New York for New Years

Tomorrow Ashley and I are heading up to Binghamton, NY to visit my buddy Ben from college. This will be the first time in a year I've headed up to see him. Site seeing, squirrel hunting, drinking coffee, and eating will be the agenda for the weekend. It should be fun, save the 10 hours in a car driving.

I'll not be taking my bike up, so that means I'll have 4 days off the bike. Not really too excited about that, but since its the middle of winter it shouldn't hurt too much. I road yesterday, and I'll ride today and tomorrow morning to try to get in all the training I can for the week.

Weight loss has held steady for the past week or so, this is thanks to the holidays. My goal was to not gain wait, but maintain. I made it through ok and now its back to loosing again. My power hasn't dropped any as I've been cutting the kg's, so I'm going to keep going until it does. I think that is called your "ideal" weight.

I had a really strong ride yesterday, as well as all my rides last week. I road about 2-3% of my FTP faster than normal. If I continue to stay above my set interval %'s by that amount for another week, I'll perform another FTP test. I would assume it going up another 5 watts or so. We'll see how it goes after 4 days off the bike though.

This will most likely be my last post for the year. So here's to a bad start to the '08 season, but to an exceptional finish to the '08 season. I'm looking forward to '09 and all the racing to come. I feel like its going to be a good year. I upgraded to CX3, and I'm making it my primary goal to upgrade to Cat3 on the road. When I get that, I'll mark it as a good year. Anything more will just be a bonus.

Christmas, New Pictures, Etc.

Well its the day after Christmas, and I have to say Santa was pretty good. A few highlighted gifts would be my new Tom Tom XL, Pearl Izumi bogon, and the Travel Stick. It'll be a fight to see which is my favorite, but I'm leaning towards the stick. Just a personal favorite.

I put a new header picture and footer picture, as well as the little one on the side of my blog. Mom used her fancy photography skills at the last cross race for these. Nothing special about them, except how well focused the header picture is on the Chevy Avalanche behind me. I think had the grill got into the picture, GM could've used that for a commercial. Assuming they could afford it.

Training has been good this week. I kind of overdid it a little bit with having so many days off from work. I wanted to really pin down and do some specific workouts, but I guess I'm not trained to long training. Still got 'em in though, and burnt enough calories to loose some more weight, or at least not put any on through the holidays. I want to loose weight, but I hate passing all this good food up. I could never have an eating disorder.....unless it was an over-eating disorder.

Next week I'll be riding Mon, Tues, and Wed to get my intervals in. I'll then take thurs-sunday off as Ashley and I are heading to New York to visit my buddy Ben from college. I'll use it as a rest week since I'll get four days off. And some well deserved R&R from work. I should be well rested for the following week, and I'll hit it wide open.

I was afraid with racing through the winter I would be getting burnt out, but the only thing I get depressed about is not being able to race every single weekend. I've never had a hunger for biking like I have now, and hope that it continues. I can't wait for road season....and mountain.

Training, Training, Training...Goals?

As everyone knows its winter time, and I guess time to start putting in those long rides. Now for some long rides consist of 5-7 hours, but for a working guy like me 2-3 hours is more like it. Here's my spill on long winter rides.

Looking and researching I've found that the average cat4 road race takes 1,500kj or less. In 7 hours of riding at 75%FTP, which is what I do longer rides at, I would burn around 5,250kj. Let me say that there's no way I could ride for 7 hours at 75%FTP right now. 3-4 hours would probably be my max, and I feel this is plenty for now. I say now because until I get to a level that I need to burn that many calories, I'll adjust accordingly. I understand a Cat1,2 riding that long because of some of the races they do.

So I'll add a 1,500kj day and a 2,300kj day to normal training at the start of the '09 year. If I have a rough week I'll drop the 1,500kj day as it will be in the middle of the work week. Both of these rides will be at 75%FTP.

What does all this mean? I don't feel that a 7 hour ride would help me as much as it would hurt. I could do a 3 hour ride, use the other 4 hours to recover, and get far more benefit from it than the 7 hour ride. For the guys that are still in school, or that don't have other obligations, they can probably justify it.

With my interval training my FTP is growing evermore. My goal is still 350 watts by the end of March, Jeff Cup to be exact, and to reduce my weight to 180lbs. I don't think either of which will be a problem. Which I guess I should list some of my '09 goals....I got the idea from Tim C.'s blog.

For '09
1. Reach a FTP of 350watts
2. Reduce my weight to sub-180lbs, currently 188lbs
3. Win at least one Cat4 race
4. Upgrade to Cat3 on road

All these should be reasonable goals. I'd love to upgrade by June or July, but I wont put that restriction on myself until after I see how the road season starts.

The team is having a camp in Dahlonega, Ga the last weekend of January. They are wanting big miles, and big climbs. The big climbs sound good, but the miles I might have to pull off on. It should be a good way for us to grow as a team though.

FTP and what it is to me

Functional Threshold Power. I don't want to say its the same as a person's Lactic Threshold, but they are almost close enough to be called the same.

In short its the highest average watts you can put out in one hour. After that hour you are completely out of juice. You use this number to come up with all your benchmarks for your workouts when training with power. If you don't....shame on you.

Before I go any further I'm going to define the term IF, or intensity factor. This is an algorithm that takes norm power, for now we'll assume this is the same as average power, and few other variables to tell you how hard you road compared to your FTP. I've found that for interval training this is a quick reference to see if you are going hard enough. Since your norm power is virtually the same as average power for interval training, your interval IF(you get this by highlighting your interval in whatever software you're using to view your workout) is what percentage of your FTP you averaged for that interval. Again this is a quick reference to how hard you are riding. If my IF is 1.05 during a set of my 3x8min intervals, that means I was pushing at an average of 105% of my FTP.

My FTP is 340watts. So, here are my benchmarks for my workouts (%'s are of my FTP):
3x8min @ 105% (357watts)
4x4min @ 115% (391watts)
2x20min @ 95% (323watts)
Calorie burning rides @ 75% (255watts)

I want to see an IF of 1.05 for 3x8's, 1.15 for 4x4's, and so on. This lets me know if I was going too hard or too easy.

To me no matter what kind of training you are doing you need to set a threshold. I'm beginning to believe it doesn't matter if its a Functional Threshold, Lactic Threshold, or whatever. As long as you set one, and fix your workouts around it you'll be fine. Pick one and stick with it.

This is were I probably wont make any friends, but you'll have different thresholds for different events. In other words your FTP may be different for road, cross, mountain, or whatever the event. Power is power, but each style of riding may cause a different threshold. For example my mountain FTP may be 5-10% lower than my road because of using different muscle groups.

I'm no expert on this matter. Most everything I've learned has come from the book Training and Racing with a Power Meter by Andy Coggan and Hunter Allen, and from just asking questions to everyone.

I know I haven't produced any big results to speak of yet, but I've seen my FTP go from right below 310watts 6 months ago to 340watts right now. I chose the FTP and I've stuck with it, and its payed off. I'll continue to stick with it until someone discovers a better way to train. Right now it would be hard for someone to convince me of a better way though.

I hope that wasn't too deep. Stay tuned for Christmas updates.....

Races, Record Posts, and Training

This makes the most posts I've ever done in a month. Nine to be exact.

I've updated my race sched for the first half of next year. Seems like all the bike associations are throwing up their tentative scheds. I hope to do all the ones listed to the right side of my blog.

Training is going good. Still focusing on raising my FTP and loosing a bit of weight, both in hopes of raising my PWR. Right now I'm very happy with were I'm at in my training and PWR. Two years ago I would've never thought I would be racing now. I had in my mind if I didn't ride 20 hours a week, I would never be any good.

Here are the workouts I do every week:
4x4min @ 115%FTP
3x8min @ 105%FTP
2x20min @ 95%FTP
and usually one or two 1500-2000kj burner rides

I mix it up every week, and if I have a race I usually leave out my 2x20's. The 1500-2000kj burner rides are done at 75%FTP simply for the purpose of burning calories, and getting a bit of endurance back into my training. I would assume that a 2000kj race will be about the longest I'll have as a Cat4. I might up it to 2500 if and when I get to Cat3 due to the longer races.

If you don't have a lot of time to ride, don't give up. Just make the most of the riding time that you have. Ride hard, but recover hard.

Can't wait till the end of Feb. Looking forward to the Greenville spring series races. I went down last year for the last two, and the turn out was huge. Probably 50-60 people in a cat4 field. That's pretty good for that time of year. I'm itching to get started.

Stay tuned for more....

MSG #6 Video

Here's a video from this past weekend. The two guys that pass me on the hill are the TCRC guys I wrote about in my last post.

In other news, it'll be almost a month before I get to race again. Ashley and I will be heading to New York to visit my good buddy Ben Webster and his wife for New Years. Ben will also be the best man in my wedding. He's can also take credit for helping me in my cycling, and dragging me out of places I shouldn't have been in while we were in college.

Another 2 lbs has come off. Down to 188lbs. Wow. Its hard to believe I was 20 lbs heavier 6 months ago. I don't think I'll have any trouble getting to 180, but anything below that I might loose power. I could always go with getting a shoulder reduction. Not really. I weighed around 180 when I graduated college. Its hard to believe that with still riding, but not racing, I put on that much weight. So when I get back to 180 I'll do a BFP test and go from there. Big Mig weighed in at 80 kg and won the Tour. Big guys can win. Of course his FTP was almost 500watts.......

I broke out a set of tubulars I started building my last year of college. American classic hubs, micro 58 and classic 205 rear, laced to a set of Ambrosio Crono F20's. Man are they sexy. Never raced them though. The rear rim came apart at the joint, when I called to get it replaced Glory Cycles told me they had built 1,000's of wheels with these rims and never had one fail. This embarrassed me and I put my wheel building asside until now. It'll be late January before I can get another 32 hole rim, but as soon as I can I'm going to complete the wheel set. They weigh in at around 1400 g's. Which may be a bit too light for me, but they'll look nice hanging on the wall.

MSG #6...the last one

First I'd like to apologize for not getting a race report out yesterday like I said I would. We had a Christmas play at church last night, and I was too tired to stay up. But hopefully one day late isn't so bad.

Yesterday was perfect weather. Low-mid 30's with sunshine. Not to cold and not to hot. The course was probably the hardest we'd had so far, with a long run up section, sand, barriers, and a small amount of mud. The long run-up had you remounting into the final 100 meter finish. I was thinking this would be all kinds of trouble because of the dismount/remount. I practiced a several times this past week on just that and it payed off. Too, this was the first cross race my parents came out to. I was glad to seem them out, and I think they might have appreciated all the time I spend riding my bike......at least a little more anyway.

Go! My start wasn't the best, but I hung in there in about 9th place or so off the start. I tucked in behind a guy that had beat me the last 3 races by one place. I figured that'd be a safe wheel to set on. We picked of a couple guys, and held steady for the rest of the lap. Two guys were way off the front, and then 4-6 were about 50 yards ahead, and it didn't look like we were going to catch them any time soon. So I jumped with hopes of catching onto them, and I did.

For the next couple laps a TCRC guy and Sledgehammer guy traded pulls, while myself and another TCRC guy just set on. The first TCRC guy was hurting and fell to the back of our 4 man group at the start of the 4th and final lap. It was obvious it was going to come down to attacks. The second TCRC guy jumped, but we held on. Sledgehammer guy went, but we chased back. We were just a couple hundred yards from the barriers, and I though if you attack they all 3 might beat you. Then I said piss on it. You can't win if you always set on someones wheel. (yes I know I wasn't going to win the overall race, but the win out of the group of 4). So I attacked through a twisty technical section before the barriers.

When I jumped I could hear the Sledgehammer guy right on me. He was the strongest of all 4 of us. He set on and I lead through to the barriers. The sledgehammer guy passed me through the barriers, and I saw one of the TCRC guys right behind me. So I jumped on the Sledgehammer guys wheel and tucked in. Right ahead was 3rd place on the road....we thought he was gone....so we hauled butt. Into the final hill it was Sledge, me, and TCRC. We came out of the hill that way, remounted that way, and finished that way. Less than a second apart. Talk about an exciting finish.

This was the first time I'd ever beat either of the TCRC guys, and the closest I'd come to beating the Sledge guy. I ended up in 5th place, and that should put in 5th overall for the series.

I showed a lot of improvement over the 6 race MSG series. From finishing12th in the first race, to finishing 5th in the final race. This makes me feel better about upgrading to CX3. I would've liked to have stayed in CX4 until I got a win or two, but I'm trying to look ahead to road and mountain. I hope buy doing CX3 through Feb, it'll really help my fitness even more.

I'll post some pics, and yes another video, either later this evening or tomorrow evening.

Day before the final MSG

Today the weather looks pretty epic outside. Snow and wet ground from a hard rain yesterday. Should make tomorrow interesting as we enjoy the last MSG race for '08.

As of right now I stand in 6th place overall in the CX4 field. My average placing has been around 8th. I'm rather content with this considering my past cross placings(which would be an average placing of next to last). I feel like my legs are good for the CX4 field, but my cross skills still lack a lot. Especially my remount.

Tomorrow will be for double points, and I stand a chance of upping to 5th, and I think maybe 4th overall in the final standings.

I've took a lot from cross this year. I wont lie, I really hated it up until this year. But I've found a new love for it, and hope to continue cross racing for as long as I can. I would say I've only done about 10 real cross races in my life (6 of which were this season), and for having so few I am very happy with the outcome of this season at the MSG races.

Things I learned:
-While running is not #1 in cross its very very important. Before next season I'll attempt to do a couple 20 min runs per week to prepare for cross season.
-Obstacles(barriers, run-ups, etc)....the best I've heard it put is "obstacles wont enable you to win a race, but it will cause you to loose a race". This is very true. While I was playing around trying to get on my bike, I often looked up and saw guys riding off into the sunset. I was able to keep up with them until hitting any obstacles, but lost them after that. I compare this to being at the tail end of a pace line in a crit. It sucks.
-Practice, Practice, Practice. I was really good about practicing cross when the season first started, but then slowly quit. I was still doing my regular riding, but not cross specific stuff. This I think hurt me in the long run.

I'll still do some of the Knoxie and WNCCX series through January and February, but just to keep morale up. Hopefully I'll get my CX3 upgrade before then......that should be fun, ha. Then towards the end of Feb the Greenville spring series should light up and I'll start hitting them asap. I can't wait.

Stay tuned for a race report after the race tomorrow....

MSG #5 Pics and Videos

A few pics and videos from the MSG #5. Be sure to read my previous post to catch the race recap. Thanks to Ashley for taking the pics and videos. The last video goes for about 20sec before you see anything, so just be patient.

Stay tuned MSG #6 this Saturday....

MSG #5

Today was the 5th race in the MSG series. Weather called for about 40 and flurries later in the day.......not so. Try 20's with a skip of frost on the ground. This might be one of the coldest races I've ever done. Seems like the cold air affects the lungs more than it does anything. Warming up you think it'll be your fingers and toes, but once you get going in the race you neglect them. But after about 10 minutes of freezing air your chest starts to hurt with every breath.

The race course was long dragging grass. We had one set of barriers and a run up/ride up, I tried riding, but it was too freaking cold. All the remount sections were on a slight uphill, which made it near impossible for me to remount. Again this is my weakest point in cross racing, something I'll really have to work on before next year. Here's how the race went.....

The race started out really well. I was in the top 5 through the first lap. I settled into a pretty decent pace by the start of a second lap. I could see 1-4 right in front of me, maybe 20 yards ahead. I thought this is good, just hang tight. Well a couple guys jumped ahead of me, put me in 7th overall, but they didn't go far. I was on them, thinking if I can hold my pace I'll catch them before the end of the race. Then there was the 3rd lap, or the end of the second and third. Through the barriers a guy clipped me with is bike on the back of my leg as he was trying to blow by us (to note, he later apologized). Stay calm I said, remounted and could hardly turn the pedals. Too hard of a gear, idiot. Hang on to the group. As I make my way around the course, I notice Ig and Mckenna are following us around the course.....

Now I'd like to dedicate this next paragraph to them. While they were watching and cheering, I came through an off camber turn and hit the deck hard. Now this was not a bad section of the course, and what happened I don't know. Maybe the sound of Ig's voice distracted me, but whatever it was all the words that were coming to mind were restricted to 4 letters. I got back up and remounted, slowly of course, and kept going. Thanks for the moral support guys....I think.

I never could get my rhythm back, but luckily we'd got enough gap that I held on to 8th place for the finish. Not bad, but man it would've been nice to have cracked the top 5.

It was a good race. I really liked the new tires. They made the ride a lot smoother. Legs felt really good, but my cross skills (what little I have) were not so good.

I should get my Cx3 upgrade, but I'll finish out the MSG series as a Cx4. Next month will hopefully see me in the 3's. With the longer races it should help me get ready for road/mtn, and with the late cross season maybe I can really focus on my handling and remounts. With a little less worry about finishing place.

Pics and maybe even a video to come.....that's right, get excited.

Finally some answers and Cross upgrade

I just received an email back from Andy Coggan about why I'm not able to reach the same power level on the trainer. Everything he said made a lot of sense. Here's my shortened version of it.

As you ride the trainer, your downward pedal stroke accelerates faster than it does while on the road or climbing a hill. In other words, its like accelerating on a downhill. This causes a different level of inertia, which in turn fatigues certain muscles more than when riding the road (save downhill).

He offered several suggestions as to how to "close the gap" between road and trainer, but believes as long as you are training to exceed some threshold it shouldn't make a large difference.

Therefore, I will continue to train with one FTP on the trainer, and another on the road as I have been for the last 3 or 4 weeks. The only difference now is that I feel much better about it after talking to Andy.

I would like to thank Andy for taking the time to reply and offering his experience and expertise to the problem. Thanks Andy!

Tomorrow is cyclocross race MSG #5. I've had plenty of good training since the last race. With a new set of tires and cold/wet conditions, it should be a good time. I'll post results tomorrow evening after the race.

Too, I put in for my upgrade to CX3. I know I haven't grabbed a top 5 yet like I said I would, but I'd really like to do the CX3 racing in Jan and Feb to get ready for the road in March. Assuming the racing is more intense, as well as 15 min longer, it should be a good boost for the start of the road/mtn season.

Aero bars and power

After last week off from work, I've been really motivated this week. Not for work related things, but for cycling.

I read an article that was posted on the google wattage forum about aerodynamics. Now I'll be the first to admit that I make fun of guys that show up to a 5k or even a 10K TT with a full TT bike and aero helmet. I guess if I dropped 6g's for a carbon frame, zipp disk wheel, and aero helmet I would use it every chance I could too.

After reading the article though it really opened my eyes. Not to the point that I'm ready to buy a full TT bike, but definitely about the power savings aero equipment offers. The short of it is just aero bars will save you around 30 watts @40kph, and a full TT bike will save you 60 watts over a normal bike @40kph. A TT helmet will save about 10 watts for either bike. If you look at the cost per watt, at my level a TT bike isn't a must, it would be nice, but not necessary. A set of aero bars, approx $100-$150, would definitely be a good investment. And I could argue a TT helmet. Even at the Cat 3,4 level 10 watts could be the difference between winning and loosing.

Just to give you an idea of the difference they can make.....using an online calculator one could average about 1.5mph faster. In a 20K TT that's a difference of around 2 minutes. That's huge.

I believe its not important to have the best equipment, for example rival will serve most as good as red, ultegra as well as DA, and so on. Wheels and tires are what I would call the two most important parts of the bike. I'll now add, in the event of TT's longer than 5K, at least a set of aero bars. There will be a set in my collection before next season.

I emailed Andy Coggan, one fo the authors of cycling and training with power, to see what he says about my power drop on the trainer. I hope he has some insight as to what it may be. A drop of 12% in FTP from road to trainer sucks. Maybe I'm just a whimp and fooled my powertap into reading higher numbers on the road.

Hopefully as soon as I find out, I'll get off this number run I seem to be stuck in.

General, Tires, Updates, and Plans

I haven't posted in a little over a week, but with good reason. I was out of town the first part of last week deer hunting, and then with the Thanksgiving holiday I haven't had much opportunity to post. Here's a little info for this past week or two.

Training has been good. I'm still on the trainer. I'm performing a test that I'll write a big long post about around the first of the year. It basically has to do with power on the trainer. Some people seem to have lower power, some the same, and some even have higher power on the trainer. Everyone I seem to talk to says, "power is power, man", but I don't know that I hardly agree. Since its the off season, sort of, and I am an engineer, I'm going to perform a test to see just what is what. Should be fun.

I mounted the new cross tires. Vittoria cross evo XG Pro's. 700x34's rather than the 32's I was running before. I haven't raced them yet, but just practicing they seem to be a lot smoother and no slower than the 32's. I was running about 46psi in the 32's, and I can now run about 42 in the 34's. Maybe it doesn't seem like much, but its a lot easier on my backside. I've read some people running them in the mid to low 30 pressure range, but imagine they weigh in at 150lbs or less.

Speaking of weight, if you'll notice to the right hand side of my blog I've updated my stats. My LT has up-ed to 340watts, keep in mind my weight is still around 190lbs. As a matter of fact my weight has dropped to 190lbs. I took a little break from loosing and held steady were I was, but its time to shed a little more. 185 by feb is the goal right now. I'd like to get to 180 by prime season next year. All this leads to my PWR. With the 5 watt boost in LT, and the 1 Kg lose in weight, I'm almost to a 4 Watt/Kg PWR. This makes me excited. I should be able to really do well next year even if I hold were I'm at right now.

I'm going to set a goal of 180 lbs and an LT of at least 350watts by April. This will give me a PWR of 4.23 watts/kg. That would really make me happy if I achieved this goal. I don't think it is too far out ther either. With my limited training time I don't really look to excel too much in longer road races. My highest KJ ride will be around 2000, and maybe an occasional 3000KJ. Crits and TT's should be pretty sweet.

I hope this wasn't too many numbers and info, stay tuned for more......