sarals 

My bad - seat POST. The top - the clamp - was tweaked. Along with one of the rails on the saddle itself.

Hermes

Here is an interesting article about lactate and its role in muscle fatigue - nothing is simple.

Cleave

Hi, my experience from a recovery perspective is that yes, they help my recovery but not as much a using a foam roller. However, for me (YMMV), they make a BIG difference when I travel by air or have a long drive before a race. I used to suffer from swelling and discomfort in my feet during flights longer than an hour. With compression tights (under my pants) no problems. For car trips of an hour or more before a race, the tights keep my legs from feeling tight.

Cleave

Hermes, I know that you also posted a link to the velonews.com article on lactic acid. I read the velonews.com article and then had a brief discussion with Roger Young about it. Basically, he did not agree with the article. I thought that some of the things in the article were contradictory.

Haven't had a chance to read the article that you just recommended as it is a far from simple explanation of lactate and exercise.

By coincidence, the evening that I was talking with Roger about lactate and lactic acid, the US National Team was training at VSC right before Roger's Session. Roger pointed to a table and said that if lactate wasn't a good indicator of muscle response to exercise, why were they still taking blood and analyzing for lactate during training sessions?

Cleave

I've been fighting a mild case of bronchitis (self diagnosis) all week. No training. Now with a solid weekend of rain ahead of us I'll try to get to the track for some indoor riding. It might stop raining by Sunday afternoon. If so, I'll try to get out on my rain bike since it has fenders and the roads are bound to still be wet.

If you haven't already figured it out, I've been doing this sport for way too long to subject myself to bad weather just to get in some training -- especially when I've just been sick.

shovelhd

Smart man. It's a long season, especially out there.

Chance of snow on Sunday back east for our kickoff races. I am not confident in my fitness but racing always tells the tale.

Hermes

Cleave, does that mean we will see you at the LAVRA TTs next weekend?

shovelhd

Of course. He's a professional now.

AzTallRider

Just as Cleave did, I found doing a stage race to be a less than ideal way to fight off a virus exposure. Took the last two days off to kick it the rest of the way and get some work done, but was back on the bike today for some pace work. Damn it felt great to get out there after three days of not riding!

I've started reading the latest article, which is timely given that I just yesterday had the post test consultation for a metabolic test I took a week or so ago. Ex was on the call. No blood sampling for my test, but rather breathing into a mask and having my expelled gasses analyzed continuously for CO2 percentages as I climbed the exertion ladder, which is another method of approximating LT. In any event, perhaps I missed the point, but my take from having scanned the Velonews article was that it was mostly a terminology thing. It wasn't saying Lactate buildup wasn't an issue, just that "Lactic Acid" was a misnomer. I shall read it again, and then try to put them both in the context of the physiologist/coach whose company does the metabolic testing. His primary point with Lactate is that you need to control the PH of your blood to keep your brain from shutting things down, and you do that by maximizing your O2 carrying capacity (avoiding Lactate buildup) and your ability to rid yourself of acid, which you do by training with hard intervals, and breathing hard and fast when you are over your LT.

Racer Ex 

Having AZT and Sara do these tests has been engaging, and good in that other eyes and methods have confirmed things that I thought to be true and effective; both folks fell in around where I would have put the betting line.

Discussing AZT's testing brought in the broader picture of training...you have limiters and you have masters that need to be served and a finite resource to serve those masters. And this is where a cookie cutter program falls so short. The assumption that everyone is the same is just silly. And while I'm gratified that folks are out there doing research and applying the scientific method to athletics, every time I go into a drugstore and look at the pain reliever shelf I'm reminded of what should be, and is never mentioned as, the holy grail here:

Individual Response.

What doesn't get published in these abstracts or in the VeloNews articles is the outlier to outlier range. In human physiology outliers are no less worthy of consideration then those at the top of the bell curve. At least from a coaching/training standpoint.

Both AZT and Sara fell at the extreme of ranges in some of the testing.

And yet they exist.

Racer Ex 

Wisdom. Get well.

shovelhd

Humans are also moving targets. We deal with stress, emotions, health issues. Only the elite of the elite are sheltered from a portion of this, and that alone is a stressor.

Cookie cutter, bah. Better odds at Vegas.

Hermes

90 minute massage today.

revchuck 

The last week or so has been revealing. I was whacked upside the head by fatigue that lasted several days, a first for me.

Last Saturday I did hill repeats. The hill is on a 33 mile loop, and I did one loop before I hit the hill again about three hours into the ride. The schedule said one ascent at threshold, the next two over/unders with "under" being 105% of threshold for five minutes and "over" being 110%+ for one minute, and the last just under threshold. The first ascent went fine, the first interval on the second ascent was really difficult, and the second interval didn't quite make it. I started the third ascent and my legs just checked out - couldn't even hold threshold at that point. I finished the ascent and rode back to the truck in Z2, and having to work to stay there. I was just effin' tired.

I wasn't able to ride Sunday due to family commitments and helping out at our club's MTB race, but I stayed tired, and started a series of nap intervals. Monday was 2:51 at endurance pace with 35 minutes of Z3, and I had to break that 35 minutes into two chunks to do it, more nap intervals. Tuesday was 1:04 at recovery pace, still tired, more nap intervals. Wednesday was planned for 1:30 at endurance pace with 1:00 of that in Z3...and it happened with no problem; actually ended up with the entire ride's AP in Z3, and didn't feel that tired. Thursday was 1:30 at endurance pace with seven one minute intervals at 125% of FTP with five minutes RBI, no problem, no tiredness. Back to normal - whew!

Three hour team hammerfest today, hopefully I'm recovered enough for it. Recovery tomorrow, sprint intervals Monday, then tapering for Rouge-Roubaix next Sunday. Beyond that it looks like a lot of above-threshold work to get me ready for shorter distance stuff.

sarals 

I've always known I was extreme....

sarals 

Chuck, no wonder you're tired, writing posts at 0300!

Actually, what you're feeling, in my limited experience, is not unusual. Don't beat yourself up.

sarals 

Quite a read, Hermes! In spite of the fact that chemistry and bio-chemistry were never my high school strong suits, the article was very enlightening.

revchuck 

Sara - It was 0500 here. I have to leave the house at 0600 to get to the meeting point to leave on the ride at 0700.

Today's ride went pretty well. I stayed on at a higher speed/effort than I had in the past, and am somewhat ticked at myself for pulling off when I did - I wasn't quite ready to pop. 2:41, TSS 188, IF .83.

sarals 

I am waiting for a analysis from Matt on the LTHR test I did. He did tell me he'd like me to do it again in June prior to the PSG. I'm not really sure what the test said, other than, I think, that I reach LTHR relatively early. I was speaking to one of the nurses at work about that just a little while ago, and he said that La is not just indicator of exercise levels (overly simplified) but injury, as well. In fact, LT is one of the tests that are performed on trauma patients when they arrive in an ER. I would really like to know why my La was on the high side at the baseline, and why it elevated to LTHR so quickly. I may never! My goal is to improve my tolerance for it and how quickly I can process it. Judging from my lack of improvement over the years in climbing ability (directly related to LTHR), that may be elusive. We'll see.

gsteinb

so it's go time.

AzTallRider

Bout time you right coast and middies got off your trainers and hit the starting line.

Racer Ex 

Noteworthy one of my clients switched TT bikes from the latest and greatest to the one that just wins and went a lot faster. PR 40k. And we are just starting to prep for a PR run in June.

Track today. Crowded but got in some efforts. Plan was to do Thursday PM session next week and then LAVRA TT, but now I'm being arm twisted to do an omnium in Temecula Fri-Sun. Last year I got screwed off the podium in part because of a variety of half assed promoter/official negligence and swore I wasn't going back.

Sigh.

sarals 

Get after it!

sarals 

Decisions. What you told me - do what's fun.

Cleave

Actually spent a good chunk of today playing with my TT bike. Put on a new version of the fi’zi:k Ares saddle (more padding on the nose AND it's red and black ). Also measured EVERYTHING as I am thinking about some aftermarket handlebars. My position was very comfortable at VoS as I only got out of the aero position at the turnaround and at a point where some pylons were at a strange place in the road. Not that I generally get out of the aero position, but generally during a TT of that length, I want to. Maybe it's too comfortable because when I compared the dimensions to my last setup on the Bianchi, my elbow pads are 3.2 cm higher on the Shiv.

Was going to go to the track this afternoon for the open session but I still have a touch of congestion and I didn't want to deal with the weather, etc in my delicate condition.

Regarding the road omnium, I've done the crit and circuit races twice (the courses are less than 5 miles from my parents' house). The crit courses (they were different both years) were only OK. The circuit race officiating was a joke with respect to the centerline rule. Waves of guys would cross the line. The moto ref would yell at them and force them back over the line but no one got any kind of penalty. This would push rule abiding racers like me further and further back. After two years of dealing with that I said no more and I haven't been back since (at least 5 years).

Thinking about volunteering at the LAVRA TT. I need the discount credits.