Monster Mashing

First 25 TT of the year and I was hoping to break the hour on a course that I've previously finished in 1:02 something. So, what happened?

Having stayed at the in laws last night I got up and had some toast and a coffee before heading of the village hall in Broadbridge Heath to sign on and get a number. Done that now time for a dump, who needs smelling salts when you can stroll into an event toilet for the same effect? A quick warm up on the turbo before heading of to the start.

The ride waas pretty uneventful, I seemed to be mashing the gears a lot more then I would normally. The PT is limitied to how much info it can show you and once you've made your choices you are stuck with them unlike some other computers I've seen. I settled on current power, Cadenece and HR as my measurements of choice. I think I need to adjust this though as I never really had any idea of how I was doing in realtion to the course. Speed or average speed would have been much more useful to me. Power is a great thing but I was struggling to keep the numbers that the fitness test in the week had predicted for this length of effort. In an attempt to make the power numbers I ended up really mashing the gears which I'm not really comfortable with. In the future I'll concentrate on keeping my cadence and HR up and let the power take care of itself, it didn't seem to help me to try and grind my way around the course. The thing with that is that I seem to struggle to get high power numbers with a higher cadence, it's something that I need to work on in the lab.

Anyway, I finished in 1:03.44 average speed 23.66mph. It's a reasonable time but I've gone faster in the past and I think I'm stronger then I was when I last did this course. The weather wasn't as good as it was back then but I had gone DRAGO by purchasing a wheel cover to give the effect of a disc wheel and I'd managed to acquire an aero fairing helmet type thing yesterday for the local bike shop (LBS). Perhaps I'm not as strong as I thought or perhaps the "disc" wheel and aero helmet didn't make the differences I'd hoped for...

I'm signed up to do this course again in about two months, in the mean time I better either do some training or start writing that second chapter of "DRAGO Excuses for lazy MFs"

One last thing, during the ride I could feel that my adductor muscles were getting a bit sore, well, when I went past the finish line and stopped pedaling they stopped working, I was in agony. I went back to the car and put the helmet in the boot before heading of in an attempt to loosen them up a bit. Before I forget, the helmet was crap or at least the permanently attached visor is. Within about 30 seconds of sweating it was like riding blind, I won't use that as an excuse for going slower 'cause it didn't have that much of an impact, it was just a pain in the arse. I'll have to do some DRAGO mods to that before it gets another outing. Back to the add's, I got back form the warm down and they felt worse then they did before, I can't believe how much they hurt. I could barely move. It was awful, I couldn't move without shooting pains through my general groin area, at one point I thought I was going to have to borrow a zimmer frame from the village hall hobble to a pay phone and order a stannah stair lift to get me into the car to be able to leave. Luckily enough a dial a ride van turned up and a couple of care workers got me into the motor so I was able to get away...

Double Drago

Had a physiological assessment at the SPARC centre in Roehampton today. Lloyd the tester was really helpful, I was part of his dissertation. He is trying to prove accuracy of Hunter Coggans FTP test when compared to a MAP test. The format of the test was this...

The Tests:

The assessment involves one visit to Roehampton University SPARC laboratory lasting 3-4 hours during which time two maximal cycle performance tests will be undertaken.

The first test is a VO2max test used to identify maximum O2 uptake and usage, maximum aerobic power, threshold points and power at threshold.  This test will last approximately 15 mins and be followed by a rest period of 1 hour.  Following this the second test for ‘functional threshold power’ will be conducted, this last approximately 40 mins and incorporates periods of maximal and sub maximal work.  The tests will completed on cycle ergometers equipped with power meters and connected to respiratory analysis.

At the end of the session you will be given some feedback on your performance with some results explained, you will then be sent a report by e-mail detailing your performance data and its implications for training and competition.

Results

Body Fat %    15.85
VO2 Max:      4.65l/min
Max aerobic power 425 or 5.4w/kg
Power @ Threshold 350 or 4.4 w/kg
HR Max 195
HR Threshold 179-184
FTP 288 = 303w avg for 20mins -5%

I actually really enjoyed myself today. I got higher numbers for the power of both tests then I expected. I worked hard on the MAP test and was pleased with the result but felt I might have lasted a bit longer. Lloyd said that looking at the com-pew-ta I had peaked and any longer then this would have been anaerobic which wouldn't have been the point of this test. Got to say that it felt pretty anaerobic to me, my HR at the end of the test was 195 which is the highest I've seen it at for a while. Lloyd then went through all the results for the first test with me and explained what I should be capable of for the next test - the Coggan test.

The format for this was a five minute as hard as you can effort followed by the 20minute effort. Both of these had been preceded with a warm up that included some high cadence leg spinning. I didn't really feel like going too hard on the 5 minute effort and when I was looking at the HR monitor I could see that I wasn't trying as hard as I should have. This was duly noted when I stopped between the efforts and it was pointed out that I had been a wussy, I wasn't too bothered though as I had decided to go for broke on the twenty minute effort.

Having used the PT I thought that the expected power figures were a bit ambitious but I wasn't on the PT, I was using SRMs so maybe that would account for some extra watts, what with the measurement being closer to the source i.e. measuring device at the cranks rather then the hub. It didn't matter though because I now knew HR threshold so I decided to ignore all the power readings for this effort and concentrate on getting my HR up and my cadence steady, the power would take care of itself. I started out and got my HR up and managed to stay in or very close to said HR threshold levels for the entire effort so I was really pleased with that. I've got the srm file from the session that I'll try and add somehow, TTFN...

My number is up...

Bought a power tap (PT) about three weeks ago and before that I'd been using a Kurt Kinetic (KK)computer on my KK turbo. I had the tools to measure what I was doing but what should I be doing?

As a guide for this I got a plan, one from Hunter Coggan. Unfortunately I bought one based on a figure provided to me by the KK computer, which obviously felt a bit sorry for me as compared to the PT the numbers I was producing were much higher. What this has meant is that I've had to work much harder for the same figures on the PT when compared with the KK. The first week was really hard but I seem to be adapting to it a bit more now that I'm a few weeks into it. I've seen some of my CP numbers improve, which is nice. Being an idiot I thought that just owning the PT and working to a plan would guarantee instant improvements without any effort. This has not been the case, the PT and plan have given me some of the toughest training weeks I've ever done. I'm no Pro, actually I'm not really any good at all. I like to ride the bike and would be pleased to get points in a local league bike race or go under the hour in a 25 mile TT.

As luck would have it my work hours have changed recently and I've been starting early and finishing early which has meant I've had the early afternoons to train. Monday - Friday is spent in the "Drago Lab" - my garage, weekends are for going outside.

Anyway, there's a clearer overview of what this blog is going to be about. I'm going to dribble on about my training and results. I'll stick the occasional photo up, brag about the stuff I'm proud of, whine about the stuff that's annoying me and brush over any mistakes I make, enjoy...

I will break you!

As method for logging results from ongoing laboratory testing with minimal funding TEAM DRAGO MF blog created.