ridethecliche

They were road races, so my results don't exist.

I meant, "Can I say that my power was consistent between the two races?"

That is, if the NP for one effort was higher, but the AP for the other was higher, then can I compare them as such. Both were hilly road races.

The IF for the one that was 30 mins and 11 miles shorter was about .04 higher.

I think my biggest limiter right now is FTP and Anaerobic threshold. I know how to work on FTP, but working on Anaerobic threshold is a little more tricky I feel.

I can grind away at threshold on the longer hills, but on short steep stuff, I just get passed without issue.

In yesterday's race, I stayed with the lead group (catching up to them on the descent) and then couldn't keep up on a few short rises and they'd flown away by the time the long uphill came. I stayed with the lead group for about 18 miles of the 44 mile race, which was pretty decent for me, but once I popped, I was done.

I got passed by everyone haha. I also had really bad stomach cramps during the race, which are finally going away now. Those sucked...

waterrockets 

What's the shape of your power profile (numbers not needed necessarily)?

It sounds like VO2Max work might be more beneficial to you than shorter intervals. I know you've got a strong enough sprint.

ridethecliche

5 sec is highest, 1 min and 5 min are almost horizontal, then there's a dropoff in FTP.

If FTP was normalized instead of AP, then it would go up to the left and then flat.

Hocam

I'm kind of concerned, but in a good way.

My previous 5' best was 315 watts, set two weeks ago coming a few days recovery off a huge training load. TSB was -4 or so.

Two weeks of forced off time and TSB has been way positive, like 10-20+, CTL has fallen from 105 to 90 or so.

Sunday I did 317 watts for 10'

Is this possible? Should I believe this?

ridethecliche

Well rested + hard hills + race scenario= pushing yourself hard.

https://www.bikereg.com/Results/2009/...-Road-Race.asp

See how you did

Flatballer

How can I put in times/miles for rides I do on my MTB? I don't care so much about the mileage, but I do care about the time.

I put in the TSS now, but I want time as well. I'm using WKO+.

ridethecliche

Erm, WR.

My finish was around the same for both races. In the 60s. Bleh.

waterrockets 

It sounds like aerobic threshold is what you should be working on. If you were completely fresh on one of those steep hills, you'd be able to hang for the surge, right? If your 1' and 5' are higher rows than your FTP, you should probably look to see if it's burning matches that's getting to you. If so, then get some more matches.

ridethecliche

So longer endurance type rides at aerobic threshold is good.

How does one get more matches, heh.

Hocam

The greatest thing about having power data is that even when I only get 20th, I still know I'm making huge progress with fitness.

The worst thing about having a power meter is making huge progress and still only getting 20th.

Hocam

Go to your calender view, right click the date and hit "add new workout". Then in the workout journal view, go to the upper right and hit options --> new manual workout and enter time and distance.

Flatballer

Awesome. Thanks. I knew there had to be a way. That makes my weeks look much better, 9 or 10 hours instead of 3 or 4 hours.

tyrade

I was in the same two races rtc is speaking of. I don't think it's his aerobic threshold. rtc was able to talk on one of those climbs while we were all under stress. (He answered a guy whining about holding his line while climbing at 8 mph). I think it's his aerobic capacity/over threshold.

I'm in the same fix. Aerobic capacity is my limiter. I weigh 176 lbs, so I need to generate a good bit more power on the climbs to hold the wheels of the guys that weigh 145-160. I posted my AC workouts (hill intervals) a few posts ago. My problem is that these don't seem to be helping me, and I've stagnated. I recover very quickly after the climbs and usually end up chasing the lead group down successfully. I can't do this more than once or twice though, and eventually I'm OTB.

I think WR is correct about matches though. In race 'B', I was dropped on a 2-mile, 5% climb. I needed to average 350w for the 10:00 climb, but my legs were not responding. I only averaged 330w for the climb, and I was OTB by under 1 minute at the top. On the preceding climbs, there were 4 times where I was averaged 400w for 1-2 minutes - each one a 'match' considering my FTP is around 310w.

So I'm with rtc, unsure about how to fix this problem. I'm pretty lean, about 10% body fat (or less), so losing 15 pounds is not likely. I need to increase AC power by 10-15% (30-45w). My best ever CP5 is only 379w, but I need to hold 360w on multiple 3-10 minute climbs in any given race around here.

waterrockets 

Well, a match is a match because it burns through some anaerobic work capacity. So, getting more matches could be a matter of increasing your anaerobic work capacity -- table that for a minute.

Another way to approach it is to raise your FTP, so you're not burning as much AWC at a given Wattage. So, if you're getting hosed by 5' 350W efforts when your FTP is 300W, say you raise your FTP to 320W. Now, instead of a 117% effort for 5', you're only pushing a 109% effort.

5' at 109% doesn't even qualify as a match, and it's the same power needed!

So, in this sense, I mis-spoke about needing to increase your number of matches. While that is one solution, another is to change the definition of a "match" such that you're not just using them at the will of others, and can instead choose when to burn a match to light up a couple books back in the pack.

Of course, training AWC can give you more matches as well, but I think your power profile indicates that FTP improvement is more likely, and probably more beneficial. When I gave up AWC training, and focused on FTP training, my 1' power still went up 100W, while my FTP went from 320W to 350W. So, I had more matches, and I'd reset my match wattage. Now, in M35+ races, I get to choose when to lay down the hurt.

Just for clarity, this would be "anaerobic work capacity," but I think my reply above explains my thinking on this.

ridethecliche

Yeah, I think you meant to say AWC, but said aerobic capacity.

Tyrade, introduce yourself next time!

If it was after the right turn at the reservoir, I think I apologized to a guy for not holding my line because I got caught behind someone. Some guy caused a crash on the uphill because he wasn't holding his line and bumped into someone who was taking a drink and only had a hand on the bars. That was really stupid...

I think hill repeats and threshold work are the ticket for me right now. I'm hoping to be able to boost my threshold/awc in the next couple of weeks.

Grumpy McTrumpy

maybe you are overtrained

waterrockets 

So did you fire your coach RTC?

ridethecliche

Yeah, I haven't been working with him anymore.

I'm a little more excited to train now that I decide what I want to do. If I feel like doing hill repeats, I do hill repeats.

I have 2 months of his workouts though, and I'm definitely going to use them with new wattage zones.

I think I'll stop by his place and have another LT test done to see what progress I've made in the summer.

Thanks for the advice re 1125211, Threshold, and Vo2Max stuff.

I think I can do those workouts if I alternate them with endurance days. I need to start planning out my peak for catskills if I don't cop out from doing it because of all the hills...

kensuf

Dude, I'm going to try and not sound harsh here, but it strikes me that you'd have a lot of success with a little self-discipline and self-control. Your training seems to be a little haphazard and scattered, and I think you'd find more success by being a little more focused.

It sounds like you've got a pretty wicked sprint, if you can train your limiters (and it sounds like 5 minutes up to threshold is a limiter) then you'd probably be the beast you want to be. But it's going to take some focus, dedication, and patience in order to achieve the results. Raising your FTP by 20-30 watts isn't something that will happen over night (well, I know of a Spanish doctor who may be able to help raise it in a few weeks), it's going to take a few months of dedicated work to get there.

It's quite possible your ex-coach was trying to steer you in the right direction, knowing that it may be several months down the road before you started really seeing the results.

Another thing also, doing the same workouts over and over will eventually lead to stagnation. You need to mix it up periodically (I mix mine up usually at block changes). So don't rely on re-using your old coaches' 2 month program over and over again, it will eventually stagnate you. But mixing it up periodically doesn't mean every week. You need to build the foundation and then build on the foundation.

When's your last race of this season? It may be too late to get a substantial FTP gain during the last few races, so you may be better off just focusing on a little bit of endurance and keeping the top end humming until you shut down for the season. After your shut down, and a few weeks off the bike, then start back up and work your way into a steady diet of 3x20's during "base".

Just something to consider..

tyrade

Yes, anaerobic work capacity.

WR, when you say you stopped AWC training...not sure what you mean. I know you like your 1125211 workout, but isn't that AWC? Or do you consider that anaerobic, period? I recall from posts way back that you made substantial gains by focusing on FTP training. To date, I've been working on what I know to be my limiter, so hill intervals have been a staple for me. They have helped, but I just get dropped on the later climbs rather than the first one A fresh approach with more FTP focus seems to be the consensus.

Grumpy, I considered that I might be overtrained. But I peaked in mid-May and have made no gains since. I've been diligent about 1 rest week per 4 week block, and my weekly workloads have not been high. That said, pretty much ALL of my interval work has been in the VO2max, AWC, and anaerobic ranges since then.

So, 2x20 at what frequency? 1/wk?

tyrade

I was the one referring to the stagnation. And, yes, I've been doing the same set of workouts for a while.

ridethecliche

No offense taken at all!

In fact, I love posts like this because they force me to think critically about what I'm doing.

I don't really think that I've stagnated, yet anyway. Tyrade was worried about that.

I think you're right that the 5 min power up is a limiter for me. During the race on sunday, I stayed with the lead group till the long climb. I had to chase on the downhills a few times, but thanks to a friend and my resilience, I caught on. At the end of the first lap (2x22mi laps), I just couldn't go hard anymore. I think I'm going to chalk it up to stomach cramps this time, since they suck (they still haven't gone away 36 hours later).

As far as intervals go right now, the grab bag is the following:

-Over/under intervals: Basically lactate buffering. 2 min tempo followed by 3 min vo2max. Do 3x of these straight. I might try doing 2-3 sets of these for the vo2max work required in a road race. I.e. tempo, then hard, then tempo, then hard, etc.

-2x20 or 3x20 at threshold is another good workout.

-2x7 min hill climbs at vo2max or threshold can be nice to mix it up with.

-3-5 sprint intervals (15 sec sprints up a short incline).

-Long rides at aerobic threshold with some intervals thrown in.

-I have yet to try Friel's pacing workout, so there's that.

-The 1125211 workout.

I've been reading friel's book, and i have the racing and training with a power meter book. So I have a fair bunch of workouts to draw from. I know that vo2max/anaerobic threshold workouts are very draining, so I think I'm going to alternate those workouts with 2-3 hour rides with a bit of tempo work thrown in there.

I do need to start thinking more about my workout cycles. The two books I mentioned have a lot of good workouts in them. I just need to figure out how to place them in a given week. I need to be careful that I don't overdo them, so I'm going to look at how Allen/Coggan place them, and use that as a guide. Mixing this up with my coaches old stuff will be nie.

As for racing, I might do a training crit here or there and a hard group ride here or there, but my focus is drawn to a hilly stage race in mid september (tour of the catskills). It's going to be a really tough stage race (2x 55 mile RR's and 1 uphill TT), and I'm going to suck at it. But I want to suck better. Or suck worse. Wheelsuck better anyway.

There's one flattish road race at the end of a month. I'm going to ease off at the end of the week for that particular race. I think I have a shot at it, so I'll do a super mini taper (1-2 easy days) to be fresh for that. The course suits me. Few short climbs into a bunch sprint. I'm salivating at the thought of it.

I wanted to get back down to 145 lbs and raise my FTP in the next 6 weeks so I can stick with the lead group in the stage race. That's my goal. I've stuck with them for almost half a race, now I want to stick it out.

Sorry for the long post.

You train with power right?
You better have the Training and Racing with a powermeter book. USE IT!

Also use Friel's book to evaluate what you're doing!

Hocam

RTC you're over thinking it. Just train consistently, rest when the time is right and the gains will come.

If I were you I'd focus on building and peaking for the stage race, let weight be a secondary objective, and plan fewer tough interval workouts. You'll burn out trying to do everything, focus on tempo, SST and some threshold. Throw sprints in there to keep that strength fresh, but don't make improvement a goal. Ramp your CTL up 5-6 points/week for the next 4 weeks, then let it drop like a rock the two weeks before the stage race. I promise you the gains will come.

During the entire time keep thinking long term; this is only one of many seasons to build on, so if goals aren't met that's ok.

ridethecliche

Friel claims that it takes up to 7 years for an athlete's body to make all the necessary adaptations on the cellular level. I'm okay with this being one build season out of many. I've already had a good season thus far, so I'm pretty content with how everything is going.

My CTL has been pretty stagnant around the 75 range lately. I'm going to try and build up as you recommend, but I have a feeling that I'm going to have a hard time getting over 80 or 85 tops. Lets see

Besides, I plan on messing around in the mud ala cross later this year as a break. It's going to be a blast!

Thanks again!

kensuf

This just needs to be repeated.