Very little happening over the next couple weeks that will be of real interest, so I'll end off this week with a quick "how the week went" training update.

I started the week and "skipped" my day off on Monday. My goal workouts were Tuesday's 2x20's and Thursday's MIET/sweet spot training. With such a "short" day racing on Sunday, I woke up Monday kinda worried that I was going to be really stiff if I didn't get the legs moving. That in mind I hopped on the bike for 2 hours of low level 1 time just to burn some calories and run out the gunk build-up in the legs.

I spent some time Monday night reviewing the power file from the Nakayama race and was pretty stoked to see a few things of interest. One of those was that my 20 minute power during that race was at the highest it's ever been. With this knowledge in mind, I planned to really blitz my 2x20 minute workouts.

For the non-cyclists, 2x20's are 2 - 20 minute intervals. If only doing 2 of them, they're typically done right at the 100% mark of your 1 hr capability. I take a 5 minute recovery between intervals and that's to help the mental break in training and kinda keeps you away from "dreading" the workout. It's one thing to go 100% for an hour in a race, but doing it week after week can burn you out pretty quick.

So, with my race file in mind, I started my 20 minute interval on Tuesday and held strong. As a reference point, my 20 minute intervals were done at around 300-305 watts in January. This week my first interval was 350 watts steady, followed by a second one @ 343 watts (average), 345 (normalized).

2x20:
     Duration:       20:05
     Work:           420 kJ
     TSS:            34.4 (intensity factor 1.014)
     Norm Power:     350
     VI:          1
     Distance:       13.425 km
                       Min   Max     Avg
     Power:            0     452     349    watts
     Heart rate:       124   178     169    bpm
     Cadence:          47    100     89     rpm
     Speed:            28.6  47.2    40.1   kph
     Pace              1:16  2:06    1:30   min/km
     Hub Torque:       0     15.8    10.5   lb-in
     Crank Torque:     0     91.8    37.9   N-m

     6:02 Rest

     Duration:       20:05
     Work:           413 kJ
     TSS:            33.5 (intensity factor 1)
     Norm Power:     345
     VI:          1.01
     Distance:       13.184 km
                       Min   Max     Avg
     Power:            0     453     343    watts
     Heart rate:       126   182     175    bpm
     Cadence:          43    96      87     rpm
     Speed:            26.7  46.5    39.4   kph
     Pace              1:17  2:15    1:31   min/km
     Hub Torque:       0     17.3    10.5   lb-in
     Crank Torque:     0     83.9    38.5   N-m

As a side bonus, I completed a lap of the base TT course in 14 min 20 sec on the first of the intervals. My goal for a sub 1-hour 40km TT in September is that much closer. Now, before people jump up and say "350 watts should be getting you faster than that!" I was on the road bike with no aero equipment. Additionally, the TT course has tons of turns. Here's the speed/power from this week's 2x20's. You can see the turns in the power drop and you can see the speed fluctuation even with steady power. (right click/new window/tab etc... )



Wednesday was a suffer fest of recovery in mid Z2 and then came Thursday. MIET for me means get out and hold steady between 300-320 watts. I can usually do it for up to around 2 1/2 hours or so, but Thursday was just not happening for me. I don't know if it was just me getting on the bike late or what. Heat, dehydration, or just lack of motivation. Bombed out of the workout in a miserable 1 hr 15 min of time and crawled on home. It even took me a good half hour of limping along to get energy back to the legs to push home. Ick!

Friday was a well deserved.. or at least needed.. recovery spin with some full sprints. No personal bests on the sprints or anything, but I'm holding steady in the 1150-1200 range. I continue to play with technique and position and cadence, but nothing has changed much in the last couple months except I make sure the shoes are on good and tight.

Saturday I got on the bike nice and early to head up Rte 186 to Seven Falls, down to Nishiki and back to Iwakuni. With no group ride going, I decided to really set pace into the mountains, so off I went. 2 hours later I was cresting above Seven Falls (1 hr 45 min of tempo time @ 315 normalized power). Once through the really narrow portions of the descent, I decided to just ramp it right back up to mid/upper L3. until I got back to Iwakuni. 3 hrs 10 min, normalized @ 297. As a comparison, the Kyushu Circuit Race was 3 hours normalized at 290. Entire ride took me 3 hrs 50 min for the 123 km (avg speed 32.3). Great climbing, and great "make up" for Thursday's ride.

Finally, today - again no group ride. I set out originally to do 5 hours of L1 time. It took me a good hour or so for the legs to open up after yesterday's ride. Today I worked on climbing technique. With tired legs, the ol' stand up and mash wasn't happening. Today was a "down shift and spin" day and I found my legs a lot more responsive than I expected. I worked in some great climbs @/above 400 watts and some steadier sections @ threshold.

For the week, we look like this:





On the slate for this week? 2x20's on Tuesday. Goal, 355 and 345. I was feeling a lot stronger on the second 2x20 this last week than I expected to. Everything else is "as is." Time on the bike. 16 hours or so on the bike this week and next week. That's been the norm. With that in mind, time to go crawl in bed!

G'night all and safe riding!
VW

Power file: tom_DraffenTom8122007.wko

After the three hour drive to Nakayama circuit on Saturday, I found my way over to the race course and got myself a quick sneak peek at what the course would be like the next day. Here's the course map and course profile:



I'd never been on this course and was pretty surprised at how... um.. hilly it is. Out of the start you're uphill for a hundred meters, downhill into a really hard headwind that blows up the mountain valley that the course is in. Hit the bottom corner and climb for 500 meters, and climb hard. The only "respite" you get is at the crest of the high point. You would think that when you come down the hill to the turn to the start/finish you'd get a break, but with the 10+ mph wind coming at you it feels like you're working to get down the hill. Extremely frustrating.

Anyway... the race director was floating around and before "ushering" me out to the parking lot to my sleeping spot, he said I could get just a "skoshi" bit of riding on the course. I did two laps in my sandals and
casual shorts by myself and moved the van out to the parking lot to sleep.

After a horrible night's sleep, I (and the others that were now lined up to get into the race area) drove up to the staging area and got my "work area" set up. Trainer, bike, etc.. etc... I hung out for a bit eating some granola cereal before changing into some clothes to get a couple GPS laps of the course in (which is what provides the course profile). Finished my couple "non-laps" and dropped by the sign in table. I had signed up for the 15 lap / 30 km race and the 3 hour "enduro race" on the same day. The race book had me signed in for the 10 lap "novice" race and I was content with that, as there was a bigger break between races for me to get some recovery. Sandbagging today!

I watched some of the early races and hopped on the trainer to warm up around 9:30am. Got off the trainer in time to do the 10:15 "novice" race and lined up. Boom! Off to the races. One lap down, nice slow pace. Second lap half over and I pushed off the front. This was going to be an easy win. I felt great! "Tom-san! Stop!" the race director yells to me.

"Crap... I got DQ'd!" I thought.

"No, no... we made mistake. Your race is 'open' category. This is wrong race. We are so sorry!" he says.

"Oh well, no problem. This can be 'warm up,'" I tell him. I pack it in and wait for the 15 lap, 30km race to start after this one finishes. Almost glad cause I lost the first lap and a half on the powertap :P

Wash, rinse, repeat. "Boom!" We're off for the real event. Three guys looked ready to get a break right away so I hopped out on their wheel to feel them out. By the time we hit the base of the bigger of the two hills, we had a 30-40 meter gap on the pack. These three seemed to have a plan and that was to destroy the pack fast, so I just held on to get a feel for where they were going.

I can tell you that every time we hit the hill, it was on our feet and hammering. By the end of the start/finish line hill starting the second lap, we'd officially broken away. Crossing the start/finish on the third lap, we'd dropped one of the four and it was time for me to start working. By the start/finish line on the fourth lap, it was one rider and me. I thought for sure it was time for him and I to start working together. I pulled along side him and signaled to him the 1-2 finger gesture of working together. He smiled, we hit the hill. He attacked. I hung until lap 6. He attacked every time we went up hill and this time I just wasn't staying.

When I got to the top of the big hill that lap I looked down and behind me and looked for the peloton that was sure to be eating me up soon. No one in sight. In fact, over the next three or four laps as I looked back to see if I was getting caught, the only people I saw were the ones my breakaway friend and I were passing. I kept the breakaway guy in my sights for the rest of the race. He never got more than 200-300 meters ahead of me, almost teasing me every time we hit the climb, but there was just nothing more I could give that would close the gap. Lap 9, 10, 11... looking over the shoulder I realized there was nothing left of any peloton. The first 4 or 5 laps' pace had completely destroyed any chance of a group coming in together.

Lap 14 we passed the two fellas that were in our initial 4 man breakaway. I had not been so happy to see a last lap as I was this time and when we came around and finished our last lap my breakaway friend and I shook hands, smiled and turned in our electronic tags.

Final results? We lapped everyone. They stopped the race on our lead lap. Our other two-some from the initial breakaway came in 20 seconds behind me one lap down. ( I was 20 seconds off first place )

It took me about 10 seconds after the race was finished to decide I wasn't racing the 3 hour circuit race on this course today. No way, no how. 15 laps in 45 minutes of this up/down was bad enough. 3 hours would have been close to 60 laps. No chance that was happening.

I got my podium spot though! My prize... a six pack of Asahi Draft Beer! Think I'll be tipping one of those back tonight.

Race file attached. Bet you can tell when we were going up hill!

It's been nearly 10 months now since I started training with a power meter. I've learned a lot about my body, its responses to training and the amount of punishment it can withstand on a daily and weekly basis. Of late, a handful of folks have been asking me about my understanding of the Performance Management Chart. Now is as good a time as any to discuss this as I move into a race weekend and finally "come up for air" after a couple weeks of hard training.

Really, the performance management "chart" isn't the key to really doing anything. Here are a couple
snapshots of performance management charts I've had throughout the last year:





If you just looked at those without any reference numbers, they don't tell you a whole heck of a lot in my opinion. Maybe to experienced coaches or the guys that came up with the system (Coggan, Allen, et al), they could look at it and tell you exactly what is happening. For the rest of us, numbers make a difference. The numbers make up what I like to call my PMS - Performance Management System.

CTL (chronic training load). Cyclingpeaks PMC explained doesn't do much more than call chronic training load the "long term effects of training." Chronic training load has become synonymous with "fitness" in most internet forums I've read. The definition of "fitness" changes from person to person. Most importantly for me, "fitness" does NOT necessarily equal change in functional threshold. "Fitness" as a measurement of "CTL" for me has come to mean endurance, or how much/how hard I can go in a single training session. More on this to follow.

ATL (acute training load). This is unequivocally your "fatigue" value. How hard have you trained in the recent days. By default in Cyclingpeaks circles, ATL is the effect of the last 7 days of training. This makes sense for most folks because they work on a 7 day training week.

Neither of these stats as "absolute" numbers tell you a whole heck of a lot, but they do assist you in planning your workout load. As I've gained experience with the numbers in the PMS and how my body reacts to training, I've really been able to predict how a workout will feel a week or more in advance.

TSB (training stress balance) is the "freshness" value of the equation. This is ideally the "how do you feel", "how will you feel", or "why did I feel that way" number in the system. It's defined as CTL minus ATL. Many people appear to associate a negative number with "tired" and a positive number as "fresh"/"race ready."

Now that the textbook definitions are clear, here's what I know from my own training about CTL.

Like I said before, increasing CTL does not necessarily mean just increasing functional threshold power. Increasing CTL means to me, an increase in overall fitness. This means it's also the speed of recovery capability and other aspects of aerobic endurance ( perhaps seen in a flattening of the FTP curve beyond the 1 hr mark, in my case I believe ). CTL is the training load your body has come to handle on a day to day basis before negatively impacting your fatigue.

For instance, in April of this year my CTL was between 115 and 120 pretty consistently. It seems obvious, but I could get on the bike, head out the door and rack up 2-3 days of 140+ TSS, one or two 100 TSS days, a recovery day, day off and a long ride day (200-250 TSS endurance) and maintain a pretty even fatigue with a steady build in fitness. Once I pushed the 7 day average TSS over 130 for more than 4-5 days, my fatigue would kick into overdrive and workouts would begin to suffer.

This month my CTL has broken through the 130 mark and will be right around 130 and slightly above for much of the rest of the month of August. I'm currently sustaining a 7 day TSS average of 150ish for my 8th day and am only now starting to feel the effects of fatigue beginning to affect my workouts. The week's workouts have been 256, 264, 0 (rest day), 156, 143, 200, and today's 58 (beginning a quick pre-race taper). Of these days, I have 1 day of 2x20's, and nearly 5 hours of SST, and some hard hill climbing mixed in.

So how does one use this to their advantage for training? The PMC / PMS does not tell you what to compose your training of. Rather, it tells you what training load you should be able to handle (provided you're not sick, malnourished, or otherwise being physically fatigued outside cycling). Ideally, you should be able to toss in a 4-6 week period of power files or training data to come up with your current CTL and be able to plan your day to day training load. What you compose that training load of is up to you or your coach (if you're not that person). If you're running a CTL of 60, you shouldn't expect to go out and run a 7 day average of 120 TSS without being pretty beat up.

Note that I use the 7 day average TSS instead of CTL when I am looking at my numbers. For me, the 7 day TSS average is simply an easier number to read/recognize/plan off than the 7 day exponential moving average that makes up the number "ATL." It's almost an identical effect +/- a day or two but I find that the 7 day absolute average more closely aligns with my physical responses (for instance, there are times where the 7 day average is higher/lower than ATL and my "feelings" are closer to the 7 day average in relation to CTL than the ATL). Here's a snapshot of the chart I have based on ATL / CTL / and a 7 day moving, non-weighted TSS average since mid-May. The red lines are 30 day trendlines of ATL and the 7 day to kinda emphasize their closeness. Your mileage may vary on this one.



Interesting to note on this chart that my "break point" in the spring was around the 135 mark. You can see that from the "planned values" as well as the current training since the 4th of July, much of my 7 day average has been at a 7 day average of 135 TSS or more.

My second base training season has really helped me come to understand that information that the numbers of ATL and CTL are telling me. I'd like to say I have as much of an understanding of TSB and how to use it properly to predict a good performance in races. As I move into racing season at the end of September I hope to come to understand it much better. This weekend I'm still pretty tired so I'm hoping to just survive the circuit race in Nakayama.

Hopefully this explanation will help someone out there or at least open up more questions for answering.

Safe Riding!
VW

Realized it's been quite a while since I've posted anything. It's a quiet time of year around here and I've just simply been riding, a lot. July was a new benchmark for me. 28 days of riding. Nearly 76 hrs on the bike covering 2360 kilometers.

The Roubaix finally made it's way up to the Specialized Japan techs in Tokyo and had the chainstay cable stop fixed (all free of charge after many many emails with Specialized). No more hoseclamps and super glue for me! At the same time, I swapped out the 11x23 cassette that had 10,000 km or so on it, a chain, and the front chain rings (52x39) that had just over 25,000 kilometers on them, and the dérailleur pulleys. Basically, anything that involved the chain got replaced and the bike shifts like a champ again. In fact, I found myself having to be careful about overshifting the first couple days - which is a refreshing relief after feeling like I'd been shifting through sludge for the last month or so.

I splurged last week, and took a week off watching my diet. It's amazing how time consuming being a competitive cyclist can be, and with me being on the mountain bike for a week while the road bike was up in Tokyo, I just felt completely blech about everything ride related. Didn't take much work to put on 2 lb in a week. But the body is an amazing thing and I've already reset myself and am back to normal.

This week's change has been my nutrient intake. As I push some heavy hours on the bike while ramping up the intensity, my ability to replace energy is becoming a factor in training effectiveness. Simply put, you can only replace so much energy while riding. Me, I can put down around 300-400 calories per hour in endurance ride mode. Ramp the intensity up, and the stomach can't handle quite that much without feeling like it's going to come back up. So starting the ride with a full tank of energy is crucial.

My diet in action:

(Note: @75-76kg, 187cm, I am not trying to lose weight. Weight maintenance is my program, but I've said it a handful of times and will say it many more. Weight maintenance is way harder than weight loss ever was)

A base recommendation for someone riding 2 hrs per day is to consume roughly 7 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight. (Atkins diets and endurance athletes obviously don't mix!) On average, over the last few months, I've traditionally put down around 9 g/kg in carbs. At roughly a 4200 calorie/day diet (the month of July averaged 4437 calories/day with no significant overall change in weight), that works out to 60% of my diet in carbs.

15% more of my calorie intake comes from protein and then 25% has been coming from fats ( I keep the saturated fats well below the recommended 10%, usually in the neighborhood of 5-6%).

I'm finding however that this isn't enough glycogen to keep me going when I get on the bike every day. So, this week I'm readjusting and dropping fats down to 15%. This will give me another 10% of my calories from carbs, 420 calories worth or another 1.5 g/kg to take me to just over 10 g/kg in carbohydrates.

After just a couple days of this, I felt a marked improvement getting on the bike today. My warm up times had started to get longer and longer, while today a quick 5 minutes of getting out of the city and I was ready to go.

The hard part? Getting all those good carbs WITHOUT the fats. Fats are hidden everywhere in everything you eat, it seems. My "carbs of the week" this week are rice and Grape Nuts. Those are two foods which are nearly fat free carbs with a shake of protein mixed in. The other great thing is that carbs are filling! So when you're trying to eat 5, 6, or 7 meals a day, carbs really take the bite off the hunger.

Next week I'm going to start getting into the research of which carbs are better/worse for energy at which times. I read that many of them have different lengths of supplying energy and I definitely need to get a better understanding of all this.

On my way down the stairs now to pack my dinner for tonight @ work. 400 grams of rice, a cucumber, some black beans and salsa, and some fruit. Then I'll eat "second lunch."

First lunch was @ 10am.

2 tortilla wraps
30g carrots
1/4 cup shredded cheese
35g Fat free honey dijon
120g chopped tomato
5 oz tuna
Totals: 553 calories, 62.5 g carbs, 55.3g protein, 15.5g fat - it's basically my protein intake for the day.

Dinner will look something like this:
400g rice
1 lg Cucumber
4 tbsp salsa
.5 cup black beans
.25 cup corn
Totals: 609 calories, 128.9 g carbs, 18.5 g protein, 1.7 g fat - mmmmmm... good.

Cheers!
VW