TTT Pacing

Below are some interesting charts related to TTT pacing. Two very similar teams (only one rider different on a 4-man squad) did the same course (at least up till mile 17.5) under very similar conditions about two months apart - both in competition. The first time we went out much too hard and had trouble at the end. The second time we might have gone out too easy - it's hard to say for sure. On the second attempt (August), we were lagging behind the first attempt (June) pace until very late in the race, when we easily caught and 'passed' ourselves.

The course was more difficult in the second half, which makes the interpretation a little more complicated.



More consistent speed in August:




Making up major time toward the end (10-20 seconds per mile):


Course was tougher in 2nd half, but not too much speed was lost in August:

Time Trial Pacing

I've always read how important it is to pace properly in TTs. My last two FTP tests on the Cervelo are hard evidence of that fact.

Two weeks ago, I started out too hard. My first 5 minutes I averaged almost 300 watts. I ended up averaging 251 watts over 45 minutes and was completely exhausted at the end - I didn't even have a good finishing kick.

Last night I started out correctly. My first 5 minutes I averaged 263 watts. I ended up averaging 265 watts over 45 minutes. I felt better throughout the test and had a very strong finishing 5 minute push.

My motivation was pretty low last night, so I attribute the entire wattage increase to proper pacing.

Faster TT - Attack Hills or Kill Descents?

In discussing time trial strategies with other riders, I've found that everyone seems to have a different approach to dosing their power over a rolling TT course. There's the 'don't start too hard' rule, which I think is very valid -- I make that mistake often. Then there's the question of when to stand out of the bars, etc.

But the question that I was most uncertain about was whether to put more effort into climbing or descending (assuming that your average wattage for the entire ride is constant). A very good time trialist I know says he powers the descents and that gives him an advantage. I've always heard that I should put out more effort on the climbs and recover on the descents. One coach told me to stand on the last 25% of each roller to maintain momentum. So I've done the math.

I modeled the situation using a spreadsheet allowing input of temperature, elevation, power, frontal area, friction coefficient, rolling resistance, and weight for various course sections. I constructed a 1-mile TT course with a 1/2-mile, 6% climb followed by a 1/2-mile 6% descent. I used aero coefficients that represented climbing on the hoods and descending in the drops. The average power over the course is 250 watts for all three situations.

Constant effort:
If I generate a constant 250 watts over the course, I get the following times: climb (2:58)+ descent (0:45)=total (3:43).

Harder climbing:
If I generate 270w for the climb and 178w for the descent, I get: climb (2:48)+ descent (0:46)= total (3:34). That's 9 seconds faster than the constant power ride.

Harder descending:
If I generate 240w for the climb and 290w for the descent, I get: climb (3:05)+ descent (0:44)= total (3:48). That's 5 seconds slower than the constant power ride.

I tried the same thing for a 3% climb and got similar results. The end result is this: If you are going to ride with a non-constant power output, it's better to hit the hills hard and take it easier on the descents. Extra power output doesn't do you as much good when you are at higher speeds because it gets eaten up by wind friction at a 3rd power rate.

Why does my friend the good time trialist think it helps to kill the descents? Probably because he kills the descents but continues to kill the climbs too! So he ends up with a greater average power for the ride. The moral of the story is "If you have to recover somewhere on the ride, do it on the descents, not the climbs."

Rock 'n Rollman

I had a good ride at the Rock 'n Rollman 1/2 IM on Sunday -- I bettered last year's time by about 21 minutes and finished in 2:33:45. I'm glad I rode well, and I want to identify what I did right so it won't be a one time show. I have several theories, and it's probably some combination of all of them:

1. More mileage - My mileage/training time since April hasn't been drastically different than what I've done in past years, but it's a little higher (150-200 miles/wk this year compared with 100-200 miles/wk last year). The real difference was during the winter months. I averaged about 150 miles per week instead of 75. And a big chunk of that riding was in the Peach Peloton in 60-135 mile rides. Those long winter rides probably helped me build a bigger aerobic base, which allowed me to keep my heart rate steady at 155 bpm (7 bpm below FT) throughout the ride instead of having it decay steadily from 155 to 130 like it did last year.
2. Weights - I hit the weights over the winter -- mostly squats and leg extensions. I'm not sure the lifting really helped me, but it is a difference from last year.
3. Psychology - I think this was the big one. I've never argued that the mental approach to sports performance is important, but I think this ride was the first time I took full advantage of it. There was a steady brisk breeze in our face from the start to the half way point in Roberta. Instead of bitching and moaning about the headwind (like I heard lots of my competitors doing), I was begging for it not to stop because I had convinced myself (accurately, I think), that I was more aerodynamic than most riders (small body size, TT helmet, skinsuit, tri-bike w/aero wheels, shoe covers, etc.) and that the harder the wind blew the more time I was gaining on them. Also, I didn't have to run after the bike because I was on a relay team. That allowed me to leave it all on the road, mentally and physically.
4. No swim - Because of the relay team I didn't swim before the ride. This obviously gave me some advantage, but I don't know how much.
5. Tandem riding - This one was unexpected. I've done some tandem riding with Betty Jean this spring. It's made me much more aware of the effect of momentum on riding rolling hills. On a tandem, momentum is a much, much bigger factor than it is on a single. I've learned that increasing the effort in the last 1/4 of a short climb can make a big difference on your speed down the back of the hill. So I jumped out of the saddle toward the end of most small climbs to maintain momentum for the decent. I'm convinced it made a difference in my downhill speed and had the added benefit of improving the blood flow to my leg muscles, which is an issue that I almost never hear mentioned but I think is important. "Attacking" the hills also was good for the mental game.
6. Aero equipment - I picked up a LG aero helmet on eBay for $60 and a Colnago skinsuit for $40. I know they made some real difference (as much as a few minutes), but they definitely make me feel faster, and that's probably more important than their actual effect (see number 3).

Cycling improvement is a combination of lots of small things. One at a time they may not make a noticeable difference, but together they do.

Thoughts on weight, genetics

Someone recently asked my opinion about the importance of power-to-weight ratio. I've been thinking about that some lately and thought I'd throw in my two cents, which includes no great insight, just my rehash of the subject.

The power-to-weight ratio is most important in two situations: accelerating and climbing. To maintain a constant speed in a flat time trial, it makes little difference what you weigh, just how much air and rolling resistance you have and how much power you can maintain (losing weight might affect your frontal area a little, but not much).

The climbing aspect is obvious: The less energy you use to fight gravity the more you can put into getting to the finish line. As an example (put in your own numbers at this web site: http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm) let’s take the Georgia Cup Gainesville road race course (estimated numbers here). We did six laps around a course that had an average 9% climb that was about 0.7 mile long. I averaged about 285 watts for that climb over 6 laps and I weigh 148 lbs. It should have taken me 5 minutes 3 seconds to do the climb on each lap. If I gained 10 lbs and maintained the same power, I would finish the climb in 5 minutes 19 seconds, 16 seconds slower. It’s obvious that 16 seconds is more that enough time to get me dropped from the front group in a single lap. Five seconds might be enough to get dropped if the group accelerated at the top and I had nothing left. So in climbing, weight is very important. And the lighter you are, the more important it is to pay attention to bike weight becase it's a bigger percentage of your total climbing weight. If I weighed 200 lbs, a 2-lb reduction in bike weight would only save me a couple of seconds on that climb, but at 148 lbs, shaving 2 lbs off my bike weight would save me almost 4 seconds. So I get much more benefit from being a weight weenie than a heavier guy would.

The acceleration benefit of being lighter is less obvious except in criteriums. I'm a poor crit racer because I can’t accelerate. But my acceleration problems aren’t primarily due to weight, they are due to low neuromuscular (5 sec) power. I don’t think I could never lose enough weight to compensate for my limiters there, but I should probably race more crits to improve my acceleration ability.

But there is another area where acceleration is very important and I think most people don't consider it. Over the course of a race or a hard group ride, there are hundreds of short accelerations required to stay with a fast peloton or paceline. Those accelerations aren’t always intense, but a lighter rider wastes much less energy in the short accelerations required when riding in a group. Your legs will pay the price quickly if doing a hundred mini-intervals when the other guys in your group are riding with more constant effort or less taxing acceleration effort. So being able to ride smoothly is very important. When I pop in a pace line, it often happens all of a sudden because I get fatigued, I ride less smoothly, which causes me to need more accelerations to keep up, which speeds my fatigue. It can also annoy the other riders in the group. In a fast pace line the whole accelerate-fatigue thing can snowball very quickly. I still have lots of work to do there. One way to handle these types of short accelerations more easily is by riding at a higher cadence, which has helped me recently.

I was also asked my opinion about the role of genetics in the performance of pro and elite riders. I’m sure that their results are not just due to good genetics. Genetics plays a big role, but there are a lot of good training years in those guy’s and gal's backgrounds. I subscribe to this theory that I read once -- can't remember where:

If you could take 10 athletes of varying genetic ability and put an identical brain in each of them, they’d all be riding at about the same level in five years. If you take 10 athletes having the same genetic potential and put 10 different brains in them, you’ll have a very wide array of talents in five years. Genetics plays a big role -- I used to think it was most important variable, but I don’t think so anymore. It's important but not crucial.

The problem for us mortals with normal genetics is that there will always be Lances and Floyds out there that get the genetics and the brain. Nobody’s ever going to regularly beat them. And getting good quickly is much easier for those with genetic talent.

The Chicken or the Egg?

I've recently been discussing lactate threshold. I sometimes tend to overanalyze or mathematically dissect and issue to death because that's part of the allure to me. But I also think that anyone who would like to be a stronger rider can ignore the more simplistic approach to training at their own peril. Eddie Merckx's advice might be the best two word training advice ever: "Ride lots."

I've always wondered if the strongest riders have been riding many years because they are good at it (most people naturally enjoy activities that they are good at) or if they are good at it because they have been riding for many years. This post from the Google wattage forum gives this less gifted athlete a little hope that the latter argument holds true:

Intervals do well improving ones fitness in the short term, but they lead to burnout. Long term improvements comes from chronic long term training specific to the sport of interest. In order to do that, it's best to keep what ever cycling training you're doing enjoyable. Keep a long term focus, without obsessing on the details and you'll do fine.

This is exemplified by a study of 14 competitive cyclists with nearly identical VO2 max values that differed substantially in their lactate threshold determined during cycling (ranging between 61 and 86% of VO2 max). When the cyclists were divided into a "low" and "high" LT groups (66% vs. 81% of maximal oxygen consumption), it was found that the two groups differed considerable in the years of cycling training (2.7 compared to 5.1 years on average). However, they did not differ in years of endurance training (7-8 years of running, rowing etc.) When the low cycling LT and high cycling LT groups performed a lactate threshold test while running on a treadmill, the two groups were no longer different. Measured while running, the lactate threshold in both groups averaged over 80% of VO2 max.

In other words it wasn't genetics, but the length of chronic training and competition that made the difference. What's most important is that it be enjoyable so that you'll stick with it and make it into the second group.

My VO2max is about 65 mmole/l/min, which is pretty decent. Maybe that means my LT will gradually rise with time. And if not, it'll be a good long term experiment anyway.

TSB for personal bests

This chart was posted by Andrew Coggan. It shows the Training Stress Balance (TSB) values where the most personal bests are recorded. Looks like TSB of about 10 is a good target for best performance.

2006 Georgia Cup completed

My first year dedicated to bike racing is now complete (after 5 years of triathlon with a couple of bike races thrown in). Although I finished well in the Cat5 points standings, it was a fairly uneventful year as far as results are concerned. I had a few top 10 finishes, and I don't think I ever finished lower than about 16th when I completed a race, but mainly my points success resulted from just showing up to most of the races and entering the Omnium competition on a regular basis. And because I was racing mostly for points standings, my race strategy was conservative and boring.

Next year's strategy will be different, I think. Because there likely will be other Cat5 riders from MAX Cycling racing in Georgia Cup races, I think I'll stay in Cat5, race with them (or in the Masters Open category), and try to develop a more interesting, aggressive strategy for the races. My results will be much more varied, but the races should be more interesting. I think I'll also eliminate the crits from my schedule and stick to time trials and road races. I suck at crits first of all, and they are the most likely places for crashes second of all. I'll be fresher for the road races, too.

Bike Racing

I've sort of switched my focus this year after catching the bike racing bug. I raced the Cat 5 circuit race in Perry, GA, the Perry-Roubaix a couple of weeks ago. I did ok, finished 7th out of 17 (7th out of 9 in a bunch sprint).

Last weekend I raced all three races (Omnium) in Gainsville. I finished 10th out of about 25 in the time trial, 16th out of about 55 in the criterium, and 14th out of 58 in the road race. I was very pleased with all of my results considering that I haven't really done any bike training this year other than riding about 50 miles a week and doing a few hill repeats on the Computrainer.

I enjoyed the change in the competition from triathlon, and I think I'll do some more bike racing this year.

Trying all sorts of new approaches

My first triathlon was in college -- at Auburn in 1991. I raced the Wet-n-Wild Triathlon at Chewacla State Park that year and the following year after I'd graduated and had taken a job in Atlanta. I lost interest until about 10 years later. I've now been training and racing sprints and olympic tris for four years. I've done the Rock 'n Roll-man half ironman race in Macon, GA for two years also.

But even though I've only failed once in four years to better my prior time at any race, I find myself plateauing in skill and waning in enthusiasm. So I've developed a plan to remedy the situation. I've had some metabolic testing done, hired a coach (Tony), and purchased a computrainer to better get ready for the coming season. I'm also determined to learn to run using the Pose Method (running on the balls of my feet instead of being a heel-striker).

Since I'm new to blogging, I'm not sure if anyone else but me will ever read what I'm typing here, but if nothing else, it will provide me with a way to document what I'm doing and sort of think through the process. If anyone reads this stuff that would just be an unexpected bonus.

My next few blogs will discuss 1. my metabolic testing procedures and results (I have found -- and am still finding -- the process to be very interesting), 2. my new coach and his methods, 3. the computrainer that I just purchased, and 4. my experiences with the pose method of running.
If I'm capable of getting any better without drastically increasing my training time, I'm determined to make it happen this year.