The plan was for six two minute anaerobic intervals at about 440 watts....
Could only manage three and blew up half way up the fourth....
Definitely this is my weakest area.. Go forever (comparatively speaking.. 10-15 minutes anyway) at 350 watts... Get over 400 and at two minutes I'm done for...
Finished with an eight minute threshold interval, about 320 watts. Even that was hard after the others... :-(
Unlike Saturdays Cedar RR, this was a hard race. 48km (official, unofficially probably more like 49.5) with 440 m of climbing. Throw in chip seal, a couple of idiot young males in pickup trucks and a thunder shower over the last 8km. And legs still tired from the sprint finish from the day before.
Finish time was 1:15:21. Or just over 39km/h. Best time of the day was Don Gilmore with 1:09:37. But he had not completed the RR the day before (flat in first lap) so was fresh. Shane Savage (also fresh I think) did 1:11:20. Fellow VeloVet Michel Pelletier was 1:12:29. This got me 1st in age catagory, 4th absolute time and 5th overall age adjusted.
My power numbers where down about 25 watts from what I should have been able to do on fresh legs. Which probably cost me at least a minute.
The most excitement of the day was getting passed by idiot in pickup going about 100km/h while on my aerobars in a curving descent in the rain at about 58 km/h. The vortex behind him shook the bike a fair bit and made negotiating the off camber turn at the bottom a lot of "fun" as I went over the yellow line briefly trying to stay upright.
Said idiot also almost took the next rider about 200m ahead of me out as he dodged back into our lane (on coming car) and then back out and around. Speed limit on this rural road was 60 km/h!
Bikely route for Lake Cowichan TT.
Power stats for Lake Cowichan 48K TT:
Duration: 1:15:23
Work: 1313 kJ
TSS: 113.6 (intensity factor 0.951)
Norm Power: 304
VI: 1.05
Distance: 49.41 km
Elevation Gain: 440 m
Elevation Loss: 420 m
Grade: 0.0 % (20 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 648 290 watts
Heart rate: 89 176 161 bpm
Cadence: 35 111 83 rpm
Speed: 7.5 63.6 39.3 kph
Pace 0:57 8:00 1:32 min/km
Altitude: 104 253 196 m
Crank Torque: 0 104.8 33.6 N-m
Temperature: 15 25 20.2 Celsius
RR on Saturday... not terribly hard, less work than my typical threshold workout (aka Anmore tour...), but ended up doing a big sprint off the front to take 1st in my age group and 2nd overall.
The course is 21km, done three times. Rolling small hills, about 200m of climbing per lap. But nothing high enough to take more than 20-30 seconds to get over. Slightly downhill to flat, straight finish.
This race was run as an Australian Pursuit. Each age category (70, 60-69, 50-59, 40-49, 30-39) is started separately, oldest first. The number of minutes you wait after the previous group is your age category divided by 10. The object is to catch the group ahead and not get caught by the group(s) behind.
You are effectively racing two different races. For first in your age group. And for first overall. These objectives lead to an interesting race as you need to help your group work to catch the next (and not get caught.) But that means you'll have less left over for the finish within your category.
In this race our group (50-59) managed to stay off the younger guys and caught up to the 2nd last 60 year old (teamate John Sullivan) with about 3km to go. With the last one (Dave Mercer) about 300m ahead. Unfortunately by that time the rest of our group was starting to tire or was more interested in getting ready for our finish. So he was able to stay off and finish just ahead (50m) of our sprint finish.
I made the a jump at a little over 600m. I saw what I *thought* was the 200m sign and went 200m out from that... but it was a 400m sign, which I soon realized... but still managed to keep the competition off. There where three other riders who all have, in theory (and practice), better wattage in the 10-20 second range.. But by the time they (Duane Martindale and Mike Sevcov) got back on my wheel and went for 50 seconds, they where starting to tire and didn't quite manage to pass me at the line.. although apparently it was close...
The year to year comparison on this course is interesting. Norm/Avg power 228/180 went to 276/247. And overall I remember being quite fatigued over the last lap last year. This year the last lap was easy. I even got off the front for a couple of km. But couldn't get anyone else to come and work with me. So drifted back.
Bikely route for Cedar RR.
Current BCMCA results and individual races.
Cedar RR:
Duration: 1:38:13
Work: 1457 kJ
TSS: 121.7 (intensity factor 0.862)
Norm Power: 276
VI: 1.12
Distance: 63.291 km
Elevation Gain: 592 m
Elevation Loss: 595 m
Grade: -0.0 % (-3 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 937 247 watts
Heart rate: 0 185 154 bpm
Cadence: 29 138 86 rpm
Speed: 9 65.6 38.7 kph
Pace 0:55 6:40 1:33 min/km
Altitude: 98 156 129 m
Crank Torque: 0 86.8 27.3 N-m
Temperature: 19 30 21.6 Celsius
Managed to get another 3 seconds off my best time for the last Ryder 8K... I was hoping to get under 11:00 but the construction along Westbrooke Mall (the uphill section in the middle) had left some rough sections and a 15' section of gravel (on a bend, never drifted a corner doing a TT before :-) ).
Average and norm power up as well.
Ryder 8K TT:
Duration: 11:02
Work: 254 kJ
TSS: 27.4 (intensity factor 1.22)
Norm Power: 390
VI: 1.02
Distance: 7.538 km
Elevation Gain: 80 m
Elevation Loss: 23 m
Grade: 0.8 % (57 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 852 384 watts
Heart rate: 105 189 176 bpm
Cadence: 29 109 88 rpm
Speed: 10.1 55 41.0 kph
Pace 1:05 5:56 1:28 min/km
Altitude: 130 196 167 m
Crank Torque: 0 113.7 42.1 N-m
Temperature: 21 23 22.2 Celsius
I found a good way to get the wheel magnet mounted so that it is out of the air stream and has reduced rotational mass.
The speed sensor (for Ergomo) was just long enough that I could tuck it inside of the chain stay keeping it out of the main air flow. Then simply glue the magnet on to the hub body
This works well on a disc wheel as well.
Magnets are available at reasonable cost (30-50 for $8.95, depending on what size you want, plus shipping):
www.rare-earth-magnets.com
Well I remember why I really really hate doing anaerobic intervals... you feel like puking when you are done. Then you get to do it again...
Not withstanding that... I thought it would be a good idea to get out and do some and see if raise in FTP also meant my one minute power was also up... Unlike five minute power, the one minute power seldom gets tested for absolute numbers unless you make a point of it... There are few road racing or time trailing scenarios that allow for absolute all out one minute...
Occasionally in track racing. e.g. an all out two or three lap effort, sprinting to finish etc will do it.. But track season won't start locally for another two months... And my one minute numbers look exceedingly bad... barely out of untrained into Cat 5 on the PMC chart :-(
Anyway, managed to do about a best one minute of 573 watts... which is way up for me... Moves me right through Cat 5 and well into Cat 4... Still no match for five minute and one hour levels... But still a significant bump up.
This was the best interval of the night:
Duration: 1:05I usually do these on the last, upper kilometer of Heritage Mountain Boulevard. This is a steady 6% grade climb. It lends it self to repeats as I can do a loop which is just about long enough to get ready for a next interval by the time I get back to the bottom.
Work: 36 kJ
TSS: 5.7 (intensity factor 1.775)
Norm Power: n/a
VI: n/a
Distance: 454 m
Elevation Gain: 32 m
Elevation Loss: 1 m
Grade: 6.6 % (30 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 20 909 548 watts
Heart rate: 0 0 0 bpm
Cadence: 63 107 94 rpm
Speed: 13.2 36.6 25.1 kph
Pace 1:38 4:33 2:23 min/km
Altitude: 119 151 134 m
Crank Torque: 3 85.9 55.2 N-m
Temperature: 20 20 20.0 Celsius
Was going to go out and do Ford Road as a tempo ride.. Got halfway across Coquitlam, and ran into wet roads... less than 2k east and there had apparently been a very hard thunder shower...
So followed that sage advice "go west young man" and discovered that everything west of here was totally dry.. So had a fairly pleasant ride out Barnett.
I haven't been doing it lately because the far end is under re-construction and cleanup from the big oil spill last month (contractor digging hole hits oil pipe line...) But other than not being able to do the last kilometer it is a reasonably pleasant ride.
Hopefully they will get the last klick back to normal before it gets too cold. I'd like to do at least one final ride on it as a 10K TT test. I had got my time on that down to 15 minutes. Be nice to see if I can get a bit lower than that. But impossible to ride as TT as two lanes of traffic are currently being funneled into one lane with about a 1 foot shoulder...
Today was tempo ride, just trying to get ATL back up to CTL Overall I want to keep CTL at about the current level (79) for the next two weeks as I have 4 races (last Ryder TT this Wed, RR and ITT next weekend, RR the week after..) That more or less finishes the RR season. There are some small club TT's after that, and I'll probably do a 200k randeneuring event but that's about it until Track season starts up in October.
So keep CTL level for two weeks. Then build CTL for 4-8 weeks which gets us into the wet weather and track season.
It gets hard to keep CTL up in Vancouver in Nov/Dec as we tend to have very wet and cold fall weather.. So it's track racing once a week. And training on the Computrainer or at the track to try and keep CTL from dropping too much until we start training in January for the Spring Series which is in March.
Entire workout (136 watts):
Duration: 1:53:56 (2:08:49)
Work: 928 kJ
TSS: 80.9 (intensity factor 0.653)
Norm Power: 209
VI: 1.54
Distance: 41.21 km
Elevation Gain: 584 m
Elevation Loss: 592 m
Grade: -0.0 % (-8 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 569 136 watts
Heart rate: 0 0 0 bpm
Cadence: 25 102 62 rpm
Speed: 0.6 49.9 21.7 kph
Pace 1:12 100:00 2:46 min/km
Altitude: 7 207 67 m
Crank Torque: 0 88.6 21.6 N-m
Temperature: 18 22 19.5 Celsius
Good ride with Gerry, John and Michel.. We finished third overall in absolute time and second in age adjusted times..
The course seemed faster today, even though we had to do it twice... and with rain for about two thirds of that..
The second place time started one minute behind us and caught us in the first leg while we where still sorting out a pace. We then played leap frog with them to the end of the course. Neither team being quite strong enough to get in front and get away from the other.
Overall slightly less work than doing it solo last week.
Squamish 75K TTT:
Duration: 1:41:26
Work: 1560 kJ
TSS: 118 (intensity factor 0.835)
Norm Power: 267
VI: 1.04
Distance: 73.141 km
Elevation Gain: 141 m
Elevation Loss: 166 m
Grade: -0.0 % (-25 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 776 256 watts
Heart rate: 0 172 159 bpm
Cadence: 31 105 83 rpm
Speed: 6.1 50.5 43.3 kph
Pace 1:11 9:50 1:23 min/km
Altitude: 102 130 115 m
Crank Torque: 0 98.5 29.5 N-m
Temperature: 16 23 17.8 Celsius
I thought I would try some Vittoria Chrone EVO CS tubulars, as a replacement on the Zipp 909 disc (that I flatted on last week) and possibly on the track bike (Zipp 3000 and Zipp 900 disc).
Pricing in Canada is bizarrely high. $169 suggested list. Probably could source them at the LBS for about $145, but they would still have to order them in from Montreal.
Internet pricing from US sites, seems to be around $90US. Or about the same as the Veloflex Records. Shipping typically runs $16US... So with shipping for two, calling about $105Cdn...
UK sites must more attractive though. 32 pounds. Shipping 6 pounds... Actually slightly less as I won't have to pay VAT... Ends up at about $65 Cdn! Strangely this is low for Vittorias only. Veloflex pricing is similiar to the US...
Reduced version of Ford Road. Tempo ride.
Entire workout (201 watts):
Duration: 1:39:18 (1:52:35)
Work: 1197 kJ
TSS: 113.2 (intensity factor 0.827)
Norm Power: 265
VI: 1.32
Distance: 44.858 km
Elevation Gain: 486 m
Elevation Loss: 476 m
Grade: 0.0 % (10 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 818 201 watts
Heart rate: 0 0 0 bpm
Cadence: 25 106 73 rpm
Speed: 0.7 59.5 27.1 kph
Pace 1:01 85:43 2:13 min/km
Altitude: 56 253 113 m
Crank Torque: 0 103.9 26.3 N-m
Temperature: 26 32 29.2 Celsius
I think I managed to do within a minute of previous PB... but a last minute rear wheel swap got me out with a mis-aligned magnet.. so no speed info. And the Ergomo (or maybe it's WKO+) drops out the bits with zero power and zero speed when showing duration..
Best guess looking at wall clock time is 97 minutes (PB was 96).
Anmore Tour:
Duration: 1:24:39 (1:35:31)
Work: 1329 kJ
TSS: 123.6 (intensity factor 0.936)
Norm Power: 300
VI: 1.14
Distance: 0 m
Elevation Gain: 1057 m
Elevation Loss: 1010 m
Grade: 0.0 % (0 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 865 262 watts
Heart rate: 0 181 83 bpm
Cadence: 30 115 71 rpm
Speed: 0 0 0.0 kph
Pace 0:00 0:00 0:00 min/km
Altitude: 21 280 135 m
Crank Torque: 0 104.8 36.3 N-m
Temperature: 21 27 23.4 Celsius
Went out hard, was doing well and ... flatted. Then re-did the course after the last rider to get an un-official time.
So results are a bit hard to interpret...
Current FTP is 320, With TSB today at about +25, The course was 18k out and back, with about 60m of overall climbing. Complicated slightly by sections of (not all that bad) chip-seal.
Avg power for a pre-ride of the course last week was 318, or just below FTP.
My first attempt today lasted 19 minutes about 12k into the course, and ended with a flat on the rear. Avg power was 351 watts.
My second attempt about an hour later was 53:05 (after cycling back on borrowed wheel) and avg power was 326, with avg power of 338 for the equivalent part previously done. Down by about 13 watts.
So I'm guessing that avg power would have been well over 330 if I had completed the first attempt.
Or that tapering got me at least 10 watts over my FTP on this course. Possibly as much as 15.
On the Ryder 8K TT last Wednesday, my avg power was 379 compared to 352 two weeks previous to that. So on that course (11 minutes) tapering apparantly got me about 25 watts. (It was so short, only about 30 TSS points or so, I wasn't too worried about it affecting my taper too much.)
I'll also note that FTP last fall went from about 300 down to 290 while building CTL back up in Jan-Mar this year (with corresponding large negative TSB values.)
Squamish TT - flat:
Duration: 19:10
Work: 404 kJ
TSS: 38.8 (intensity factor 1.102)
Norm Power: 353
VI: 1
Distance: 13.312 km
Elevation Gain: 18 m
Elevation Loss: 31 m
Grade: -0.1 % (-13 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 943 351 watts
Heart rate: 0 179 129 bpm
Cadence: 48 124 92 rpm
Speed: 15.2 50 41.7 kph
Pace 1:12 3:57 1:26 min/km
Altitude: 110 130 114 m
Crank Torque: 0 109.6 36.6 N-m
Temperature: 17 18 17.0 Celsius
Duration: 53:04
Work: 1038 kJ
TSS: 92.1 (intensity factor 1.021)
Norm Power: 327
VI: 1
Distance: 36.649 km
Elevation Gain: 58 m
Elevation Loss: 58 m
Grade: 0.0 % (0 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 841 326 watts
Heart rate: 108 179 173 bpm
Cadence: 34 101 86 rpm
Speed: 9.9 47.8 41.4 kph
Pace 1:15 6:04 1:27 min/km
Altitude: 110 130 116 m
Crank Torque: 0 102.9 36.3 N-m
Temperature: 19 23 19.9 Celsius
Five seconds off previous times... but I think other people where slower as well. I'll update this entry once results are posted.
Ryder 8K TT:
Duration: 11:11
Work: 254 kJ
TSS: 27.4 (intensity factor 1.212)
Norm Power: 388
VI: 1.02
Distance: 7.417 km
Elevation Gain: 83 m
Elevation Loss: 26 m
Grade: 0.8 % (57 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 923 379 watts
Heart rate: 0 0 0 bpm
Cadence: 30 114 84 rpm
Speed: 13.5 50.8 39.8 kph
Pace 1:11 4:27 1:30 min/km
Altitude: 131 197 168 m
Crank Torque: 0 116.7 42.9 N-m
Temperature: 20 23 21.9 Celsius
Tapering is boring.... no rides, nothing.. boring...
Was going to do some wheel testing tonight (tried last Friday, too much wind...) but it was raining..
Boring, boring, boring...
Nice day to do a pre-ride of the Squamish 38k Time Trial course, with a just small amount of headwind on the return. Managed to take over 2 minutes off last years 54:45 time.
Full aero gear except for skinsuit. Had to have somewhere to put flat repair kit etc. So went with normal racing jersey with pockets.
This was on the newly glued Zipp 909 with Tangente tubular.
If I recall correctly from last year, I think I may have started 25-30 meters before the official start and finished (where I started) about 50 meters after the official finish.
Norm power was close to FTP, 321 watts. Average power was slightly lower at 318. I hope race day adrenalin will help get both up 5 watts or so...
The return trip (as always) felt like glue... going against the wind, and then the final small (1.5%) climb on chip seal a couple of km from the end...
I signed up early and requested an early start time. All things being equal there is usually less wind early in the day.
With luck, I'm hoping to beat 52:00 next week. Should be close.
Squamish 38K TT:
Duration: 52:25
Work: 1001 kJ
TSS: 87.9 (intensity factor 1.003)
Norm Power: 321
VI: 1.01
Distance: 36.205 km
Elevation Gain: 75 m
Elevation Loss: 73 m
Grade: 0.0 % (2 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 656 318 watts
Heart rate: 80 176 170 bpm
Cadence: 35 106 87 rpm
Speed: 7.1 50.5 41.4 kph
Pace 1:11 8:27 1:27 min/km
Altitude: 112 132 120 m
Crank Torque: 0 97.3 35.0 N-m
Temperature: 26 30 26.8 Celsius
Trying to assess what pacing will be appropriate for the Squamish 38.5K TT on Aug 11. So I did a 40K test on Neaves Road. Managed to do average power of 321...
Neaves Road 43K TT:
Duration: 1:00:52This was a non-race effort and I had reasonable reserves left at both 52 minutes (target Squamish TT time) and at 1 hour. So I'm planning on 325 for the first (faster, easier) half, 330 for the second (harder) half, and higher if possible for the last (hardest) 5k.
Work: 1173 kJ
TSS: 103.3 (intensity factor 1.009)
Norm Power: 323
VI: 1.01
Distance: 43.017 km
Elevation Gain: 83 m
Elevation Loss: 90 m
Grade: -0.0 % (-7 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 887 321 watts
Heart rate: 116 176 171 bpm
Cadence: 29 102 86 rpm
Speed: 9.4 49.7 42.4 kph
Pace 1:12 6:23 1:25 min/km
Altitude: 122 130 126 m
Crank Torque: 0 108.4 36.2 N-m
Temperature: 19 25 21.2 Celsius
