Fatigue Profiling - from Allen / Coggan V2

So one of the latest new concepts from the new book (do you have to ask.... Training and Racing With a Power Meter, 2nd Edition by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan PhD) is Fatigue Profiling.

For each of the different energy systems, which of course map to how well you perform for each of four different time periods we have (up till now) relied on the Power Profile.

This provides some feedback showing your best numbers for five seconds, one minute, five minutes and one hour. The resulting slopes are usually characterized as "all-rounder)" - roughly sloping up; "sprinter" - steeply sloping down; "Time Trialist" - sloping up; and "pursuiter" - upside V with peak in the one minute column.

I've never learned what my profile represents, other than roughly flat for the first five seconds and one minute (untrained and occasionally getting up into low Cat 5 territory. And roughly flat for five minute and one hour up in the high Cat 4 or low Cat 3.

Fatigue profiling is an attempt to show how fast you fatique  in each of these areas. You set up periodic charts for your recent training. Showing your best efforts periods of time in the range around each power level.

The book suggests cherry picking the numbers from each chart, i.e. best numbers for each level from different days. I'm not quite sure I agree with that strategy. If you think of each energy system has a certain amount of "work" it can do. Higher numbers will (in my opinion) use that reserve faster.

So I'm taking a more conservative approach and picking best sets in the same period.

Peaks Coaching has a small widget that will munge this for you. And provide some commentary on your fatigue scores.

L7 - Neuromuscular Power -  for the limited wattage I have, at least it lasts reasonably well. I can get a nice kick in and keep it going. Just as long as I get out before I'm in L6 territory.

L6 - Anaerobic Capacity - average and below average - and that is starting low! Definitely my weakest ability.

L5 - VO2 Max, starting high, staying above average for short periods, and at least average for 8 minutes. This is definitely my strength.

L6 - Lactate Threshold, starting high, and below average for 60 minutes. Most likely this is because I really haven't done any long hard FTP testing type rides this year. All of the numbers are low.

2010 Amgen Tour of California daily power file analysis by Hunter Allen and Dirk Friel

Just noticed that we can get some daily power data analysis for the Tour of California. See here for daily race analysis... by Hunter Allen and Dirk Friel.

The 2010 Amgen Tour of California consists of eight stages starting in northern California in Nevada City and travels south to Agoura Hills near Los Angeles.  TrainingPeaks is proud to support two teams in this year's event, Team Saxo Bank and Team Fly V australia. Stay tuned after each stage to see and download actual race files from these amazing athletes. For immediate notification when race files are posted follow www.Twitter.com/TrainingPeaks

Good way to get some tips on how some high end coaches look at power files.

Campbell Heights RR - got gappppppeeeddd...

I was doing well, I thought...

Managing to keep up with the Cat 4 field up the little sprint hills. But somehow on lap five I got behind the wrong wheel between the two hills. Looked up and saw two things. First that there where some people accelerating off the front! Second my two guys where dropping off the middle group!!!

By the time we got to the top of the second little climb I was about 200m behind the following group of about five guys. And they where a good 300m behind the leaders.. I had to TT for about 2km to catch up. Then we stayed about 30 seconds behind the leaders for a couple of laps. Then during the second last lap that lead extended to about 60 seconds...

By the final lap we had collected another 5 riders dropped from the lead bunch so we all had a fun time doing our own little sprint. I ended up on Brian Wongs wheel about 300m out and he ended up going too early, with me following and going to early and having to pull up about 30-40m from the finish line which let Bill Reilly get past me.

The race was slightly slower this year, I think because the course was shorter. We did eight laps of 8km, last year was seven laps of 9.6km. With the same amount of climbing per lap. So end result was 30 seconds faster and a fair bit more work... 180 TSS vs 166 TSS!

Escape Velocity - WTNC promo video

Every Tuesday until September.... 10-12x1-2m VO2Max/Anearobic Capacity workouts with 2m rest... this is one heck of a good workout and a lot of fun too.

WarpSpeed TT - 26:42

After getting all 100+ riders through the ITT in the morning, then 15 TTT teams doing 40km finished, prizes awarded and everything loaded back up into the 4Runner, I finally got my reward. Drag the P2C out, pull on the skinsuit and ride the course myself.

Managed to take about 10-12 seconds off last year, 26:46.

Quick numbers check in analytic cycling, Assuming CRR 0.0038, CdA 0.230, average watts about 280. If I got watts up to 320 OR CdA down to 0.210, then I would reduce time to under 26 minutes.

Ant+ arrives on the iPhone

Well almost, hopefully available soon.

Here is an early review. And here is the Wahoo Website for more information.

They will be offering a small Ant+ dongle that can be used with pretty much any Ant+ device (power meter, heart rate strap, cadence, foot pad etc.) to log data.

They have a Wahoo Ant+ utility app (already) available in the iTunes App store. This can be used to test or record data.

Best yet, they will have an API available to allow any iPhone App developer to develop applications using the dongle. So if you want to do a customer coaching app that monitors your Metrigear or Quarq or ?? device, then go for it.

The developed app's should run (with Ant+ dongle) on pretty much any of the current Apple products. I.e. iTouch (version 3 OS), iPhone (3Gs) and iPad. Allowing for a wide range of platforms. From the inexpensive iTouch ($200 and up), the ubiquitous iPhone, and the larger screen iPad (for those coaching apps).

The Ant+ dongle will be available as a dongle. And also as a iPhone case. I would expect an iTouch case as well (maybe with GPS added.)

I have done a bit of development on the iPhone/iTouch. The specs are pretty amazing. You get a real bang for you buck in these devices. Lots of memory, lots of CPU. The one limitation with the version 3 os is that it is difficult to have something run in the background. E.g. for data-logging. You need to keep it in the foreground and manage the screen to reduced battery usage. And you get kicked out for things like incoming phone calls (iPhone only.) But the version 4 os (fall release) should address some of those issues.

I don't own an Ant+ devices yet (actually, maybe, I have some older Garmin accessories that might be, and an iAero.) But I am going to order this so I can play with it as a developer.

Two Time Trials

Got to do two time trials today.

First was the season opener for the Vancouver VeloVets 10k TT out at Iona. Nice conditions, just a little wind. But still only able to get 14:33. Which is a bit slow.

Then I got a complimentary entry to Race the Ridge Golden Ears TT. Normally only open to people doing the full stage race they where nice to let me ride (probably as I won't be able to ride next week's WarpSpeed when I put my race directors hat on.)

The conditions where very nice. Probably the best seen on that course for a few years. It is a spring race and typically early cold damp mornings. Yesterday was warm and dry.

I put in a reasonably good effort, 32:29. Which is about 45 seconds faster than my time from two years ago and a new PB for me on this course. Comparisons to the rest of the field are a bit harder as they had all spent 2-3 hours doing a hard road race earlier in the day.

That said, the best Cat 3/4 time was David Stephens with 29:48, one of only four riders go under 30 minutes (including Cat 1/2.) There where three more Cat 3/4 riders just over 32.

I ran the Golden Ears file through Aerolab. Still learning how to tweak the sliders for best results etc.. This shows that a hilly course that gives you a lot of variation in speeds. Without being so hilly that you change position too much to invalidate the results.

On this course the speed varied from 20-70 km/h (exclusive of the turn-around and start.)

Best guess, CdA getting to about .220-.230.