Today was the day to once again challenge my mountain!

2 weeks of gradually "coming out of the hole" for a test week with to include this 30 minute uphill TT. Was definitely all out. By the time I reached the top, I thought I was gonna puke. I definitely could have used a UCI legal Pereirro asthma inhaler today.

Time up the mountain: 28:21 (previous best 28:51) (weight normally 77 kg, though 78 this morning)

Average power on the climb: 347 (Pnorm: 362) New best 5 minute power: 415 (Pnorm 430) (previous 404 in November) New best 10 minute power: 375 (Pnorm 400) (Previous 361) New best 20 minute power: 353 (Pnorm 371) (Previous 333)

Here's the first 7 minutes of the climb - takes you to the first major descent. As you see the speed ramp up and the power ramp down it's the changing in climb gradient. I have to take advantage of the drop offs in gradient because some of this section is the easiest part of the climb. The 12-14% section comes after the descents.

Monod's critical power profiling now tells me my 60 minute power (FTP) should be 345. I don't quite think I would give it that, but I just can't stand the idea of testing out to that range of time.

Another popular method is the .95x20 minutes power method. That one gives me 335 for FTP. I'm still hesitant to give it that much. I'm not certain that climbing Zenitsuboyama isn't a completely anaerobic event. The only thing that tells me any differently is the amount of oxygen I was gasping for as I came across the goal line at the top.

Today gives me pause to consider the effect of normalized power. Normalized power exists to give the person that trains with power a number from 5 minutes and beyond that more accurately reflects the "feel like" power of a particular event. In the case of a flat time trial or steady state time on the trainer, the normalized power will general be almost exactly the same. In the case of climbing Zenitsuboyama, you have changes in gradients that rapidly affect the power output from almost max power, to nearly no power at all. What you then get is a "Variability Index" that rates the ride you are performing.

On Zentisubo, you have 3 descents: one about 350 meters long, one about 150 meters, and one around 100 meters. The 350 meter descent has to be done almost completely at 0 power because of the curves and the metal rain grates that run across the road. Any zeros added into the average power cause a reasonable drop in average power. In today's case, if I replaced all the zero power time with 200 watts (still well below the average), the overall average power comes up to 352, (355 if I replace with 320's).

Granted, whether or not I could have maintained the 347 average power without the descents after the initial hard climb is something entirely different and theoretical, so for my purposes - Normalized Power is a neat figure and tells me how much it hurt, but not how hard I worked.

Anyway... just a little chest beating to get me going at the end of the day. Ride profile has been posted to my ride charts for random perusal. Climb starts about 2-3 seconds into the file and ends when you see power drop to zero the first time.

New Personal Bests

It's been an extremely boring week on the bike. When days get really boring like that, I start computer programming to fill in the gaps.

I've modified my charting a little bit for my uploaded powerfiles to make them a little easier to read. Files less than 600 samples (about 12 minutes) end up looking like an expanded Cyclingpeaks multi-line graph like this:

Files less than size expand out for easier readability like so:

Next thing on the list is to start playing with mean maximal power numbers and normalized power sequences. I'd like to say I have better things to do than this, but really... it's a hobby, and I'm a numbers geek.

Today I'll actually spend a bit of time building a diorama about Grizzly Bears with my youngest, but that won't really compare to the excitement of writing formulas to give me max 5second, 30second, 1 minute power intervals.

For perusal today, I've been mulling over a race file from October. Only 7% time at 0 watts, which by comparison to what it should be is simply miserable. I placed 3rd, happily enough. I'm kinda surprised looking back at it how fast the race was on the road. I remember many times thinking "when are these guys gonna get it in gear?"

Lap 1: Average 40.3, Max 54.1 Lap 2: Average 40.5, Max 53.2 Lap 3: Average 41.3, Max 51 Lap 4: Average 43.2, Max 57.1

Here's the file:

Well... MAP test number one is done.

I put the bike on the back porch - since the rain went away and it was a beautiful day outside. I grabbed my oldest son and we went out to get on with it. I set him up on my laptop to be my "pace guide." His job was to tell me when to change wattage levels and give me encouragement.

I worked my way through the warm up. It took me a little bit of getting used to the feel of being on the Kurt Kinetic trainer for the first time. I've never ridden a trainer of this kind before so this was a little bit of an adventure. Once I found a good riser for the front wheel and got the tension down on the back wheel, I was off to the warm up.

I got about 10 minutes of low active-recovery pace in, did 2 minutes of threshold time, recovered and did a couple fast cadence spins. Then, it was time to do the deed.

Testing protocol:
Start wattage: 175 watts
Increments: 25 watts
Interval: 1 minute

It didn't take me long to realize that it was too much to expect from the trainer set up or my pacing ability to hold 5 watt increments every 12 seconds, or even 10 watt increments over 24 seconds. So I stuck with the standard 1 minute intervals. I'd be curious down the road to get my hands on an ergometer to do the same test in that sort of environment where the power requirement to spin the pedals stays the same regardless of your cadence.

So... here's the test:



At about the 25:30 mark you see the big dip in power. That's me changing gears. At around 29:30 you see my attempt at standing up to keep going, but that ended up actually being a mistake for the rest of the test. It completely threw off my pacing. I sat back down around the 30 minute mark and started to push through to get to the end of the test.

Final results: 1 minute MMP of 419. It probably could have been 425ish but for the huge drops in power from standing up. I'll have another go at the MAP test at the end of this month more than just doing the test for a practice run. Today's TSB was -8.7, but the next MAP test I expect to be slightly above 0 on a specific testing week.

Not completely happy with the results, but happy with knowing what I think I could have done with a better understanding of the effort required at the end of the test. Looking forward to doing it again, actually. How's that for sadistic?

VW

You could say week, but it was quite a bit longer than that. I started the last stretch of training days on January 4th, and have ridden every day since then. I've had a couple good recovery rides in at very low intensity. I've done some threshold work and some upper tempo, and all around - I've just put in some great road time.

I'm calling this the Powertap Effect, because only since I put the powertap on the bike have I really had some increases in training time. But, I think it's just having a serious training plan to stick to. Last year it was pretty easy to miss a day here and there. I had a lot of 4 day riding weeks that pretty much shot long times. I've taken one day off the bike so far this month, accumulated 1150 km and 40 hours on the bike.

What changed? A training plan that supports goals. Last year, even when I was "training" for an event, you wouldn't exactly call it training. I didn't do specific intervals, I didn't pace, I didn't well... do anything other than get on the bike whenever I felt like it and ride. So, for the person that wants to change where they are and get where they want to be, I can say that the trick is to first: Set Goals. Second: Develop or Find a plan which supports your goals which can be broken down into monthly, weekly and daily events that can be checked off the list.

Of course, Old Man Winter has been especially cooperative this year. Temperatures haven't dipped below 40F much, and there's been little to no snow. I've taken a lot more rides in the rain this year, but I'm finding that tempo rides in the rain are a lot better than any ride inside.





So, what's in the schedule? Well. My Kurt Kinetic trainer got here this week. So after my rest day tomorrow, I'm going to do a MAP test on Saturday. Not sure how I'll do on it, since I'll be doing it for the first time on a new trainer, but that's kinda the point this time around. Just see how it goes in preparation for what is to follow.

Next week will be a medium intensity endurance week and after that... "Test week 1"

Test week 1 will be a run up Zentisubo on 29th, Max Sprint on the 31st, and a full MAP test on the 2nd.

I know where the bar is for Zentisuboyama. 28 min 51 secs. But that's another reason to do the MAP test on Saturday. It always helps to have something to beat when doing a test.

The first race is on the schedule now. March 4th in Kumamoto. 150km. It won't be an "A" race, but it will be a good chance to get out and challenge myself in a race environment. It's also the only race on the schedule between now and Kunisaki. I hope to find more, but I haven't been too lucky on that part yet.

VW

Just a basic tempo ride today. Nothing really to report on. Kinda a "day at the office" type ride. Tomorrow will be a little more interesting. 4x10 @ 100-105%. Yeehaw!

I did some work today on cleaning up what the PMC chart on my blog shows. There were some disparities between the formula and starting values I was using there vs what I've been using on the Cyclingpeaks stuff.

About two weeks ago I did some research into my training for last year and based on hours, heart rate and calories/hour burned, I came up with some better starting values for my ATL/CTL pre-powertap. It's all pretty inconsequential now, because I have more than the requisite amount of training time to adjust the graph accordingly.

I also did some math work and adjusted the values I use in my TSB/CTL planner Excel Spreadsheet ( TSTWKT ) to reflect what Cyclingpeaks uses. Once I completed that, I copied those decay values over to the web based chart and now the values that show in the PMC chart in my PROFILE is the same as what shows up in Cyclingpeaks.

Anyway... that and a night at the ONSEN made for a relaxing evening. Legs feeling good!

Ride safe,
VW