparisons.

Could this thing cause me to dump the Powertap? I’ll keep you updated.

Wow, not much open source training here recently, so this post catches me up on that. I’ve been putting off updating the blog until I decided between moving on to the next training phase or repeating a week of aerobic capacity building.

To be honest, the week of crits really beat me down. I was basically maintaining last weekend to allow me to get in an interval workout last Monday. That went fairly well, but I definitely felt it more than normal the following day. After two days off for a visit by my brother, I finished the week’s planned workouts. Despite my mostly upbeat comments in my log, LV3 rides were very draining and my long ride yesterday just really blew. The trainer could have contributed to that.

I am familiar with the pattern of raising load/intensity, suffering for a bit until I adapt, and eventually becoming okay with the new level. At this point, I would say I haven’t adapted to the training volume I am currently working at. Maybe this is due to the week of crits in the middle of the build period, maybe it’s me needing more time to adapt — I dunno. And for the record, this is when the whole TSS/TSB model kinda starts to break down. According to it, I should be feeling right sprightly. In the future, I need to remember that the build period is pretty damn tough.

So the choice at this point is: move on to anaerobic training with aerobic capacity work kinda still in need of brushing up or do another week of build, probably a repetition of the week’s plan from pre-crits.

I’m going with first option because my aerobic capacity needs work all the damn time, and this time is no exception. I could keep doing LV3 rides and VO2 intervals all season and I would probably keep getting better. Gotta stop somewhere.

So here’s the PMC for the last 28 days complete with notations, and here’s the season to date, just to keep it in perspective.

When I used to run intervals, I’d set out with a handful of pennies equal to the number of intervals I’d be doing. Invariably, I’d forget which interval I was on mid-way through the run. This, of course, was due to interval head — the condition of having your brain scrambled by the interval effort. This week I set up my pile of pennies beside my trainer and commenced the first set of VO2max intervals of the season. Five minutes at 107% of FTP done five times with the same period of rest between, and then some LV7 (all out) efforts in tempo rides on Thursdays. I’ve been pushing at the FTP from “underneath” and now comes the more fun (ha!) “pulling up” on it. And so the base period is officially brought to an end and the build begins. I used to complain about running intervals, but I secretly love the seconds after the intervals is done soft pedaling as my heart rate drops. I can’t wait to be doing them outside.

Just in time too, as the Chicago racing community was treated to an awesome chance to race, and do it soon. Half Acre cycling, the guys who brought us the awesome DeKalb cross race, are putting on a series of crits which will occur almost in my back yard. Five nights in a row, south Chicago will have a bunch of Cat 4/5ers riding laps around a park in the cold near dark. Sounds like lots of fun — I’m signed up.

Finally, I’ve been meaning to write about nutrition recently. I’ve been a big proponent of incorporating protein into replenishment and recovery drinks since my running days. Recently I ran out of Accelerade and cracked Joel Friel’s book, to find his recipe for a recovery beverage which I adapted into this: 2cps of milk, 2 tbls of cocoa, 3 tbs of sugar and a banana blended). This hits the 4:1 protein to sugar ratio which is supposed to be key to quick recovery. Google around if you haven’t read about it. As expected, I found that pounding one of these immediately after hard/long rides significantly reduced fatigue later in the day and increased recovery time by a whole lot. They’re also really damn tasty.

That worked so well that I tried to replicate Accelerade itself (so a replenishment drink for use while underway), and came up with a recipe I’ve been super happy with. I use 500ml bottles, so you’d have to adapt this to a 24oz bottle if you use those. Fill the bottle about 1/3 full of water. Add 2 tbs of sugar, whey powder, an individual pack of crystal light drink mix (fruit punch tastes the best in my opinion), a little pinch of salt (sodium) and a little pinch of salt substitute (potassium). Shake it and then fill it the rest of the way up. How much whey powder? However much yields 5g of protein, so read the label. This ended up being a really fat teaspoon or just over a half scoop for my brand. The resulting mixture is nutritionally almost identical to Accelerade. I’ve been using it on tempo rides and while doing the LV5 intervals, and it seems to sit on my stomach like Accelerade as well. Let me know if you try and/or improve upon it.

I am still pretty much in shock about this, but week before last a friend of mine gave me his “old” road frame. This turned out to be a really, really nice Bianchi SL3, which I immediately whipped up into this sucker here. I could go on and on, but basically I love it. It’s freakin seriously light and stiff. It’s also not only fits me perfectly, but the Bianchi geometry works very well for my warped torso to leg length ratio. I am bravely waging war on italiocentrism, but I am feeling a switch to a totally campy group coming on (I’m already shimano free and sporting a campy crank).

Also of note: I filled in some details on the race/training schedule. My focus is on the cross season, and this current ramp – up is really a test run for the second periodization cycle in the fall. That said, this schedule works out super well in that July and August are going to be base building. Unlike the torture of doing base building on a trainer in December, this bodes well for long lazy LV2 rides in late summer as opposed to racing in the hot sun. I consider this further proof of cyclocross’s inherent perfection, by the way. This will also allow me to come out of base #2 with a significantly higher CTL than I am from base #1– something which will be  welcome in dealing with the super intensive cross race season.

That unplanned weeklong vacation from blogging was mostly due to the best sort of reason to interrupt a biking blog: I was too busy with cycling to find time to write. First, the weather in Chicago decided to take a very welcome turn toward spring and I ended up riding a number of times outside — a couple of them done in genuine summer form. Second, I got a new road bike and have been dumping extra time into generally playing with it.

I’ll get to the bike later in the week, for now: riding. I had no idea just how much I missed long rides outside until I took the ride down to Munster on the 7th. I left around noon, so I got the warmer afternoon temps (in the 60s) but also the afternoon wind. Even overdressed, though, the first 50 mile ride of the year was seriously a welcome break from all the indoors stuff. This actually constituted my first serious road ride since I began racing cross back in the fall, and I think I can feel how road racing will work, now. I’m looking forward to it. Somewhat intentionally, and assisted by the wicked southwest wind, I kept a pretty hard pace and wound up with a normalized power just outside tempo level. A good hard ride that I was feeling for a few days.

A few days later, our thermometers were again in the 60s. I took the day off of work to get a few put-off things done, and I managed to get in two very good rides — a quick, intervally one in the morning and a totally leisurely spin around the city in the afternoon for another ~50 mile day. I thought I needed to add “had a beer sitting on a patio after having biked 50 in February” to my list of accomplishments, but alas none of the obvious patio-bearing places had their patio set up (I added a few miles riding around checking).

So where does this leave the training? By the end of week 8, I was definitely feeling the “base period is over” sensation. I’m ready to have another day of higher intensity riding and a longer ~3 hour ride on the weekends. Conveniently enough, that’s more or less what’s on the horizon in a couple of weeks. I have been teetering on the edge of succumbing to a cold, so I am probably going to skip testing tomorrow, even though it’s time. I can tell from the feeling of the tempo rides that I’m probably going to post some higher numbers, but I could use another week at this level to avoid adding significant stress while borderline sick.

I was lucky enough to get a number for the very popular Hillsboro-Roubaix. I didn’t expect this to be as motivating as it turns out to be: it’s a short six weeks until the first race of the season, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m working on the training schedule through the first month of races now and will post it soon.

Muster ride (first ride well over 100 TSS in months)

Week 7-8 journal

Week 7-8 PMC (check out the peaks from the bigger rides)

The big news in Joe training la-la land this week was the addition of a snazzy set of rollers. I was just about the point where I stopped looking at craigslist — winter seems to cause people to stop selling their cool bike things. Luckily I noticed these: $40 for a set of Minoura aluminum, big tube rollers with a resistance unit is an amazingly good deal.

So after zipcar-ing up to Wicker Park to grab them, I rushed home to try them out. Okay we actually stopped for an amazingly large dinner at a Costa Rican place as well. Maybe it was the ballast of the large dinner, but my first quick ride on rollers was only moderately crasharific. Yes I fell off (frequently) but in twenty minutes or so I managed a reasonable semblance of riding them. This was heartening enough for me to plan on doing an hour-plus  LV2 ride on them the next morning. With the exception of a few random unplanned dismounts, this went really well.

I also noticed that with the resistance unit, I could pretty easily get into my LV3 range. I confirmed this the next day with an hour at LV3 on them with no problem. I seriously think I could even do my LV4 intervals on them without too much problem with one big exception: I really like to slack for the five minutes of rest between intervals, and it’s hard to stay upright on the rollers turning 30 rpm or so. I may try anyway this week. If you ride a trainer and have never tried rollers, I suggest giving it a shot. I find the extra concentration on not crashing does wonders for making time zip by.

This brings me to my final point: rollers freakin hurt. I don’t know if it’s the additional muscles required to stay balanced or what, but I have been awash with delayed onset muscle soreness this week. Maybe it’s all the falling off? Who knows.

This week’s numbers:

Week 6 journal

Week 6 PMC

This week started off pretty rough, as I suspected it might. The new power levels were tough and my 2×20’s on Tuesday were not good at all. I missed making the LV4 lower limit by a few watts for the second one, and I was seriously hurting as a result of trying. My ride the next day was similarly a pain. By the end of the week, though, the dread of the new levels had diminished.

Note that my PMC has taken a hit. Whereas before the number adjustment, I was regularly riding near the top of the levels, I’m now barely eeking over the lower end — this looks like lower effort as far as the damn program goes. Of course, the actual reason for riding lower in the rage is that the ranges have lifted. This week also marked the half way mark of my base period. I’m now pretty close to the maximum volume of training I’ll be doing in the base period — about 7 hours a week. In the next 5 weeks, I’ll be upping the intensity somewhat.

It’s just about time to start putting together a spring race calendar so I can make the remainder of my plan through spring racing. I know I’m going to hit some of the early season Matteson crits and the Hillsboro-roubaix. Other suggestions are welcome.

Week #5 Training log (with extra whining)

Week #5 PMC (now with lower numbers)

All the training stuff is supposed to make us strong and when we get stronger we’re supposed to be happy because then we’re more possessing of mad skillz with which we can propel our bikes to epic speeds. No? So when I busted my previous FTP test by 30 watts on Tuesday I was initially super happy. I’m not going to attribute the 13% jump in FTP solely to the five weeks of training, but it probably had something to do with it. Anyway, I was stoked for the time it took me to finish the ride until I downloaded the data into WKO+ and recalculated my power levels. Ouch. I was just starting to get to the point of being able to appreciate my tempo rides — the pace I was doing them at is now my laid back endurance power level. I am suddenly finding eight hours of sleep a non-negotiable part of life. As in: even if I want to stay up later, I simply fall asleep inadvertently.

I was tempted to repeat last week’s program this week to give myself a chance to adjust to new power levels, but I am going to play it by ear and go ahead with plans. If I am eating, sleeping and recovering well and I still have trouble with the new numbers I’ll reconsider. Tomorrow’s 2×20’s will be the real test — at 92% of FTP  (or about 235 watts) I’ll be doing them somewhat harder than my previous FTP (225 or so). So yeah, gain = pain.

Week #4 training log

Week #4 PMC