Today’s Haiku

Three hard intervals

The sweat drips from my forehead

Spring will start with speed

The Trouble With Training

We’re now in the meaty part of the trainer season.  It’s butt-clenching cold and the snow continues to fall (despite my explicit orders to the contrary).  With this, there is much time for contemplation and reflection while the hours on the trainer tick by.

As much as anything else, cycling is a gradual process.  You need years to reach a high level of fitness and skill – not to mention building up those biker quads.  Along the way, you learn from your experiences.  How long it takes to get the engine fully warmed up.  How much Gatorade you can drink before you puke.

If there’s one thing that embodies trainer rides, it’s the desire to get as much as you can from as little as possible.  That can manifest itself in many ways, and one of them is a decided neglect of the very machines relied upon for the undertaking.  When I’m riding outdoors I will check tire pressure about every other ride, which works out to about once a week.  I can honestly say that since I started riding on the trainer this season (around Halloween) I have topped off the back tire twice.

Tire pressure while on the trainer makes a big difference.  The first ride I did after pumping up the tire on Sunday was a one hour tempo ride: a 90rpm cadence while turning a 53×14.  Normally this is an easy gear (on my trainer, anyway).  However, I felt a noticeable increase in resistance.  It turned out to be a great tempo ride and as such a signal to myself to pay better attention to the tire pressure.  I’m sure I will forget about it again in a week.

I have yet to lube the chain this season.

The other half of the equation, the trainer itself is also a point of contention.  You know you have a weak trainer when you never shift off of the big ring – ever.  When Coach Troy orders you to spin in the small (39) ring, 15-tooth cog and instead shift to the ridiculously easy 53×15/16 – you know you need more resistance.  In the three seasons I’ve had this trainer, I have adapted to different gear selections to have some sort of analog to what my workout leader is asking for.  It’s come down to the four top gears I have available – and if that’s not enough, it’s a 7 gear cog set I’m dealing with, so there’s basically no fine-tuning if the workout gets sketchy.  You either spit your lungs out or feel guilty going too easy.  ugh.

I have seen some trainers advertise a power range of 20 – 750 watts.  I don’t think I’m in danger of exceeding 750 watts, but I’ve gained too much fitness for my current one.  I saw the Cycleops Fluid 2 advertised for around 290 bucks.  I ain’t that desperate.

Minor Major

Ah, January.  The dead of winter.  The holidays are a distant memory and Spring feels like it can’t get here soon enough.  Time for trainer rides, clearing the driveway of snow and sub-zero temperatures.  It used to be the only thing that kept me going until spring was looking forward to the Tour of California.

Well, that’s been somewhat usurped by the Tour Down Under, only recently granted ProTour status.  The thing is – I have trouble caring for this one.  I mean, it’s great to have some top-level pros going head to head out on the open road, but this race just doesn’t have the juice most of the other ProTour races have.

I should be thankful that Lance is competing in this race, because otherwise Versus would never air any coverage of it.  Of course I’ve watched it all so far, but because of the time difference (I think Australia is 2 days ahead somehow) I know the result by lunchtime.  If I really cared about the race, I would do my best to stay oblivious until I watched the recording.

This has all the feeling of a relationship that once had promise but never gets going.  I’m not trying to belittle you TDU, but you just don’t do it for me.  It’s not you – it’s me.  I need more climbing in a stage race.  A time trial would be nice.  Yes, you had a criterium to get things going – but a ProTour criterium that doesn’t count toward the GC?  Please; you’re embarrassing yourself.  I’m going to take some “me” time and make a booty call to the ToC in a few weeks (she knows what I like).

And yet, I still watch.  I still look up the race results.  Why? It all comes full circle now.  Because it’s January and I’m getting ancy.  I want to feel like this bleak weather is gonna break and the season for pavé will soon be here.  I guess watching a summertime race helps me forget the winter for a little while.  I’m not one of those die hards that rides outside all winter.  It’s supposed to make it to 37°F on Friday – ooh! maybe I can chip away the layer of ice that’s been on my driveway for two weeks.  I’m sure I can count that as cross-training.

Today’s Haiku

A cold takes some time
No rides in ten days so far
The year starts today

Anaerobic = Suck

In the interest of diversified training, I am making more (read: any) use of “above lactate threshold” trainer workouts.  I know that if I want to have any significant fitness gains, I have to push beyond my current limits from time to time.

Coach Fred has stated before that (I’m paraphrasing) if you want to go faster, then go faster.  That is to say, if you never make the attempt to ride above 25mph, you’ll never train yourself to do it.  If you never climb a significant grade, you’ll never be a serious climber.

So I did a couple: stage 17 of the 2006 Do The Tour…Stay at Home series and Spinervals’ No Slackers Allowed.  It’s obvious to me that anaerobic workouts can really expose the weak points in your fitness.  In my case, it showed a few things – that it hurts like hell to go into the red zone, that I may not be fully recovered from my cold of a week and a half ago, and that I can’t keep up with an LT workout.  In short, it sucks.

It sucks because I don’t like them, but I want the results.  I want higher fitness.  I don’t want to spit out pieces of my lungs to get it.  I want to burn up lots of calories in the winter so I can have a great start to the outdoor season in April.  I can’t (right now, anyway) do these things as long workouts.

So the result of this consideration?  Tonight I do a nice steady high aerobic tempo ride.  A good hour and a half with a few 5 minute steady-state intervals thrown in for good measure.  When I’m done, I will be tired, but not wrecked.

I’m going to have to be judicious about when I do these lung-burner trainer efforts.  Up to now, I rotated through my training media – avoiding the trap of favoring certain workouts.  The anaerobic-heavy rides are going to get pushed to the last ride of the week; I know then that I will have at least two days to recover from them.

Budget Surplus

The last few years, I’ve always had a built in guilt buster for my Thanksgiving day.  A nice, steady hour on the trainer in the morning that burns up a good 1,000 calories.  It was great; not only did I get supercharged for the days festivities, I didn’t have to worry about that third slice of pie.

Well this year it didn’t happen.  My last ride was on Tuesday after work, and I felt like crap the whole time.  I probably shouldn’t have ridden, but the self-inflicted guilt trip pushed me forward.  Since then I’ve been held back by a low-grade cold that only bothers me in the first half of the day.  Weird.

It’s hard to explain to non riders, but the combination of not riding and continuing to eat – Thanksgiving, no less – makes you feel so scared that you’re going to put on that dreaded winter weight that’s so hard to shake.  I was fat before, and I don’t ever want to go back.  The thought of me slowly sliding back to that status scares the hell out of me.

I know that I will have a surplus of calories for the week; so that only means weight going up.  I need to find a good trainer schedule this season.  It’s been kind of haphazard this time around.  I used to be able to count on Monday, Wednesday, Friday as a good schedule but this year the Mondays are the point of contention.  I need those 3 rides every week to stay in the zone as far as maintaining weight and keeping good fitness.  A 4^th ride is a bonus.

I haven’t weighed myself in a couple weeks, and I don’t think I want to see where it is.  I’m sure I’m pushing past 170.  I’d like to be in the low 160s when spring rolls around.  I think it’s going to take some calorie cutting on the intake side to make the math work this time around.

Too bad that when training volume goes down, appetite stays the same.

Engine Work

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve moved back on to the trainer for the season.  I know most roadies dread the idea of leaving the road for the trainer, but for me I’ve accepted it as a necessary evil.

This will be my 5th winter season on the trainer.  You would think that I know myself as a cyclist by now, but I keep learning more and more as I continue to ride.  One thing I’ve noticed since I started gearing up for cool weather riding last fall is that I lose some of the “snap” in my legs as a result.  I’m not exactly sure why, but those first few interval sessions on the trainer are always tough.  Now that I’ve done about 7 of them, I’ve got that snap back.

This should also be obvious to me, but as I ride the longer rides in the summer, my conditioning is more toward putting forth a medium-hard effort for 2-3 hours.  The trainer rides, however, are rarely longer than 1:15 and the effort is more compact – higher tempo with bursts of very hard efforts.

The upshot is that the summer works the overall endurance and the trainer works on the engine.  After contemplating this, I think there is a confluence of conditioning that happens around Memorial Day.  I have the engine still tuned from the trainer, and I am regaining the longer distance endurance.  This can really change my outlook on goals for the 2009 season.

First of all, the assault of Lake Desolation Road will likely come early in the season rather than later.  I was so keyed on having the endurance to do the 3.5 hour ride that I didn’t work enough on my aerobic/anaerobic capacity.  I don’t think I was that far off from it; if I can work in some hard efforts on the road – do some good climbing repeats – I will be in good shape to tackle the beast.

Secondly, if I want to do the MHCC Century in September, I won’t have a training conflict.  I can spend the rest of the season after the Desolation climb building up longer endurance.  This year I was able to do a de facto unsupported metric century on my long rides.

As coach Troy says, an hour on the trainer is worth two on the road.  I will affirm that statement with the more “Aerobically Correct” rides on the trainer – there is no let up in the effort; no slowing down for intersections or turn around points.  I’m putting the engine out on the test track.  It’s time to heat up that resistance unit.

I Got Dropped

One of the fun things that can happen on a solo ride is to spot a rider up the road that you can chase down.  It’s even better when they look back and see you; it’s a hollow victory when your “competition” is oblivious.

The best scenario is when the chase is long and I can also keep them in sight the whole time.  It’s a real buzzkill when they turn off of my route.  I don’t think I ever push myself harder than I do during those chases.  They look back a couple of times, I get closer and eventually they know the game is up!

They are invariably gracious about it, barely acknowledging the catch.  I let up enough before then so I can get out a few kind words.  “Nice day, huh?”  “Could do without this headwind.”  “Nice bike!”

The next challenge is to build a gap that they can’t close too easily.  I also stick to my route.  It’s a bush league move to pass them and then turn off so they can’t (try to) chase you down.

The last time I was on the receiving end of a so-called chase was a couple of years ago.  I had nowhere near the fitness I have now, and this guy just dusted me.  I was nearing one of my regular “bergs” (a short but very steep climb) and was mentally preparing for it when WHAM!  Some guy in his late 40s with a moustache went right past me.  I was startled and tried to play it off with a guy nod and low-key “hey”.

After the startled-ness wore off, I let it go.  He’d obviously been riding for a long time and I was quite the noob.  Since then, I’ve been the chaser instead of the chase-ee.

Until a couple weeks ago, that is.  I was at the tail end of a 2½ hour ride and turning off of a main road on to a secondary that takes me back to my neighborhood.

Scene of the crime

I’m westbound on 146A and he’s eastbound.  We’re both turning on to Main St.  He’s a tad closer, so he goes first.  There’s no traffic (luckily) so we both keep our momentum on to Main St.  Main Street starts with a slight downhill and then goes flat.  I get right up to about 10 feet behind his wheel and never any closer.  In a couple of minutes I can’t even see him anymore.

I don’t know if he was just 20 minutes in to his ride and was feeling fresh and fast, was a racer out for training, or whatever.  It was a little depressing; there are better ways to feel at the end of a ride, for sure.  I am determined, however, to not let this linger.  I have had the good end of this situation too many times perhaps and I’m a bit spoiled by always “winning” the chase.

All the more reason to think about dedicating a portion of my rides to actual training.  It’s one thing to get a lot of miles in and burn a ton of calories; it’s another to be able to go fast and hang with the more serious set.

I think I Might Be An Athlete

Is it purely about competition, or is it simply doing a sporting activity in a way that is more than just a workout?

I want to say that I am.  I don’t compete – I’ve already posted that I’m not a racer.  To be sure, when I see another rider up the road I want to catch them.  Badly.

I have done a century in the past (2006) and would do another one this September if not for a scheduling conflict.  I may be a Fred, but I’m a Fred who has done his share of miles.

One thing athletes do is train.  I don’t like to ride just to see the sights or burn a few calories.  I like to wear myself out and burn 2500 calories.  When I see a long flat stretch of road I think Time Trial – high steady effort just short of blowing up.

I look forward to climbs.  I may not climb fast, but I enjoy it.  There’s a masochistic bent among us riders; it’s the joy of the pain. If I don’t hurt, I didn’t try hard enough.

Even in winter I’m on the trainer on a regular basis (3-4 times per week).  Here in upstate New York that’s a solid 5 month block.  If you’re not a dedicated rider, you can’t force yourself on to a trainer that often.  I actually look forward to it.