Going Long and Hard.

Steve Vai

Steve Vai

Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
So it would seem I may be one of the few posting to the "what did you do for your fitness?" thread so I think it's about time for me to branch out on my own.
Maybe someone can use some of my info to help understand what type of training is needed to be somewhat competitive as a Cat1 racer guy:popcorn:

As some of you may already know, I'm currently being coached by cyclocross phenom Roger Aspholm. I've seen some dramatic gains already just in changing the way I approach my training and race preparation.

A few goals I've set for myself...

1) Win a Cat1 race
2) Podium in the H2H series
3) Top 10 in the DH40

A somewhat new goal that has recently been put into my head is to consider upgrading to Pro at some point. Although I don't personally believe I'm strong enough for that to be attainable, there are those who seem to think it is, so I guess I won't write it off just yet...

-Jim.
 
Monday...

Recovery day. Off the bike all together. I walked around the neighborhood for a bit with my son just to stretch my legs.

I'm given the option to either do an active recovery ride or take the day off depending on how I feel. One of the biggest things I've learned so far this season has been to listen to my body. The Highbridge race was pretty demanding and lingering in my legs, making my choice easy😉

-Jim.
 
What changes to your training has Roger brought to your plan? I know you have been training with a PM this year as well. How much as that helped in addition?
 
Tuesday...

High Gear "A" ride. During this ride I will usually have to do several shorter (5 -minute) higher intensity pulls and/or attacks. The route has several good climbs and sprint points, as well as 2 rolling sections a pave part. Most of the guys know when and who will attack in certain sections and part of the fun is trying to mix it up and get away by taking them by surprise😀

As a mountain biker, I'm normally one of the instigators and constantly go off the front to shake things up:getsome:

Tonight I went early on the Somerville Road climb and only one guy reacted. We stayed away until the re-group point at Burger King on Burnt Mills Road. I decided not to contest the 1st sprint and instead used the chaos to launch my attack and go for a solo break!! Through the rolling climbs on River Road I extended my lead to the point I could no longer see the group chasing. Took the pave section and the second sprint solo and after about 30 minutes alone got caught just before the 3rd sprint. Thinking I was shot from my break you can imagine how surprised they were that I took 2nd in the sprint:getsome:

The next spot of interest is the Liberty corner climb followed by a descent and the the last sprint point at the Fire House. If you have really good legs it's possible to get enough of a gap on the climb and hold it to the sprint, but it's VERY HARD!! I've tried it countless times and have only had it work once or twice. Tonight I was attacked by a super-strong climber and I stood up to respond but my legs shut down. I instead sat down and rode 1 gear harder to slowly bring him back. 2 guys were on my wheel and refused to pull through so I had to close on my own. I made it to him just as we crested the hill and then my freeloaders came around me. Bitches. It was my turn to sit in and pulled some weak-ass roadie move by not pulling through until just before the sprint. See ya suckers🙄


Entire workout (212 watts):
Duration: 1:59:47
Work: 1519 kJ
TSS: 179.5 (intensity factor 0.948)
Norm Power: 275
Distance: 41.979 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 939 212 watts
Heart Rate: 76 175 143 bpm
Cadence: 31 183 87 rpm
Speed: 0 38.8 21.0 mph

My "breakaway"...

Duration: 30:02
Work: 486 kJ
TSS: 49.2 (intensity factor 0.992)
Norm Power: 288
Distance: 11.396 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 873 270 watts
Heart Rate: 141 172 158 bpm
Cadence: 45 120 90 rpm
Speed: 12.2 35.2 22.8 mph

-Jim.
 
ArmyOfNone said:
What changes to your training has Roger brought to your plan? I know you have been training with a PM this year as well. How much as that helped in addition?
Click to expand...

This is my 3rd season training with power. I ride primarily using PE and HR, then use the wattage info to quantify my fitness gains. In '07 my FTP was under 250 watts, now it's over a bit 300. Taking into consideration I was also 180 pounds then and under 160 now, it's a pretty substantial Kg/W gain!!

Like most guys, I spent the last 2 seasons going too hard all the time, Roger has taught me about when to go hard, when to get volume, when to rest, about losing weight while gaining power, etc, etc, etc...He's won more races in his career than all of us on this forum combined, that knowledge is something you can't find in a book😀

-Jim.
 
jimvreeland said:
Like most guys, I spent the last 2 seasons going too hard all the time, Roger has taught me about when to go hard, when to get volume, when to rest, about losing weight while gaining power, etc, etc, etc...-Jim.
Click to expand...

Great posts Jim.
I do this still and probably always have. I know this will force a generalization and I am sure it has a lot to do with how much time you actually have to train but roughly if a person had 10 hours of saddle time a week, what would be the ratio of hours going hard, easy etc based on what he has been helping you with?
 
743-We get anywhere from 15 to 40+ show up on the ride.

RNG-Obviously the schedule changes depending on races but a basic week for me is like this...

Monday-Off or easy ride below 125bpm. (1-2 hours)
Tuesday-Mostly tempo with a few shorter intervals in the red. (2 hours)
Wednesday-Usually a similar ride to Tuesday with different intervals. (1-2 hours)
Thursday-Long endurance pace day with some long tempo blocks, sometimes up to 120 minutes. (3-4 hours)
Friday-Same as Monday. (1-2 hours)
Saturday-Depends on racing. Either same as Thursday or easy with opening efforts. (1-4 hours)
Sunday-Race or long day or mountain bike day or TM day, depends...

So overall you don't get too much work over tempo. I think I can go back into training peaks and actually tally my time in zones over a week and see what the actual numbers are:hmmm:

-Jim.
 
Glad to see you started your own thread. I think some people were intimidated to post in the fitness thread with all the riding you do. Looking forward to reading it...
 
Nice! Another blog to check out. Especially nice since I'll be lining up next to you sooner than later. I mean, at the soup kitchens when we all lose our jobs 😀

I'd be interested to see how much time you spend out of zone on these rides - power zones not HR. Break it down in L2/3/4/5 would be cool. The normalized power numbers and whatnot don't do anyone a lot of good. I'd be more interested in your TSB than TSS. I'll keep an eye out for -50 then gladly join you for a ride 😉

I had every intention of stopping in yesterday before your shop ride. I was at the bank across the street. But they took so damn long my daughter was out of her gourd by the time we walked out. So we went to get ice cream instead. Sorry bro, you lose to ice cream 🙂
 
Norm said:
I'd be interested to see how much time you spend out of zone on these rides - power zones not HR. Break it down in L2/3/4/5 would be cool.
Click to expand...

Power uses a 6 zone system. My zones are:

Active Recovery (AR) <162 watts
Aerobic Threshold (AeT) 163-220 watts
Tempo (Tem) 221-263 watts
Lactate Threshold (LT) 264-307 watts
Aerobic Capacity (AeC) 308-350 watts
Anaerobic Capacity (AnC) 351+ watts

And Heart Rate uses 5 zones.

Zone 1: Healthy 93-110
Zone 2: Temperate 111-129
Zone 3: Aerobic Zone 130-147
Zone 4: Aerobic Threshold 148-166
Zone 5: Red Line 167-186

I need to re-adjust my HR zones as my LT is between 168-172. At Highbridge my peak 60 minute was 170 bpm. During races is the only time I see my actual LT numbers, during training it's hard to push that hard for that long:drooling:

-Jim.
 
You forgot L7, neuromuscular 🙂

But in general, anything L5 or above can be classified as short and painful. I'm just trying to get an idea of your general times here. L1/L2 can be combined for the sake of conversation. Ditto L5/L6 and the extremely short forways into L7.

HR during races is tricky, especially when you go into red as often as you do in a race. Your HR drift can make that average seem higher than it really is. You should be able to get a good correlation by riding at your FTP on a flat stretch and see where your HR stabilizes. That's fun times!
 
As always great stuff. I find it interesting to check out training & races from top riders... but cmon Jim you gotta come up with a better name for your thread. I say we post up suggestions, I'm sure others who know you better could come up with something.
Here is mine. My Breakaway.
 
Yeah, a clever name would be fun:popcorn:

So today I had an easy day scheduled. Overall goals for light days is to average below 125bmp and keep the cadence over 90rpm. The stats never show this because once you take into account coasting your cadence will always read lower, also you may get a spike in heart rate from pulling into traffic or trying to catch a light or whatever.

I get a little nervous when Roger gives me a recovery ride the day before I'm scheduled to go up and ride with him, it usually means I'm going to suffer at some point:drooling:

Entire workout (158 watts):
Duration: 1:18:50
Work: 747 kJ
TSS: 62 (intensity factor 0.687)
Norm Power: 199
Distance: 20.638 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 523 158 watts
Heart Rate: 64 159 116 bpm
Cadence: 30 174 80 rpm
Speed: 2.3 45.5 15.7 mph

Today I spent 12 minutes over 125 bpm, 5 of that in zone 4, which is pretty good considering I have to go over Washington Rock and Stirling Road both ways during my commute.

-Jim.
 
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