Quantifying Endurance: Decoupling and Aerobic Endurance

Moving into the winter months, it's a good time to think about base miles. The question is, how to meter those long steady distance miles in such a way as to improve overall endurance and build a foundation for the crisis training that is to come.

Joel Friel's article on decoupling and aerobic endurance provides some pretty good ideas for getting bang for the buck. So as the winter rides progress, a close eye can be kept on the march towards aerobic endurance.

The Coach Ends His Season

It was a good way to die, falling on the sword to ensure JPB was in a position to win the 40+ Texas State Championship. The 15 mile death march that commenced upon being shot out the back of the main chase group (courtesy the heat, lack of water, and full crampage in both legs) was worth the pain...I felt pretty confident that Allen would seal the deal. So, the suffering and pain instantly abated (after I had pedalled my cinderblock swollen feet across the line to the dusty shade of the truck) when I learned that he managed to close escrow from 12 miles to go. Nice. Very Nice.

So...the bike was loaded, the home was reached, and the race file remains to be downloaded and parsed. The bike is in the bike room, wondering why it is still dusty, crusty, and festooned with its racing wheels. Maybe it doesn't know yet, but the off-season has begun.

What to do. Well, I tried to take a full week off. That attempt failed after 3 days of inactivity when the legs got that diseased, hollow, catabolic feel to them on Thursday. That's when my daughter (senior on the high school cross country team) agreed to go out with me for a 15 minute test drive of my Vibram Five Fingers.

I figure I'll pass the rest of this week and October relearning how to run, inspired by a Sunday morning special on To the Best of Our Knowledge to give the body pounding a new look. Check out the episode found here. Also, pretty sure I will do some Yoga as well. There is a chance too that I might, MIGHT, take my bike out on a ride once the Quarq makes it back from Spearfish, but I'll do my best to avoid the ride until November, when a new 13 week early season strength training routine will be deployed. A nice transition and physical shakeup. Can't wait. I can feel the lingering, smoky DOMS that such a change to the routine is bound to provide.

And who knows, maybe I'll see four digit sprints on a regular basis next season.

Zombie Watch

This year's Texas State Time Trial Championship course is, once again, unflat. Additionally, the slight grade that will greet riders during the first five minutes of the effort will surely function as a grave for those who try to kick it over the top only to find, it's not really a top.

Too much too soon can doom a time trial in general. For this course specifically, the too much might come even sooner, with the hill shooting many competitors in the head right at the start.

Expect widely scattered zombies pedaling across the south Texas brush land near Lytle the morning of 7/30/2011. Some thoughts on how to avoid becoming one:

1) Warm up well (without overheating...more on that in the last point). Recommended protocol is as follows:

• 5 min easy spin
• 3x60 second fast spin efforts (110+ rpm, tbi=60 seconds)
• 5 more easy spin minutes
• 5 minute effort AT FTP
• 5 min easy spin
• 1 more fast spin effort (60 seconds)
• line up for the time trial when last minute details are concluded

2) Know thy FTP. Better yet, know it as an expression of w/kg to account for the event day's weight and adjust it accordingly.

3) Mind the initial dosage: In other words, keep the first 5 minutes of the effort constrained to below 90% of the weight adjusted FTP. Fact: no 40k ITT is ever lost in the first five minutes. Going out to hard on this course will be akin to climbing up on a hill in a gunfight, naked, with a single shot, and shooting up all the ammo before the eye-whites are visible.

4) Mind the watts: No, not the ones on the watt meter, but the ones gained from maintaining good form: head low, knees in, relaxed, listening to the body. An occasional glance at the pm is okay to monitor progress, but following the advice in #3 above will attune the mind to the body, allowing for a successful toeing of the fine line between going and blowing.

5) Mind the cadence: This course is not flat, with just enough hills to challenge everyone's cadence monitoring and selection skills. Higher cadence on the up-gradients keeps the leaden acid at bay. Modulating it a bit lower on the downhills can exploit momentum while stealing a few recovery moments from the course. Unlike last year's course at Castroville, however; recovery moments are few and far between on this course.

6) Of course, in south Texas, this goes without saying, but should always be repeated. Keep as cool as possible and hydrate. Frozen water bottles, ice vests, ice packs under the skin suit (upper back, thighs, chest) prior to the start can all help in this campaign.

Look for a posting on that other blog about how fun it is to forget to apply the w/kg factor to a body that has lost a significant amount of lean body mass.

Home Brew

It gets hot here in the Texas hill country. Windy hot. Dehydration hot. Cramp inducing hot.

So it came to pass towards the end of last season when I grew tired of cramps impeding my ability to finish strong, I set off in search of the perfect long training ride/race nutritional concoction. Now, having tested said concoction, I am ready to unleash the beta-recipe on the world, seeking feedback and suggested tweaks.

Ingredients needed:

• 2 GU or similar flasks (one will do for the sub 3 hour race-ride)
• Honey
• Sea Salt
• Sport Legs tablets
• Beta Alanine (PrimaForce)
• Citrullene Malate (PrimaForce)
• BCAA (PrimaForce)
• Water

Into each flask, mix the following proportions of ingredients:

• Fill the flask 1/2 way with honey
• Add 1 scoop each of the Beta Alanine, Citrullene Malate, and BCAA powder (the scoops PrimaForce provides are very small)
• 3 pinches of sea salt
• 3 Sport Legs capsules opened into the flask

Add just enough water to help the honey mix in with the ingredients and give each flask a good shake.

After the post shake head has subsided, top off each flask with water. Now you are good to go!

Remember Disappointment

I can't remember where I heard that saying, but I like it. I like it a lot. Remember disappointment.

After this weekend, I need to remember the disappointment of going uphill a bit slower than I had anticipated. Still, I have an answer to the power/weight question when it comes to a long climb such as Saturday's hill climb stage at Ft. Davis: even though I have a higher FTP at my relatively higher weight (compared to last year), the lighter weight and lower FTP of last year served me better. Now the question remains, how do I fit those factors into the "Remembering Disappointment" equation.

Of course, the second disappointment was something beyond my personal control: The Rock House Fire that shut the race down about midway through the ITT.

Pretty sure that the improved FTP was manifesting itself during the outbound leg as I was maintaining my numbers and keeping the speed right at 17 mph into the 35-45 mph headwind. So, when the race was shut down, disappointment reared its ugly head once again. No true read on the ITT, no chance to move up in GC, at all...one hour later we are packed, loaded, and headed home as Ft. Davis was evacuated.

Disappointment.

What I Learned at the OTC

1. I like school and I miss being a student. Creepy, but I am looking forward to working on my long, written Level 1 Exam
2. The OTC cafeteria does not believe in salt, doesn't add it to anything. At all.
3. Volleyball players come in two sizes. Extremely tall and medium size. Guess which ones play where in relation to the net
4. Gymnasts make tall volleyball players look even taller.

The Endurance 2x20+5

Posted about The Next Level previously, and having integrated the long, TSS intensive routine described therein (designated herein as the TSS Integrator) as the state road championships approached last fall, it has earned a place in preparation for A level events.

The issue of bringing the TSS Integrator online in a step by step fashion as the season advances has inspired the creation of the Endurance 2x20+5, which basically deletes the L6, L7, and L3 portions out of TSS Integrator and focuses on those designed to help bank the 200 TSS prescribed before the L6, L7 and L3 portions of the TSS Integrator are undertaken. Oh, it also deletes the coffee shop stop, which is a nice reward for the TSS Integrator.

So, the net result from the 2x20+5 is focused work in the L2,L4 and L5 zones with ample recovery time in the L1 zone.

Note on the sample graph below that there are a few L3 looking pulses towards the end of the ride. Nothing more than artifacts that had to be integrated to reach the day's goal of 250 TSS by the end of the ride. Worked out nicely...251.2 TSS at the conclusion:

Endurance 2x20+5

Notes on the workout:

• Kept the 2x20s moderately conservative hitting just below current FTP for each...not so much the start and finish kick of stand-alone 2x20s
• Since these started at +100 TSS, cadence was a challenge, more so evidently on the second than the first..."keep it north of 90" is the mantra
• Since the 2x20s are indeed challenging in this context, one might conclude the 5 minute Vo2 interval would be impossible. Not so, once the system goes north of the L4, it seems to hang in for most of the 5 minute effort on auto-pilot, and just a little extra kicking and flogging at the end tends to keep the numbers in range.
• Experimented with a new nutritional blend that seems to work (more info on that other blog)