Power Tap Data and Group Rides

Friday was a pretty decent day here in AA and I hit the road with a bunch of AAVC/Morgan & York riders. Wow was it ever nice to be out on the road. My workout called for three hours of easy base training. I tried to stay off the front and chill but events worked against me. Here's the data:

Duration: 2:39:28
Work: 1608 kJ
TSS: 237.9 (intensity factor 0.949)
Norm Power: 218 watts
VI: 1.29
Distance: 53.037 mi

Min Max Avg
Power: 0 989 169 watts
Heart rate: 85 252 156 bpm
Cadence: 25 114 83 rpm
Speed: 0 32.5 20.1 mph
Pace 1:51 0:00 2:59 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 413 59 lb-in

I found some revealing things in the data. Firstly, I work harder in a group with less perceived exertion. I know there was some hammer-time going on but I didn't think I was working that much harder. Take a look at the first 9 miles of the ride:

Duration: 20:14.16

Norm Power: 258 watts

Distance: 8.017 miles

What happened here is Andy Weir and I got separated from the group and because of a problem with Andy's bike. Long story short, we had to hammer all the way to Dexter to catch back on. I think Andy had already warmed up but I hadn't. Andy pulled the majority of the way and we caught the group on Island Lake Rd and Dexter-Pinkney Rd. This helped drive the numbers up for the whole ride. Even though it wasn't in my plan, it was all great fun.

I was going to do some hill repeats but ran out of time and it seemed like I was always going up a hill anyway.

The next day, my team, South Lyon Cycle, had its kick off meeting. It was like Christmas in March as we all got our team kits. Joe and John run a very organized program. That's nice for someone like me who is still new to the sport and has never been on a formal team. After the meeting we hit the road for a little training together. We started at the South Lyon Hotel and rode out to Kensington Metro Park. We rode there for several miles before the rest of the group headed back to South Lyon. I stayed to finish up my assigned volume. My task for the day was 4 hours of zone 2 training which was a joke after the team hammer fest. I was climbing a hill next to Tony Wieczorek and he was just killing me! I was putting out a steady 550 watts and he just kept increasing tempo. Wow, is he ever gonna be strong this year! The group left and I rode for another hour and twenty minutes before heading back. I did get a couple of easy hours in earlier in the day working out with the AAVC juniors so I brought the ride in before four hours. Here's the data:

Duration: 3:25:43
Work: 2005 kJ
TSS: 292.7 (intensity factor 0.927)
Norm Power: 213
VI: 1.3
Distance: 66.197 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 978 164 watts
Heart rate: 12 234 153 bpm
Cadence: 28 118 85 rpm
Speed: 0 40.1 19.4 mph

I rode a bit easier through Kensington once I was on my own although those hills force you to kick it up a notch. It seemed like the whole day was spent on the bike and my wife agreed!

Finally An Outdoor Ride

A beautiful day here in SE Michigan today and I ventured outside for four hours of base training. I decided to repeat my last week of base 3 instead of all of it then skip my R & R week and head right into build 1. That will mean a four week cycle which is not recommended for the master racer but I decided to throw caution to the wind. This means I will only lose one week of training due to the Ebola virus outbreak.

It never really warmed up today but I was fully equipped for a cold day. Since I am on call today I needed to stay near my car so I rode out of Barton Park up to Chelsea and back only to turn around and do it all over again. I knew I could get to my car reasonably fast if I needed to and my uniform was in the car.

I ended up with a few minutes to spare so I rode into Ann Arbor and gassed up on a Smoothie King malt. Only 887 kcals! My burn for the day, (BMR + activity), is around 5600 kcal so I can afford it. I saw Blair Dudley flying down a hill whilst I was climbing it as I rode back to my car. It was that hill on Sunset that has a hairpin at the bottom. I think this is the steepest hill in Ann Arbor. It has to be a 15% grade. Blair was just flying and I was absolutely crawling.

What I Have Learned

After nearly a week long bout with the flu, I am assessing the damage and what to do about it. Today finds me still unable to train but at least the fever has resolved. Ed Burke and others recommend taking two days of easy recovery riding for every day of fever. That means I am looking at ten days before I can return to my program! So, I have decided to repeat base 3 which is going to mean my whole season will have to be overhauled. The Sprint Training Series was going to fit in nicely with build 1 offering some anaerobic capacity workouts. I still haven't decided what to do about the first few races in the series, (whether to sit in or sit out), but I will be a there to work with the juniors.

I said it before and I will say it again, I will get that flu shot next year. My son and wife had this bug for less than 24 hours and my daughters and I had it for five days each. The impact of a five day fever is exponentially greater than the 24 hour variety.

Ride safe out there.

Flu Shot

It is Saturday and I am still unable to train because of this bug. My daughters both took five days to get over this thing and it looks like I will be fortunate to do the same. My son had a flu shot this season and he was over this thing in twenty four hours. Note to self...get a flu shot next year. This is just bombing my training. This week was supposed to be the highest volume week of the year. Now I have to figure out what to do about it. Should I reschedule some base three training or just continue on? I have a R & R week coming up and maybe that is something I should keep in place to regain fully recover. But what then? Rescheduling means changing my wole season around.

The Other Airplane

This is the other airplane I fly. It is called a Fokker 70.

Gulfstream GV

This is not one of our airplanes but it is one of the types of aiplanes I fly. Ours are white with blue and red accents.

Don't Cheat in a Bike Race

LOL!

Funny Bike Rider Fight

Maybe we should leave this stuff to the hockey players.

Ramblings...

For anyone who has been coming back to my blog hoping to see something new, please accept my apologies. I get all these ideas that I want to write about but when I get to the computer I just go blank.

Training has been pretty good all things considered. I spent last week in Alaska and managed to stick with my training schedule. I used a pretty good stationary bike at a Marriott in Anchorage. It was just super cold up there last week. To top it off, the last couple of days the winds were howling over 50 mph. With the morning temp around zero degrees Fahrenheit the wind chill was waaaaay down there! Food was plentiful as it always is in Anchorage. I put in a lot of hours but I ate way too much also.

My training has been on track since coming home until today. I woke up with a fever and training is not going to happen. I am bummed but what can I do. My kids have each had this bug and now it is my turn.

Junior Meeting This Saturday

The AAVC juniors are getting together this Saturday at Aberdeen Bike and Fitness in Chelsea. Mark Lovejoy said we will see some new faces which will be nice. Our junior program is just fantastic. My older children were introduced to racing through it and now my 9 year old is going to join in. If you know a junior racing age 10-17, let them know that they are welcome 9am - noon.

Are Coaches Really Necessary?

An accomplished cyclist said recently that coaches are not for him because a coach can't really know how you feel and are responding to training. While some can self-coach very effectively, I submit to you that one of the problems with it is that we are just terrible at self-evaluation. We don't see ourselves as we truly are. Some fat people are convinced they are thin. Some skinny people are convinced they're fat. Some good looking folk think they are ugly and so forth. This is where coaching is helpful when it comes to cycling. We have a tendency to deceive ourselves about our training. For instance, when performance starts to lag, what is our tendency? We usually blame our problem on a lack of intensity and ratchet up volume and intensity. A coach can stand back and analyze the situation and give a more unbiased assessment. The coach would give the opposite counsel. He would probably tell the athlete to take some time off or reduce volume and intensity as he correctly notes the athlete has become overtrained. Clearly the athlete who said this is effectively self-coaching but I can't help but wonder if he has even more untapped potential.