Racer Ex 

Cycling floats on a sea of bull****. Go over to the 33 and you'll find Cat 5's who get shot out of the back at every race dispensing absolutes based on something a Cat 4 who has done 10 races and gets shot out the back has written on his blog based on something he misunderstood after reading a cookie cutter "coach" blog. Or something some pro has said who was dead wrong.

FTP is all important! Your CTL should be 120 two weeks prior to a stage race! Do "X" interval.

On so on. All without really understanding the tools needed for the job or much beyond a blog post or a "ten hottest" list in Bicycling Magazine.

I had an ex pro explain to me how to descend on a twisty road once. Big engine, waif build, went uphill like a rocket. He was also notably one of the worst descenders in the peloton. I beat him down the hill by 5 minutes riding 85%. A month or so later I had a guy tell me how to descend based on what this same guy had told him. Go figure.

As it applies to some of the posts above:

Horses for courses. From my perspective as a coach and racer who's been pretty ok at both you train to win the event you're planning on doing. Break the needs down and go from there. Seems simple but is ignored a bunch.

Taking Sara as an example...with track worlds and states in mind. First step in this process is adapting to the different demands of track vs. road. That means being able to ride a fixed gear, push off at low cadence, spin at a high cadence, and execute a standing start. Being both physically able and mentally comfortable with those skills. And getting used to riding on a banked track. Within that are many discrete needs.

That's where we are right now. There is subtext designed into the program ("X" workout will also benefit "Y") and folks can assume that the subtext actually has primacy. Oh well.

Once those core needs are met then you start working on more event specific needs. Ongoing process. Flying 200 is down the road. So is executing a 500. Or prepping for a scratch race, or sprints. Part of this process is deciding which events provide the best opportunity for success.

Then you hone those skills to aim at the target. If you do it right you maximize your potential and that's all you can ask.

As a coach and/or a client you decide on a course. If you have had multiple successes with a process then you start there. You still ask questions and challenge assumptions. You observe what others are doing. You mull and if something has merits and is applicable to the goal then you incorporate it. Carefully, into the existing process.

What often tends to happen though is folks mash up a bunch of ingredients they think they like, wrap it in a tortilla, and wonder why it tastes like poo. Then hand others their ingredient list and tell them that's what they should be eating. I like kale. I like scallops. I like berries. Let's throw them in a blender. It must be good because those a good ingredients. Why did I throw up?

The meritocracy thing comes from knowing the difference from when you're doing the work and not. "I am faster, you must not be working as hard or training correctly or you're racing dumb". Sometimes there is truth to this. Sometimes not. Only the last one is easy to spot in a mass start race. The rest parses out on a historical basis if you hang around long enough.

Heathpack 

@Hermes, trip looks great. I am always thinking "what next?" for a vacation, of course I always want to bring a bike now. Tucson looks great, its making the short list.

@Racer Ex, the thing that absolutely strikes me about so much of this training "advice" is that most people giving the advice do not take into account who the recipient of that advice is- age, gender, athletic history/depth of endurance, goals, experience, etc. Most of these "Training Tips" blurbs written in Bicycling Magazine and the like are assuming that everyone is young, male and interested in crit style racing, or at least group rides that are populated by wannabe crit racers.


Its hard for people to wrap their head around the fact that physiology varies, goal vary, psychology varies, motivation varies, experience varies, etc etc etc- and that all of these are huge pieces of the puzzle in advising someone what they should do. Someone like me is treated like an exception to the basic training principles but in reality I am not an "exception". I am part of the spectrum of people who ride a bike. There is not XYZ standard training advice "except subtract out Z if you're female and bring in A if you're over 50" where the default XYZ state of being is the 30 yo male. Haha being a 30 yo male is not the "normal" state of human existence.


And total lol that many people do see the entire point of training as increasing your FTP. There's actually a thread right now in BF as to how to optimize interval training so as to increase FTP, as if that (as opposed to winning races or riding faster or hanging onto a tough group ride or completing a century or whatever) is the goal. Yes of course there's a correlation between higher FTP and greater success on the bike- but the goal is success on the bike, however you are able to achieve it.


Interesting too, what you are saying about the steps to approaching learning something new. I do exactly the same thing when I teach someone a neurosurgery. I'll have a 2 hour surgery broken down into hundreds of tiny little steps, each of which is quite straightforward to master. If you watch me do it, it looks easy and doable, because I've done hundreds of these surgeries by this point in time. But if you just try to copy me, its way harder than it seems, because it turns out there's a lot of finesse in every little movement. So I break it down into little chunks of surgery to master: approach, closure, bonework and then finally working in the spinal canal. You start with the easy low risk stuff, talk people through every little movement, have them gain confidence with that and then move on to the dicier stuff. Its amazing how doable it all is with a little active leadership. And how much people flounder when left to their own devices or if you ask them to proceed to an advanced step before they've mastered an easy step. It takes a long time to teach this stuff properly- the desire of neophytes is to want to rush headlong into the most difficult aspects of the surgery. Wrong approach- learn the easy parts first and build from there. Its why you need a mentor to teach you though, because as a neophyte you have no inherent knowledge of what the easy parts and hard parts might be.


Feeling chatty today, boy that was a long-winded post....

sarals 

Thank you, Coach!

Early on I was cautioned exactly in the way you just read. Be careful of what you hear. Multiple sources. Let's see what you're good at. Let's train you to what you are capable of. You're not a climber, stop trying to be. TT's are good for honing technique, learning patience, and discipline. You won't win one. However, you can win the right kind of road race or crit. And you'll be good in certain events on the track.

I've won a road race. I've won two state jerseys. I know which horse I need to ride, and I could never have done what I have without him.

It took me a while, I had things I needed to do, to try, but now there is the track. It's complex, it's technical, and even though I seemingly have talent, and the talent to do well in certain track events, I have to learn how. I'm a Cheetah, but I have "to lay around and lick my paws some more". Coach will get me there.

In the mean time, I will pick brains. And why not?

sarals 

@Heathpack, yes - Cycling magazine. My blood boils when I read some of the articles in there! Do they know anything about the demographic of the amatuer racing community? I doubt it. As you said, they seem to believe the whole world is young men who want to race crits, ride grand fondos, crush the world on a mountain bike, or win at CX. Right. Oh, there are young women who are kind of good at that racing thing, too.

And we all need to ride $10000 14 pound race machines in order to have any success. Oh, I forgot the sunglasses.

Sheesh...

sarals 

And....

We're still in a bit of pitched battle with the NCNCA over "women aren't small men" when it comes to racing. I think we (the Women's Committee) may have turned a corner, though.

Hermes

You may get nothing but snot and boogers.

Bandera

Imagine a time in cycle racing when there was No:

History
Heros
Coaches
Dogma
"Proper" Equipment
Limits

That was what the early years of racing MTB in NORBA was like.
Coming from a cyclo cross background was a huge benefit for me but seeing an alien and effective style of riding from the BMX kids who came into the sport was eye-opening, and a tasty Gumbo of what worked emerged from those doing the racing.

The illusion of control cast aside for a flowing engagement in the moment, right until I sailed off a four foot cliff at full-chat.

No drills for that.

-Bandera

revchuck 

Lots going on here today.
@sarals - I think it's just so cool that you're trying these things and excelling at so many of them. You're an inspiration - and that's not gratuitous BS, I mean it.
@Heathpack - Sometimes I think you're my sister by a different mother. Lots of parallels in what we're doing and we get much of the same trash tossed at us by the younger racers.
@Hermes - I really loved Tucson, I think it'll be an annual thing for me. Saguaro National Park East is a roller coaster ride on a bike. Your wife beat me by a bunch going up Mt. Lemmon...but now I have a time to shoot for.
@racerEx - I always read your stuff carefully and appreciate your advice, even when it's not directed at me.
@Bandera - That time pre-dates my involvement in cycling, but it sounds like it was fun!

Today's workout was not one of my better ones. 5x6' intervals at 105% with a 15" sprint at the end of each, with the first three at 70-85 rpm and the last two at 85+ rpm, 5' RBI. I expected it to be hard but doable. I went too hard for the first one, well into VO2 max territory; the next two were where they were supposed to be, and then I switched cadence and serious suckitude began. It seemed a whole bunch harder to produce power at the higher cadence. I made it through the fourth interval okay but didn't do the sprint. The last interval was ugly, barely hit threshold power, and I was whupped for the remainder of the ride. What really torques me is that last month I did a workout with 2x18' intervals, 6' RBI, at the same power level and while it did hurt, it didn't hurt as much as today's. I guess today I was the bug instead of the windshield.

Racer Ex 

Incorrect.

Proper drill for that situation: Years of throwing slightly modified stingrays off of every drop off within the greater San Francisco Bay Area including sneaking under the fence and doing jumps off this:



Not only will your flight seem dull, but you'll react with aplomb when either the head tube snaps off or the bottom bracket breaks out of the seat tube. Or the ape hanger snaps at the stem. Or the security guard shows up and gives chase.

There is no drill for when the front wheel falls off mid flight though. Yes, this happened to a friend of mine. Much dental work ensued.

Then you can start breaking and bending one of these:



45 pounds or so of pot metal. Probably more than half my weight at the time. There's one hanging in my garage.

Early BMX was my place holder for stuff with engines. Same/same as your MTB experience. We just showed up and raced and started writing chapter one. Probably the only time I wore a helmet on a bicycle prior to 2000, because they made us. I borrowed my brother's Bell, which was 8 pounds and two sizes on the big side. Jeans, jean jacket, sneakers or boots. Or a borrowed MX jersey if you were really cool. MX googles. Nobody owned sunglasses back then because we lived in a perpetual layer of fog.

If you took the seat off, changed the bar to a piece of water pipe, and electrical taped foam rubber pipe insulation around the rear fender loop, you had yourself a road racer. And foreshadowing my gear head future, I figured out how to swap the rear cog out to a smaller one I "borrowed" off a beach cruiser. You watch the intersection at the bottom of the hill, I'll see if I can scrape my knee like Kenny Roberts around the corner.



I could and it burned a hole in both my jeans and several layers of skin. Much duct tape ensued after that first time.

An aside: A few years later it was "watch the intersection and I'll see how far I can jump a Honda 500 four".

Friend who's wheel fell off mid flight on the bicycle was on the back when a car pulled out of one of the garages. No helmet. Broken jaw and ribs. The pilot was wearing one, flew over the car and landed more or less OK. The 500 did not fare well. The Kerker exhaust was saved however.

I did fly my RD350 from time to time.

sarals 

And every now and then, a true gem!

sarals 

@Racer Ex....the intersection at the bottom of the first hill, or the one......waaaaaay.....dowwwwwn....there??

sarals 

@revchuck....I don't know that I excel, but I sure give it my best try! And listen, I feel the same way towards you. You are AWESOME.

Hermes

@revchuck You are not alone. My wife buried all the men on Lemmon as well as the women.

We have had a lot of fun in Tucson and I do not want to criticize areas because we all know that one man's floor is another man's ceiling but.... the roads in Tucson are generally in poor condition. Mount Lemmon is pretty good and there are some areas that are okay. If the pavement were better, I would give Tucson 5 gold stars. It is a unique area and I like it a lot.

Hermes

Back at the track yesterday. After a respite from track cycling and a training camp with a lot of climbing, one would wonder how the legs would be.

First, I have had and injury for which I have been getting PT. It was diagnosed as a strained muscle and piriformis syndrome.

There is a guy at VSC who is a racer and practicing PT. I was telling him about the injury and he had me do a myofacial routine on the foam roller after the warmup and then did some work on the injury.

Interesting outcome. I was laying on the floor and he checked my piriformis and leg motion - no pain. He moved to the glutes - pain. He looked at my back and the right side was extremely tight. He says, I am going to release your back and this is going to hurt a lot - think child birth.

I must admit there was some wiggling around and screaming. He then went to the glute muscles and worked on those using active release technique.

I was not sure that I was going to be able to get off the floor.

I got up and everything felt pretty good.

I did a couple of motor efforts and on my last effort I did a 2k pursuit with the motor in 92 gear inches where the motor did two laps and we exchange and I do two laps times two for a total of eight laps. I was in sprint bars. We did a 2:37 2K 18.9 second laps. My glutes and back felt great.

In the past, doing that type of drill, I may do a 2:40 or 2:42 pace with the motor taking 3 laps to my one lap and I would be in aerobars. If I would have been in aerobars and 94 gear inches, I suspect I could have done 18.4 second laps.

This AM my glutes and back feel okay. There is more work to do before they are completely recovered but I think I have the right diagnosis and strategy to recover.

revchuck 

I fully agree with you on the road conditions. Mt. Lemmon was in good shape, loved the descent. But the road over Gates Pass is pretty bad, and the road to Kitt Peak is worse. Tucson seems to be working to fix the problem, but it's a long process and the roads that interest visiting cyclists don't seem to get the same priority as the ones used by the local taxpayers, imagine that.

Racer Ex 

Hermes, I do a very sequenced lower body and torso stretch/roll post ride workout. Having had back issues since my bad crash in '82 I've found that where you hurt is not always where the actual problem is. Things pull on other things. As cyclists we are locked into a pretty tight range of repetitive motion, as a result we end up with tightness in other areas like the IT band, Etc.

The guy who worked on you, if it's who I think it was, gets this.

revchuck 

Recovery ride yesterday, today was 2:50 at Z2 with the middle hour at Z3, TSS 154, IF .74.

When I spoke with Coach on Tuesday, she asked me to check into the possibility of doing the "ultra" (124-mile, 13.5k of climbing) version of the Cheaha Challenge. I emailed the ride director to ask if it were possible, and she replied that it was done and I'd get an email confirming it. So now I'm doing the harder version. Farge.

ETA: I finally got around to doing the "Earn Your Name" thing on Strava. After several minutes thinking about it, the site came back with "Sir Chafe-A-Lot". Sheesh.

Heathpack 

Left early:




Many dolphin:




Arrived in time to ride:




Incredibly beautiful day, so many wildflowers and so much green:




Rode to the airport:




Wildlife tally on the ride: one buffalo, two fox and one deer:




First mountain bike ride since Thanksgiving (on account of the vision and then eye surgeries). Thirty five miles and 4500 ft climbing. It felt pretty easy, PRed it by 40 min! Turns out being able to see is really helpful on the MTB. Who would have thought? One hard effort on a climb for 15-20 min, otherwise I just enjoyed myself riding around Catalina Island.

revchuck 

Looks like it was an awesome day, HP!

Heathpack 

It was, @revchuck!

My hat is off to you for taking on the big version of your Challenge. Pretty amazing for a flatlander to even go there. I hope you smash it!

Hermes

It is the guy. I have a post ride myofacial / stretch program but obviously it needs improvement.

Racer Ex 

We spent a good half-hour at the UCI cup talking about things of a very similar nature. Good to bounce stuff off of somebody in the sport is also in that profession.

Heathpack 

My schedule was in a little disarray this weekend, it was supposed to be: Fri easy ride, Sat big ride, Sun easy ride. But since it was supposed to rain on Sat, I did the big ride on Fri. With the idea that Sat & Sun could be easy rides instead.

Then Sat was pretty decent after all, a little rainy when we got up but it cleared soon enough and we headed ashore to walk the dog. Mr H suggests we grab breakfast, ok. The breakfast burrito looks good to me, not something I'd normally eat pre-ride but I figure I have a few hours to digest it still until the threat of morning rain subsides. The thing is so huge I can only manage to eat half.

An hour later, it's sunny. So of course I should make hay while the sun shines, so off I go. I warm up this time on some flat ground, then climb up and over the mountain and down into Little Harbor. An hour into my ride, normally I'd stop here and eat a little but that burrito is sitting in my gut like a rock. I feel tired and now is the time to decide to just ride back to Two Harbors, a reasonable two hour ride and I can lounge the rest of the afternoon...

But I am lured forward by scenery like this:



It's very rare that Catalina Island looks green and lush and I don't want to miss anything. So I forge ahead with the idea that I'll ride into Middle Ranch (where I went yesterday) and then take the road up to Blackjack Campground through Cape Canyon. This will be slightly shorter than yesterday's route, so a good compromise: "easier" than yesterday, although not really "easy" like I planned.

I get to the turn off for Cape Canyon and start down the road. Eventually the road I'm on loops back to Middle Canyon Rd, whoops, there must have been a sharper left turn that I missed. Do I backtrack and try to find it? I decide not to, because I don't want to add miles onto my "easy" day.

Still have a stomachache from that damn burrito so I have to force myself to sip my water every now & then. I get to the top of Middle Ranch Road and turn left for the Airport. I can grab a rest and a bite to eat there and then descend Rancho Escondido Rd like I did yesterday, that's only about an hour more to get home from there.

Much moister on this side of the island and a bit cold & windy. Intermittent light rain but I'm almost there. Very big landscape drama though with the clouds and mist. I come across a couple stopped on the roads to take pics, I ask them to take one of me:



I get to the Airport and have a rest and a Pepsi and a giant chocolate chip peanut butter cookie. I start to consider back tracking a few miles down the airport road and descending Cape Canyon Rd so that I can see some different territory. I'm not sure what it will be like, though, the map shows lots of switchbacks, maybe it's steep? I think I saw the turn-off for it while I was riding the airport road, I decide to ask an airport employee just to be sure.

She explains where the turn is- just where I thought. You have to go through the gate and "go uphill a little" to get to the campground. After the campground it's basically a gradual down hill she tells me. Ok, sounds reasonable and since its a gradual down hill after the campground, this sounds like not much of a climb. This will add probably another 45 min to my day, I'm thinking. That's pretty doable. After all I just ate an enormous cookie.

So off I head into uncharted territory. I find the turn, scramble past the gate and start climbing. Oy, up some steep stuff on not the best road- very rutted from recent rain, lots of loose gravel and rock, and steep stuff, mostly double digit grade. Oh I finally put two & two together: I'll bet Blackjack *Campground* is at the top of Blackjack *Mountain*, I'll bet that's why they named it that! So I climb up Blackjack Mountain for a few miles.

Get to the top and start my way down. Um its steep and switchbacky and the roads in bad shape. Loose rock, sharp steep turns, rutted road surface, some stream crossings, tractor treads marking up the road. Zero traffic on it too, unlike all the other roads I've been on. Cape Canyon (which I'm in) turns out to also have zero cell reception. Oh yeah and my rear brake has been screaming all day when I apply the brake, and that's getting worse. I stop to trouble shoot it but know nothing about disc brakes so that goes nowhere. The brake is also dragging when I pedal. But it's stopping the bike ok, I hope all will continue to be fine...

I wind up walking good bits of Cape Cyn Rd, really crashing out there on a solo ride could've been a nasty experience. Finally I make it back to Middle Ranch Rd, I should have a few miles of easy 2% downhill on a well-maintained road, can make up some of the time I lost.

Nope, buffalo grazing on the side of the road, those suckers are YUUUGGE:



Surely he will see me and get spooked and trot off?! Nope, he's not afraid of me. Keeps grazing and inching closer to me, I keep backing off. This goes on for 10 min or so until I decide to make a break for it across an open field and up & over a barbed wire fence. Hope I don't step on a rattle snake.

Ok finally get around the buffalo and whew making some time on the easy part of the road. I'm doing the mental math and figure I've got around 1:15-1:30 more to ride, some significant climbing still, and maybe 2 hours til sunset. I should be ok, which is good cause I have no lights and it will get really dark out here once the sun goes down.

I was supposed to do three 5-min hard efforts at some point, so when I get to the first of the remaining climbs, I go with a little max effort. By the time I get done with that, I'm feeling a little bonky. Ok let's think, how much have you eaten? Ginormous cookie, two tangerines and a Pepsi. I'm guessing around 800 cal and I'm four hours into this ride at this point, I've probably burned 2000 or so. Yikes, stop and eat a granola bar.

Then it starts raining? What? The rain risk was supposed to go to zero in the afternoon. By now I'm back to coastline, it's windy and I'm wet and its in the 50s. But I surprisingly don't feel that cold, and I have a jacket in my pack which I can put on if necessary. My biggest issue is that there's rain on my glasses, which is making it hard to see. Fortunately the road is in good shape but this does slow me down some.

Roll back into Little Harbor where I have cell reception and text Mr H my new ETA. Should just be another 40 min, which gives me a 40ish min buffer time until sunset. One last climb out of Little Harbor, should take about 25 minutes and then a 15 min descent & I'm back.

I bail on the notion of two more hard five-min efforts (sorry Ex) and start up that last hill. Feeling bonky again but want to let my granola bar digest a little more, I should have gone with Shot Bloks. Get most of the way up that hill and have to stop to eat a pack of Bloks. Ready for this ride to end but then the sun comes out from behind a cloud and this is my view:



I'm revitalized by the sunshine and the stunning scenery and the calories and caffeine. I go to take a drink to better absorb my Bloks and realize I'm out of water. Whatever, almost there. Climb to the top of that hill and yay! I'm almost done. I am so looking forward to a hot shower at this point.

Ten minutes of descending and I get flagged down by some hikers. Buffalo on the road! And the road runs along a cliff for a good distance. There's nowhere for him or us to go but down along the road. And he's in no hurry. He takes a few bites of grass, walks 10 steps, turns around & scratches his ass, then stares a good long time at the hikers (who are way too close to him IMO). This process is repeated excruciatingly slowly, I'm just watching that buffalo walk down the road for a good 30 min. Finally the hikers shoo him off onto a side road close to town, but that has a gate across it which he can't cross, so he's maybe only 20 ft off the road. Whatever, the hikers run past and I scoot by quick on the bike. Get back to town just as the sun is setting.

TL/dr: 45 miles, 5500 ft climbing and it took me literally all day. Mai tai at the bar afterward.

revchuck 

An unplanned epic ride, cool! I'm tempted to call BS on part of it, though. "Mai tai at the bar afterward" implies only one. Sure, lady.

Hermes

@Heathpack Great photos and ride report.

I bet we are going to have one doozie of an allergy season with all the vegetation we have in SoCal.

2 hour endurance ride along the coast on Saturday with VO2 efforts and tempo riding.

Sunday, was the inaugural Encinitas 1/2 marathon so sections of PCH were closed. Same day entry fees for the race were $125. That is a lot of dough for a running race. I can play a round of golf at a high end course for that kind of money.

We started in La Costa and did a couple of loops on the northern end of PCH for 1.5 hours of tempo.