Something to gauge performance (race)

Feeling far more positive now I’ve settled into some specific training and have races soon.

Thing is I’m training on the turbos with just a HRM and stopwatch. So all I can do to see how I’m doing is the following;
Set the resistance to 4 on my Elite Sirrius
Select the gear 53×14
Count the cadence 80
HR is around 145/147
(3 x 10 minute sustained sessions)

The HR is just dropping a tad now using the same set up. I seriously don’t know if it means anything?
There is kit you can hire I believe, but how long will I need it for to access my state?

If you suggest anything that plugs into a computer it wont work, I can’t even send an email from my iphone.

Go and do a race?

What exactly do you expect a gadget to tell you? A power meter will tell you FTP and that, but you have no baseline, so it’s pretty pointless unless you know what it was previously and this whether you’re actually any fitter or not.

If you want a ‘proper’ measure then find a local uni with a sports science dept and see if they’ll run you through their test program – I’d be quick though they’ll all be going hom for the summer in a few weeks.

What are you actually trying to test for though?

knowing your heart rate is ‘x’ beats lower under the same conditions might be itnerestign but unless you know why and what you’ve done to achieve it it’s a pointless measurement.

I’d either get a proper trainign program set up by a professional or just keep doing what you;re doing and enjoy the races.

You won’t be able to gauge anything in a race as what others have been doing is a complete unknown. i.e. you may start to finish further down the field and think that you are losing fitness but if everyone else has been training like a pro then you could actually be getting fitter but the other riders are just improving at a faster rate.

Can you measure ‘distance’ on your turbo? If so, ride at a specific cadence in a specific gear and in a specific HR zone for a set amount of time and see how far you get. Repeat this at regular intervals and in theory as you get fitter you should ride further.

You won’t be able to gauge anything in a race as what others have been doing is a complete unknown. i.e. you may start to finish further down the field and think that you are losing fitness but if everyone else has been training like a pro then you could actually be getting fitter but the other riders are just improving at a faster rate.

Fair point – but if you’re training specifically to race, and everyone else is faster then your training isn’t working and placing a number on this is meaningless. Riding 5% further for a given HR means chuff all if you rock up to a race and everyone else goes 10% further!

If so, ride at a specific cadence in a specific gear and in a specific HR zone for a set amount of time and see how far you get.

Won’t a specific cadence in a specific gear for a set amount of time result in exactly the same distance every time? Or did you mean gradually change to a taller gear over time as your HR zone allows?

Won’t a specific cadence in a specific gear for a set amount of time result in exactly the same distance every time? Or did you mean gradually change to a taller gear over time as your HR zone allows?

He’s right! Specific cadence and HR would potentially work, but to be honest I’d not want to base the success of my training on that!

<puts on sports science hat>

Why do you assume the arbitrary choice of a cadence of 80 is a good idea?

Ride your bike for a set time as Jase says, if you go further you are either a) fitter assuming you dont change gear b)changing gear.

Assuming you held 80 RPM, in 53/12 (or whatever) and rode for 10 mins, you’d cover the same distance all the time, no matter what, gear inches travelled.

The HR dropping side…could be dehydration, could be a temprature induced change, could be a change in econony (doubfull), could be glycogen depletion, could be onset of a cardiac issue, could be anything. There is so little solid research into cardiac drift that it’s something we don’t actually use much as physiologists.

Free your cadence, free your gears, try to ride further for a given time. Or, buy a power meter, start tracking data, come back in 6 months and I can tell you what to do with them. They are not a short term soloution as many think. I’ve 5 years of data at this stage and it is a fantatic tool for tracking ‘fitness’. Green line shows ‘fitness’ red bumps a training input, blue a training stimulus, black a deficit.

You can do this with HR as well, but you need to go past average HR.

</puts on sports science hat>

I like ponies.

What are you calling ‘fitness’ Greg, out of interest?

Fitness in this regard is more of an esoteric concept of overall conditioning.

I can tell you that this peak has resulted with an all time highest FTP (~327W) and VO2max ~ 5.2L/min.

The track is of a prediction on probably fitness taking into account all training phases and inputs as well as recovery (all the troughs) and sickness (June 11 and Sept 11*2 – read 3 root canals in there)

I don’t worry about HR day to day except before a race where I’ll do a ‘test ride’ at the similar intensity I want to race at and use it to do some carbohydrate and fat oxidation rates. Eg I know how much I am going to burn at a given HR and I also know the absorption rates.

I’ll be posting a long rambling science thing about this for my prep for 24 hrs of Exposure at some stage next week.

I probably havent answered your question though…

What are you calling ‘fitness’ Greg, out of interest?

Actually I can answer that.

I’m calling ‘fitness’ the average power/HR that I can hold for the duration of the event I am about to race.

So fitness during the CX season is me being able to hold ~ 300W NP (normalised power) for an hour at 175 ish BPM.

Whereas now, during the long season, its being able to hold about 225W NP @ 150 ish BPM indefinitely.

I just meant what is that line on the graph that you have called fitness? How are you quantifying the change?

The track is of a prediction on probably fitness taking into account all training phases and inputs as well as recovery (all the troughs) and sickness

So is it an estimate based on a notional baseline, based on your training and the events taking place? Ie an increase in ‘fitness’ doesn’t necessarily correspond to an increased FTP (for example)?

I’m genuinely curious, not trying to be facetious.

I’d have thought you’ll go rather well on an FTP of 327W, unless you’re a big bugger!

Just trying to get my head around where I’m at. I’m one of the forums well known luddites. training means very long rides whatever the conditions, followed by weeks on the turbos.

Last June I formed a new road club. And this year guys from the club that were new to the sport are getting top ten placings, two seconds being the best. I train with them without any problems, so you know what I’m thinking. I just don’t want to set myself up for a fall, or get complacent.

Jase I can’t measure distance with my current set up.

Won’t a specific cadence in a specific gear for a set amount of time result in exactly the same distance every time? Or did you mean gradually change to a taller gear over time as your HR zone allows?

Yes sorry, meant change gear as your HR allows.

I just meant what is that line on the graph that you have called fitness? How are you quantifying the change?

Facetous? On STW…never!

That graph is generated usingHR as the inputs driving the change. Although, that is only one of the ones I pay attention to, also do the same to some power driven graphs. It follows the TRIMP 100 as a model method 🙂

Baseline is not notional, its carried from 5 seasons worth of data and maybe….20 max tests in that time?? (I work in a physiology lab).

As for fitness linked to FTP, your correct in that no studies have shown an increase in metabolic fitness and increasaed FTP…mostly cause no one has done them. They’d be pretty long term studies, however an eductated guess shows that they have some link between them.

As for the FTP and my chunkymonkeyness, 80kg ish for 183cm of me, so not too fat, not as lean as when I race Ironman at 76kg though. Will see how it goes, not raced 24 before so…eep!

Oldgit: could you get a simple cheapo spedo from Decathlon that will allow you to measure distance? Gives you an actual quantifiable variable that will change with training. That or, are you happy to try to ride courses outside as test beds?

Old fashioned hat on….

Get some races done. If you’re not getting dropped then your base is good enough, if you’re not winning you need to learn to sprint.

Measuring stuff won’t win you anything, riding to win will.

Old fashioned hat off.

I like ponies, but I can’t eat a full one.

Just trying to get my head around where I’m at. I’m one of the forums well known luddites. training means very long rides whatever the conditions, followed by weeks on the turbos.

So just go and do a race! I thought you raced about 6 times a week anyway?

The numbers won’t mean anything at first anyway, so unless you want to spend the entire season gauging your fitness by pedalling away at a constant intensity which doesn’t really replicate real racing then it’s totally pointless, at some point you’ll just have to go and do a race.

Or are you training for the sake of training?

1st race May 4th, 2nd race May 8th. Then two races a week, one road and one XC.

Problem with gauging by races is pretty simple:

If crap racers turn up – you do well.
If elites turn up – you do crap.

Its not a benchmark unless you have the same group every week and their training does not deviate.

Saying that…racing is a VERY good training impulse. You’ll go harder than in training, if you cant, something is wrong.

Eh?

Racing is the whole point, not training, or benchmarking!

I’m well aware of that. But the OP is talking about measuring fitness gains, not measuring how he wins or not. That is a result, not a function of the result.

Over the 5 seasons of data, can I ask what race results you’ve had Greg?

And how do they fit in with your graphs?

OP – do you actually enjoy riding bikes?

Surely if you’re doing two races per week the same the guys will be turning up. Measure yourself against others from the last races…. Did I beat the guy who beat me last time? Was I closer to the guy who beat me last time? Then you’ve got your motivation and some idea of improvement.

GW yeah very much so..

Listen, shall I just shut up and get on with it.

Over the 5 seasons of data, can I ask what race results you’ve had Greg?

And how do they fit in with your graphs?

I’ve a national CX medal. Does that count?
I’ve raced internationally on the track. Does that count?
I’ve won several track meets and leagues. Do they count?
I’ve raced for my country in 3 different sports. Does that count?

No offence, if you feel like your old school mentality is being hurt and you can’t take modern training techniques, let alone a simple conversation and go away.

As for fitting with my graphs, very well actually. Thanks.

Oldgit: If you enjoy riding your bike, keep doing it. Wanting to get better is a good thing for you.

Does that count?

It was only a couple of questions, but thanks for getting all defensive… 🙄

Someone’s a bit sensitive….

… I think crikey should go and sit on the naughty step for being such a bully.

I’m just interested to know how a scientific approach to training actually plays out in reality, but it appears that asking about it is automatically considered to be a form of criticism… Hey ho, maybe all work and no play makes Greg a bit grumpy…

Sorry, I read it as a taunt. If not intended that way; fair enough. I’m sorry.

But in short, yeah, my graphs have worked well at performance. For me, athletes I’ve coached and multiple other people who use science as a method of getting results.

EDIT: And yes, working on presentations at 8:30pm on a Friday makes me grumpy. That and a bloody taper period that I always get 🙁

Fair enough Greg, it was a genuine inquiry, but I can see that I didn’t phrase it well.

I’ve always thought that the limiting factor in most amateur sports training is time, which automatically leads to a ‘How do I get as good as I can in the time I have available?’ kind of situation, which again seems to lead to Time-crunched-cyclist-do-lots of intervals kind of advice, but is there a different way?

I’m in the situation of having a fair amount of time, but it’s not predictable because of shift work, so I concentrate on just riding and enjoying it these days, with expected/predictable results; I get better when I have time to devote to riding, and get worse when I’m on nights and so on.

I am having some success at the mo from using a HRM, dug out from about 10 years ago, and doing a fair amount of stuff at a very low intensity, kind of Maffetone-ish training, and have definitely improved in terms of efficiency; riding faster/in a harder gear for the same HR.

One of the joys of doing a PhD and working in academia; time is very relative and moves slowly. I’ve had the luck to put in big hours when needed, it has helped.

I think the issue people have is setting a ‘target’ for what improvement is. People like to say ‘i want to get better/win more races/ be faster than X’ but they don’t go about quantifying how to go about it, or exactly what it is they want to make better. Hence I measure and model my progressions. It’s something that I think helps everyone, and something that is quite easy to do.

Sadly, the ‘time crunched model’ is just that. It allows you to work with that time you have, however if someone has 1 more hour than yuo they can theorethically, for the same start value, get a higher rate of progression that you.

Now lets assume you assess what is going on, you measure what you are doing and you find you are good at certain things. Well we are creatures of habit and we tend to do more of that assuming it will make us better. Sadly its generally the opposite, we get very good at going uphill by training for it, but we loose power on the flat or enough musculature to handle techy downs. Our economy goes up, but when we have to work at high intensities, the game is over as we cannot process carbohydrate at high enough rates to keep up.

Long winded way of saying, if you don’t measure progression, you just assume it; how can you say what is helping or not? We know that there is a dose:response:response relationship with exercise. You give a dose of hard exercise; you get a response (tiredness) and another response (supercompensation – getting fitter). If you don’t track input over time, model the response (even be it a trafic light system of feeling/RPE) it is impossible to gauge what training worked or not.

Ye olde schoole way (before the shortage of e’s) was to keep a training diary with words about how you did, how you felt, how you raced. This has now been complemented, not superceeded, by programs such as WKO+ and GoldenCheetah (where that graph came from) that allow you to directly measure the response of exercise on a metabolic system, giving simple usage of periodisation models to normal people.

<breath out>

This I prefer talking about than; Assessment of Physical Activity in Search and Rescue Operations Using Accelerometer Based Technologies

But I do get a trip to Oxford so hurrah!

Hmmm…

You did beat me in the 3 Peaks by 29 or so minutes last year*, so perhaps I should take heed, but I’m a bit older and 3 kids to the better, so it’s not a level playing field… 😀

I do agree with the ‘creatures of habit’ thing, and the ‘train your weaknesses, race to your strengths’ thing is a good saying but way harder to put into practice. I wonder how much you have altered what you do as a result of recording your training?

How do you use it to decide what to actually do when you go out on a bike?

*My second attempt, 17 years after the first, and an hour slower…

3 Peaks…that race…ohh I have issues with that race. Have never managed to hit that one correctly. Had two root canals before that one this year 🙁

How do I decide what I want to do…sheesh…. Well normally I look at what I want to peak for, lets say CX nationals. I step back a week to allow for a taper, then step back 4 weeks (call them on weeks) 1 week off, 4 on, 1 off, 4 on. THose weeks are usually 10 days long but thats semantics 🙂

I’ll then figure in when in those 4 week periods I should be going hard so work on a 0.4, 0.6, 0.5, 0,8 ratio where 1 would be a period where all days would be full on hard as training. I then sit back and break each 10 day block down similarly to allow for work days, off days 0.0, and race days 1.1+.

It’s not an exact science either TBH…a lot is on personal feel, and even when working with another athlete I need a lot of feedback from them on how they are performing, feeling, eating etc.

For 24hrs of Exposure this year I sat back and went:
What do I suck at on a MTB??
Then I worked on it. Then I asked:
What do I now suck at??
Then did that…..it was a process of elimination, backed by an ok CX season and a good long course triathlon season base before that. I knew I was ‘fit’ persay. I just also knew that I was bad a very simple things, so I worked on them; nutrition day to day, mental strength on bad days, going easy when required.

This is where the science falls down, although we can measure the response, actually giving the dose is very hit and miss and can take a lot of time athlete depending.

I think that those variables are where I feel that the scientific approach has limitations; not a criticism, but an observation, I suppose. I am a believer in ‘controlling the controllable’, but racing seems to throw up so many uncontrollables that it is difficult to train for them.

I suspect that time, considered over a longer period, and perhaps better described as ‘experience’ is key in that area. I was always aware of trying to be as good as I could be, but was often beaten by older or more experienced people who had been there before; it’s that bit that really is difficult to learn.

The 3 Peaks is a special case; last year I was talked into it at a late stage, and rode it to get round rather than be competitive. The first time I did it I was a good-top-ten-in-any-cross-race rider, and had done all the traditional training for it, so approached it entirely differently.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your knowledge, we may meet at the Peaks if I do it this year; I know Alan Dorrington from cross all those years ago…

One thing I’ve learnt about myself after nearly five decades of racing is that I don’t know much about myself.
Though there are some things I’ve come to realize. I don’t have a ‘killer instinct’ An example of that was once actually pulling on my brakes to watch the leaders battle it out for the line, it took a second to realize that I had every right to go for the line as well, 6 points my last ever points in an open road race.
The big one though is holding back at the start through fear or inability to go hard from the gun.
This is what I need to train myself out of, but my mindset is still stuck in the days when the races I entered where far far longer and where the pace would wind up over the hours.

Think I’m starting to ignore the age issue which is good.

Oldgit: Why do you feel you shouldn’t go hard from the start? Ever tried it?