WTNC - off the back again

I took most of a week off two weeks ago. A bit of a virus, work etc... Which killed me for WestSide. Just couldn't convince myself to get out of bed. 

But then felt better two days later and had a great WTNC last week. The Cat 4 group averaged about 41kph and I managed to stay with them until the last lap. Positive TSB probably helped.

Tonight was not so good. Smaller group, slower. But that gave me ideas, I tried getting to the front to see if I could stay there for the climb. Yes I could. The bad news they rang the bell for the preme and that meant the next lap was fast and I was out of breath and then out the back.

What is the distance from last turn to top?


Was discussing the length of the climb with Ryan C. and Mark W. before the race. Ryan thinking (for him) there was some advantage to going for a preme from just before the corner. If you are in the first few riders around the turn then you get an advantage, possibly a small gap and then you should be able to sprint to the finish from there.

The distances, to the turn circle,  just over 100m, to the finish line about 170 (total about 270m). Another 200 or so to the top.

Overall about one minute for the whole climb at a reasonable pace.

I expect a "winning" sprint from the turn to the finish line would need to be well under 30 seconds. 

Which means probably within the AWC (anaerboic work capacity) for many people. Pretty much the same as a two lap final sprint on the track. Doable, but only just....  Well actually,  not quite for C, barely for B, and typical for A. Which kind of delineates quantitatively the difference between the abilities in the different ability categories (read novice / Cat 4 for C, Cat 4 / Cat 3 for B and Cat 1/2 for A.)

One of the interesting things I have learned is that (at least for me...) just following the conservative follow at the back and suffering a bit from the rubber band effect at the bottom corner still leaves me in better shape overall than attempting to get towards the front by working along SW Marine then sagging back during the climb. 

When done properly (last week, not this week) I hit the bottom turn with a heart rate at about 152 and by the top I'm at 166. If I do an extra 10-20 seconds work to get forward in the group, I start at about 160-162 and am at about 170 by the time I get to the top. 

And that means over several laps I start getting even less recovery, so hit the bottom higher, and end up spit out the back...

BVC Friday Night racing - A/B

Friday night racing was a little slow ... as in number of people showing up.. I guess there must have been something else happening in Vancouver that night..

Jeremy split the B group in half... Half raced with the A's and the rest with the C's...

So it certainly wasn't a slow night on the track. I was up in the A/B group which was setting a nice pace in all three races. Mostly I was just hanging onto the back for as long as I could then pulling up and waiting for them to come around again :-(

Long night too. 35 Lap Tempo, 4x10 Progressive Points and finished with a 5x10 Points!

Yesterday it was rain, so back onto the Computrainer for my weekly dose of 6x1m L6 and 4x30s L7 intervals..

Today I did my ever favorite Anmore Tour. Not terribly fast but still hard enough. Slightly abridged version today. Usually I head out to the Burrard Thermal Plant, nice ride down and back up, usually with no traffic. Unfortunately the Thermal Plant is deemed to be a high risk target so they have closed the road for the duration of the Olympics.

CTL finally back over 70 as of today... only one week later than last year.

Now if I could just get weight down. I went from 161lbs at the end of last season to 171lbs in about a month. Still around 168lbs.

Computrainer workout - 8x1m L6, 5x30s L7

Killer two hour workout on the Computrainer today.

I'm trying to increase my anaerobic capacity (L6). Which for me is 330 watts to about 410 watts. For many of the local races (Atomic course, Armstrong, Snake, Westside) the climbs require (for my weight, 72-74kg plus bike) about 350 watts for between one and three minutes.

These are painful intervals to practice, but the only way to get better at them is to do them. During the summer I use Heritage. But I just can't seem to get going and pushing L6 if it is cold. So back to the Computrainer. My favourite 2k loop course, push up the mini hills at L6, just about exactly 1:05, then 3 minutes rest. Repeat. Managed eight, Pavg watts between 340 and 390 for all of them.

Then some longer rest, with some short neuromuscular power 20-30 second intervals. Generally 450-500 Pavg watts.

As a bonus, with the reasonably hard workout I did yesterday (some tempo and threshold hill climbs on Westwood), racing on Friday, managed to get total TSS for the week up to match (exactly) the same as last week, 548... which got CTL up to 68...!!!

Just not sure I'll be able to walk tomorrow :-(

Computrainer - Senior Warmup v2, KTownLong Paced

Started with senior warmup, but I modified that to be 4x350 watts instead of 3x340.

Finished with KTownLong using the pacer. I'm not sure if using the pacer is more "fun", but it does increase the variability of the workout and NPavg goes up. I managed 253 watts NP for 90 minutes. Which gets it classified as SST.

Entire workout (235 watts):

Duration: 1:32:44
Work: 1310 kJ
TSS: 113.3 (intensity factor 0.856)
Norm Power: 253
VI: 1.07
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 55.81 km
Elevation Gain: 597 m
Elevation Loss: 593 m
Grade: 0.0 % (5 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 87 713 235 watts
Cadence: 26 134 82 rpm
Speed: 13.7 54 36.1 kph
Pace 1:07 4:23 1:40 min/km
Altitude: -1 101 49 m
Crank Torque: 10.6 76.1 27.5 N-m

Again, because you can "rest" a bit, I managed to do more L6 and L7 bursts (10-30 seconds, anywhere from 500-700 watts, about seven.)

BVC Workout - flying 500's

L3 endurance with flying 500 intervals. (500m as fast as you can go... Typically > 500 for the first lap, trailing down to high 400 for the second and mid-low 400 for the final lap.)

BVC Workout - 3 sets 3onx3off

Track was open today, so was able to workout there instead of outdoors (cold, wet, cold, dark, cold) or on the computrainer...

Started with a good high pace warmup (dodging the guys doing motorpaced madison training...)

Did three sets of 3 laps on (> 400Pavg, L6) and 3-4 laps off. First set was on 91x14, did the reset on 91x15 (effectively 95" moving down to 89".) Trying to see if I can get leg speed up a bit (a weakness.)

Then 20 minutes L3, and cooldown.

BVC Structured Workout - Points Race Workout

Points Race workout. Group of four, six laps at about 38kph, then sprint for one. Repeat for next rider. Repeat twice for each rider.

Sounds easy, but the sprints add up....

Finished with 12 minutes L4 workout. This is starting to feel a little better and feel more like TT workouts from the summer. Although still about 30-40 watts lower average.

Peak 10min (307 watts):

Duration: 10:00
Work: 184 kJ
TSS: 16.7 (intensity factor 1)
Norm Power: 310
VI: 1.01
Distance: 6.991 km
Elevation Gain: 17 m
Elevation Loss: 18 m
Grade: -0.0 % (-1 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 74 642 307 watts
Heart rate: 163 185 177 bpm
Cadence: 85 102 94 rpm
Speed: 37.5 45.4 41.9 kph
Pace 1:19 1:36 1:26 min/km
Altitude: 126 129 127 m
Crank Torque: 7.7 64.5 31.0 N-m
Temperature: 16 17 16.7 Celsius

I also noticed tonight that I'm getting higher average heart rate numbers than I have previously been able to do. From years of riding and two years of road and track I "know" that my VO2Max HRM is about 172, and I can do about 180-181 without "blowing up". But if I go much over 181 for any amount of time I "blow up" and need to spend significant time at a slow pace to get it back under control (i.e. back to about 172...)

Tonight half way through the L4 session I noticed that I was at about 181 and not really feeling any effects... A few minutes later I was at about 184 and *still* not feeling like I was having any problems. WKO says my best 1 minute was 185, best 2 minutes 184.

Not quite sure how to interpret that. In theory max heart rate is about 186-188... and it seems unusual to be able to sit at 184 for that length of time...

BVC Structured Workout - Point-a-lap Drill

Nice workout today. Three point-a-lap drills. Pace line maintains about 36-38kph, man on front goes at best speed until he catches up. Next person on front goes.

Typically about 50 seconds to 1.5 minutes depending on sprint speed and how fast the pace line is going.


Best Sprint:

Duration: 0:55
Work: 24 kJ
TSS: 3.5 (intensity factor 1.524)
Norm Power: n/a
VI: n/a
Distance: 709 m
Elevation Gain: 1 m
Elevation Loss: 4 m
Grade: -0.4 % (-3 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 162 851 428 watts
Heart rate: 0 0 0 bpm
Cadence: 78 130 109 rpm
Speed: 35.1 55.9 46.4 kph
Pace 1:04 1:43 1:18 min/km
Altitude: 129 132 130 m
Crank Torque: 16.1 74.5 36.9 N-m
Temperature: 16 16 16.0 Celsius

Hopefully I can get some good workouts in this weekend, ATL dropped precipitously because of missed Saturday and low numbers on Sunday...

BVC Structured Workout - Whistle Drill - 48x15

Missed workout yesterday. Combination of work and other commitments and weather...

Today's forecast was rain as well, so I decided to go to the Tuesday morning track session. There was a structured workout so I did that. Whistle Drill, which means sit on the blue line, wait for whistle, then (after shoulder check) drop to sprinters lane and sprint until the next whistle. Three sessions (5, 8 and 8 minutes).

Harder than it sounds... here is sample session.

Upper Heritage - Anaerobic Intervals

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... :-(

Upper Heritage - Anaerobic Intervals - new PB

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: 1:05
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

I 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.

Intervals in the rain

Waited until evening hoping the roads would dry out, only to have it start raining almost the minute I headed out... so I ended up doing intervals on the local hills.

Normalized power for best 60 minutes was 320, TSS 106.5, with IF 1.032.

Almost an NP buster ride (> 1.06 IF for one hour...) Although it is possible that doing an NP buster simply means that your FTP is set to low.