New Years Eve - Time to Reflect

Dec 31. Good time to reflect on my efforts to date.

Racked up 3145 km for the year. Keep in mind I was sitting at 990 km of July 24. 2155 km in the last 5 months. 

Loads more vertical as well. 1900 m at the end of July. 16000 m at the end of the year.

I'm also 4 kilos lighter. 103 to 99 kegs.

All of this sounds good, but I really now need to go harder. Want to have 5000 km in the legs by Tour of the North. That's around 200 km/week.

Up until the  end of Feb that'll hafta be on Zwift, but I'll try convert to road once the weather starts to cool down (and dry out). From then on it will be a lot of bunch rides, a lot of hills.

Now if I'm doing that the weight should follow. I'm sitting between 8500-9000 kJ per day in terms of diet, so that piece is under control.

Am I on track? I'd say kinda. I'd prefer to have ridden more and further, I'd prefer to be skinnier and lighter. I think I'm still in the window. But I do need to lift.

Kicking the Cat

So in my last post I talked about my (kinda) completion of the FTP builder program in Zwift, and that I soon would retest my FTP to see how much it had improved.

Retest completed. Before FTP builder I tested my FTP at 214W. My FTP after FTP builder. 214W.

Fucken' &#)&^#^%$^%*&^&$&%#$@#@^%$#$. &#$#$%*&^(*&&^^(*^&%^$%^$%$%#$@$E. Was not happy.  5 weeks of slogging it out, for a 0.0% change in my FTP. Fucken fantastic. Now I did also jump on the scales, and I had lost a kilo over the 5 weeks. So if I look at Watts/Kg, it went from 2.14 to 2.16. Woo fucking hoo. 

I wasn't sure what I was hoping for, but it was something. This was nothing.

Then on reflection over the next few days, I released I'd basically done the FTP builder program minus the really hard bits. Completing the really hard bits was probably the key to improving. But that was still annoying. The training was all meant to be customized to my FTP, and when I stopped short on sessions, I'd ridden to a standstill. I gave 100% out there.

Then I read this article on Rouleur. For those who can't be arsed clicking, it basically makes the case that training indoor is harder than outdoor. And they put that down to a combination of inferior cooling indoors and a lack of mental stimulation and variety indoors. 

But I hear you cry "but you tested your FTP indoors". Well that's true, but cooling and mental stimulation aren't likely to me massive issues on a one off 15 minute ramp FTP test as opposed to the regular 90 minute sessions.

So Rouleur actually recommend you dropping your FTP by 20 for indoor training. So that's what I've done.

I also signed on for the Gran Fondo training plan on Zwift. The plan is largely based around improving your endurance (which I also need to improve). I've signed up for the 8 week plan.

So far I'm 2 weeks in. The sessions are hard but finishable. I think that's better. Here's a comparison of rides before and after the FTP change:

Here's what a session looked like with the FTP set at 215:  https://www.strava.com/activities/6412400779

Same session with the FTP set at 195: https://www.strava.com/activities/6426994163

 (keep in mind they were over two very different courses, so you can't really compare distance, average speed, etc)

With the FTP set lower, I went 37% longer on the bike, and my total work went from 358 to 445 kJ. Both good things. My average FTP admittedly went from to 175 W to 158 W. I guess it comes down to what is better - a crazy hard 30 minute ride, or a hard 50 minute ride. If the races I was targeting were a 30 minute epic blast, maybe the short hard sessions would be better. I'm hoping though it's longer more enduro stuff that helps me more.

End of November - FTP builder completed (nearly, kinda anyway)

 So still spinning away here. November has been almost exclusively Zwift rides. Racked up 18 rides, and 379km for the month.

The FTP builder program has been interesting. The rides are all about hitting a certain wattages at a certain cadence for various intervals. So for example the next 8 minutes will be 190 watts at 95 RPM. The times, the candences, the watts they all vary interval to interval. So my FTP tested at 215 watts pre-training program. Most of the time I was sitting at wattages of either 115, 155, 190 or 215. 115 was recovery. Cadences varied from 60 thru to 105. 85 was regarded as standard.

So gradually thru program the the intervals would get longer, the recoveries shorter. The idea being to steadily overload me, and I'd adjust.  Well that was the theory.

I've done all the sessions, but I haven't completed all the sessions. About week 4 the sessions started getting really bloody hard. And I'd ride to a standstill after 50, 45 minutes (the sessions were typically scheduled to run for 70 odd minutes). And I'd be well stuffed when I slid off the bike. 

Annoyingly the session would be deemed as incomplete (though to be fair, I guess it's accurate). I've got one more session to do to complete the FTP builder program, though I'm not sure exactly what that means at this point (given I've already failed to complete quite a few sessions).

What i can confidently say is I've ridden 4 hard sessions every week for the last 6 weeks. I'll test my FTP soon to see if that's improved, and will also check the scales. 

 

My October (and September) on the bike

Numbers from Sept & Oct

358 km in Sept, 380 km in October

14 rides in Sept /15 rides in Oct

2 ascents of Castle Hill in Sept/0 in Oct

53.3 km my longest ride

Now on the surface, these don't look fantastic given I did 525 km in August, but I am still feeling very positive about things. For a few reasons:

*I'm now up to over 2500 km this year

*I've started the FTP builder program on Zwift. That's about building strength & the ability to maintain it for 60 mins. It's not about doing massive kms. And I can tell you the sessions hurt.

*By switching to Zwifting in air conditioning, I've swapped across to something that you can actually do during the heat & humidity of an NQ summer.

*My weight is now below the century. (99.6kg)

*I've also started swimming on Saturdays. A bit of cross training is a good thing. Admittedly my swimming isn't great either, but again its something I can keep up over summer

FTP Test

 214W, as measured on Zwift.

I've started an FTP builder training program, so it will be be interesting to see how that changes. FTP stands for Functional Threshold Power. FTP is the average number of watts that a rider can sustain in an hour, and acts as a measure of fitness.

With a change of seasons, comes a change in training

 The heat has arrived early here in North Queensland. Given the winters here are so damn warm (I think I wore arm warmers on one ride over "winter"), and no-one locally is excited by the arrival of hot water. 

What actually does hot mean? Well this week ahead is forecast as a solid week of 32 & 32 °C maximum temperatures (that's 90 fahrenheit for you metric challenged types). The real killers though are the minimum temperatures and the humidity. It's only dropping to 24 °C at night. And the humidity is bloody high.  The upshot being an hour after dawn it can be close to 30 °C with 80% humidity. Ugh.

You do get a break from the heat & humidity when it rains, but when it rains it tends to be biblical rather than the odd splash of rain.

Not exactly conducive to riding long & hard. Which is what I need.

The good news I have a cunning plan. 

Well to be fair it's not overly cunning - I'm planning to use Zwift lots over summer. I've got a smart trainer, and it's set up in a nicely air conditioned room. 

 

 

Now if those two sentences made no sense, Zwift is an app you run on your laptop or table which is designed to give you a fun virtual riding experience (it looks a bit like you are riding through a video game). Zwift then connects with your smart trainer to which you attached your bike. The Smart Trainer and the Zwift app not only record your riding metrics, but the two also combine to give you a real world riding experience. So if you're going uphill on Zwift, the resistance on the smart trainer gets harder, and it feels just like you are going uphill. Same goes for downhill. And the system is rather clever - it not only adjusts the resistance according to how steep the road is, but it also changes very quickly. Here's a good intro vid if you'd like to learn more. 

There's all sorts of rides & routes that have been set up in the Zwift world, ranging from easy flat rides through to brutal climbs like the Alpe Du Swift (a clone of the iconic Alpe D'Huez climb). Here's actually a vid comparing how good a job Zwift does of matching the real world experience (based around said climb).

I really like riding outdoor with mates, but there's a lot to love about Zwift:

• It's weather proof
• You can ride exactly the terrain you want as hard as you want whenever you want
• Because I'm riding at home, it fits in with life of the family better
• No flats 
• You can sleep in a bit longer
  

There's even a number of training programs you can follow that are part of the app. And I think I'm going to start off with one of the plans.

Now it's not like Zwift is only known to people who know the secret handshake - it's widely known as used in the cycling community. Hardly uber-cunning. I do though think many people use it as a way to compliment their outdoor riding rather than their training foudation. Let's see how it works out.

Something different: Mountain Biking

 So on Saturday I gave mountain biking a crack.

There's a pretty big mountain biking scene here in Townsville, but up until Saturday I'd stuck to the road. Not really sure why I've only been a roadie up until now. I did fall in love with cycling watching the Tour de France, so maybe that flavored my cycling efforts.

I had two good friends, Sue and Lee, who were keen to take me out and show me the trails. So I blagged a hardtail MTB off another mate, and set sail to Pallaranda, a semi-isolated suburb of Townsville wedged between the ocean, the mangroves, the wetlands and the bush. Pallaranda is fertile mountain biking country - a web of trails has been established across the local escarpments, and there's everything from beginners trails through to quite technical terrain. 

Sue and Lee are regulars on the trails, but they took it easy on me and we kept to the beginner friendly terrain. That said, there was no shortage of rocks, gravel and sand, so I got something of a feel for what mountain biking is about.

 

The bike was pretty easy to come to terms with. It was running 3x8 Shimano XT  gearing. It had a set of decent shocks on the fork.  I was running 2 inch tyres, 26 inch wheels. Old school MTB though.

Newer bikes, like Lee and Sue's duel suspension bikes, run larger wheels and much wider tyres (2.4 inch width, Lee's 27.5 inch diameter, Sue's 29 inch). New school gives you a more comfy, smooth and grippy setup. The duel suspension also means you soak up the lumps a bit more nicely.

 Even so, I was quite amazed at what my old school MTB coped and coped well with. There were a couple of gravely bits and rocky patches that I was quite nervous pedalling into, but the MTB just sailed thru. I was still riding like I was on a roadie.  

Lee & Sue also ran 1x12 gearing, which makes loads of sense. When you're dealing with rough terrain, you need your shifts to be crisp and smooth. Not exactly the strength of the front derailleur. I spend the whole trip in the middle ring as I had zero confidence in front derailleur shifting. It just screamed dropped chain.

About halfway through the ride I stopped being quite so worried about the gravely bits and rocky patches, trusted the bike and started enjoying where I was riding. We went from beaches to mangrove swamps to wetlands. Bird life was plentiful. It was, in a word, beautiful. Sue was able to pick out a rather cool Frogmouth when we were rolling through a lightly wooded area toward the end of the ride. All very cool. 

I'd racked up about 22km when we got back to the cars. Mountain Biking (IMO) isn't though about epic kilometers or building your FTP. For me is was about transplanting something I really love into a super enjoyable setting. In this case with two great friends. 

I see more mountain biking in my future.