A1 for A4

calistro

Right, have taken on a month's training with A1 coaching and want to put my training regime in the public eye for extra motivation for myself.

I started racing in A4 this year and the aim is to get to A3 for next season.

So far I have 6 races done with the following results:

Race 1 - Dropped on 1st Lap
Race 2 - Finished in top 10 but not in points
Race 3 - Dropped on last lap
Race 4 - Bunch finish - no points
Race 5 - Finished 6th - 3 points
Race 6 - Bunch finish - no points
Next Race - Sean Nolan GP

1st session is an FTP test this evening to kick things off. Will report back tomorrow.

pprendeville

Some great blogs on here. Welcome to the club. Look forward to reading all about your progress.

lennymc

ftp tests are fun.

couerdelion

FTP tests are awful but numbers are great. Which were the 6 races you did? No bother if you would rather not say.

Inquitus

I am guessing 6th at the Dunsany GP? Marked man you are now so!

calistro

couerdelion wrote: »

FTP tests are awful but numbers are great. Which were the 6 races you did? No bother if you would rather not say.

The A4 one's ;)

Jazzer Wherity
Coombes Connor
Stamullen GP
North Down GP
Enniskillen GP

Mmmmmm.........I'm forgetting one:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Inquitus wrote: »

I am guessing 6th at the Dunsany GP?

Possibly, possibly not!......actually definitely not!!

calistro

The above is what I'm presuming FTP stands for:)

Okay, so my FTP is around 270W. Warm up done and into the FTP test outdoors and into a headwind. Power zones now all worked out.

Uploaded the Garmin files to the lads at A1 coaching and got great feedback and itinerary for the week.

Today's schedule was a zone 3 workout with some sprint work included, so up early and used it as part of my commute. Great to get some actual structure and explanations behind it as up to this is was mainly intervals dragged from the web without much thinking as to the suitability or effectiveness for what I'm looking for.

Tomorrow has a short sharp shock in some Tabata intervals. Never tried them before.

Probably some info I should have included in the opening post is

Age: 40 (almost)

Cycling History: Tipping around about 4 years, dabbled in triathlons but mainly club spins. Also 2 seasons cyclocross.

Equipment: Don't have an out & out racebike, decided to do 1 season on my sportive type thingy setup with bog standard wheels before treating myself next year. The main expense was a 2nd hand powertap and a good price from a family member.

lennymc

what were the exact intervals before the 20 minute all out do you mind me asking? Just curious.

calistro

lennymc wrote: »

what were the exact intervals before the 20 minute all out do you mind me asking? Just curious.

5 min warm up/ 5 mins to the level where breathing hard but not uncontrolled / 5 min easy

pprendeville

Nice update. Love to hear the figures. What's your weight? That way you can calculate you watts/kg.

Keep us updated on how A1 coaching goes. Aaron Buggle just signed up with him so they seem to have a good setup in place along with a Wattbike and altitude tent.

The Tabata intervals are very tough but really bring you on so expect to suffer but knowing that it will have massive benefits in a very short period of time. Good luck and make sure you have a fan or AC.

Inquitus

Ken Tobin has also just signed up with them, look forward to seeing the results of that one, Ken is flying atm.

calistro

pprendeville wrote: »

Nice update. Love to hear the figures. What's your weight? That way you can calculate you watts/kg.

73kg down from 77.5kg after Xmas excesses!!

Inquitus

What format did you FTP test take and how was the 270W number arrived at?

calistro

Inquitus wrote: »

What format did you FTP test take and how was the 270W number arrived at?

My head hurts from trying to decipher figures:o

Uploaded my garmin file to the guys at A1 and they came back to me with figures. Only new to training with a powermeter so still trying to find my way, I'm presuming the 95% of the 20 min. test , but don't quote me on that,

pprendeville

Fair play, 3.7W/kg. if you have a Powertap and want a true figure do the hour test out on the road. Should feel a bit easier having the breeze in your face despite being longer. Onwards and upwards.

Ryath

calistro wrote: »

73kg down from 77.5kg after Xmas excesses!!

Nearly 3.8 watts/kg. Fairly respectable would put you on the upper end of A4 racers. Was your 5 min interval balls out? If you wussed out on this your 20 min figure is inflated. First time FTP test is tough you'll have a better idea for your next one.

Interested to see how you get on with the couching. Might be the way I have to go to get a bit more disciplined with my training.

calistro

Ryath wrote: »

Nearly 3.8 watts/kg. Fairly respectable would put you on the upper end of A4 racers. Was your 5 min interval balls out? If you wussed out on this your 20 min figure is inflated. First time FTP test is tough you'll have a better idea for your next one.

5 min wasn't balls out but last test I done on TrainerRoad (no Powermeter ) had me at 260 so seems in line.

[/QUOTE]Interested to see how you get on with the couching. Might be the way I have to go to get a bit more disciplined with my training.[/QUOTE]

Early doors but I am really liking the structure of it.

Inquitus

Early doors but I am really liking the structure of it.

Can you outline how many hours a week you have committed to train/race and how it breaks down this week?

e.g.

Mon 2 hours
Tues rest
Weds Club League
Thurs 1 hour
Fri 2 hours
Sat rest
Sun A4 race

calistro

I'm pretty much able to commit to 1.5 - 2hrs a day for the next month until wedding/parties etc kick in in July and scupper things for me.

Main priority is training, maybe 2 A4 races this month but I've asked for the races not to be a priority i.e. I want to get a good grounding in training instead of just training for a specific race if that makes any sense.

Breakdown for this week is:

Wed. 1hr
Thurs 1.5hrs
Fri 20mins
Sat 1.5 pre-race easy
Sun A4 race

calistro

Bit late with the updates but here we go:

Friday: 1st Tabata interval - had planned 1 before work and another after but got up late so just the evening session done. These are tough but I enjoyed the 'get in & get out' nature of them. Very short recovery between intervals (10 sec's) which is great as you don't have time to think about the next one coming up, you're straight into it. Total workout of 20 mins including warm up / cool down.

Saturday: 1.5hr easy spin with a few sprints a small bit of power work thrown in.

Sean Nolan GP tomorrow.

calistro

2 attack attempts & 1 front wheel blowout - nuff said. Must ge me one of them team car thingies!!

Inquitus

calistro wrote: »

2 attack attempts & 1 front wheel blowout - nuff said. Must ge me one of them team car thingies!!

Least you made it home in one piece, was carnage towards the end.

calistro

Inquitus wrote: »

Least you made it home in one piece, was carnage towards the end.

Yeah, was in a car behind the first crash, good few down.

ht9zni1gs28crp

I heard the bang from right behind of front wheel pop! Quite a bang too, scared the ****e out of me!

I looked at the A1 coaching form sent through to me, I cant fill out 90% of the form as I run no HRM, no Garmin so haven't a clue where im at, so that was the end of that!

Will watch this thread with interest, as have similar goals to you.

richieg

What sort of package are you doing with A1? Is it just prep a training plan or is it interactive coaching on a regular basis and if so how much interaction?
What sort of costs are roughly involved in working with a coach?

calistro

richieg wrote: »

What sort of package are you doing with A1? Is it just prep a training plan or is it interactive coaching on a regular basis and if so how much interaction?
What sort of costs are roughly involved in working with a coach?

Hi RichieG,

I've taken on a month's coaching initially to see if it's something I could look at more longterm. As in one of my earlier posts I want to concentrate on getting a good grounding in the training aspects rather than picking a race I want to target (although they can do this also). I get a weekly training plan after talking with the guys at A1 to see what time I can give or if I have races planned and they work around that.

I upload my training spins to them via TrainingPeaks (they set up your account) and then there is a lot of interaction via phone/email/TrainingPeaks to see how I got on/how the workouts felt etc.

As regard's pricing, it's probably best to contact them direct to discuss you r requirements.

calistro

No race planned for this coming weekend so after talking to the lads at A1 they've given me a fortnights training plan consisting:

Week 1 circa 11hrs ride time which includes:

Vo2 Max efforts
Endurance rides
Fartlek
Endurance/Muscular Strength Spins & the all important recovery days.

Week 2

Pacing Efforts
Endurance Training
Recovery rides
Pre-race workouts as race planned for the 21st

This will be a big step up in my training so I'll update each day after the workouts
Nervously looking forward to it

Inquitus

Given A4 races are short, do they really value long endurance spins as a training requirement?

Edit: A better way to ask the question would be. What length and intensity are the endurance spins?

Ken1975

Inquitus wrote: »

Given A4 races are short, do they really value long endurance spins as a training requirement?

Edit: A better way to ask the question would be. What length and intensity are the endurance spins?

Regardless of length / distance / time for these sessions, you should always make allowances and consideration for when you upgrade to the next category.

Im playing a bit of catch up this season because of my upgrade so early in the season. My winter didnt go according to plan so I didnt get the amount of endurance spins required for A1/A2 racing. I (stupidly) only really focused on the A3 distances.
Wont be making that mistake this winter.

Inquitus

Ken1975 wrote: »

Regardless of length / distance / time for these sessions, you should always make allowances and consideration for when you upgrade to the next category.

Im playing a bit of catch up this season because of my upgrade so early in the season. My winter didnt go according to plan so I didnt get the amount of endurance spins required for A1/A2 racing. I (stupidly) only really focused on the A3 distances.
Wont be making that mistake this winter.

Good point Ken.

calistro

Inquitus wrote: »

Given A4 races are short, do they really value long endurance spins as a training requirement?

Edit: A better way to ask the question would be. What length and intensity are the endurance spins?

I suppose what you're not seeing is the detail in each session as I think it would be unfair to A1 Coaching to put up every detail of the training plan. And as it is tailored to my own needs/requirements the need for some endurance work is required.

To give you an example, a 3hr endurance would be mainly in the endurance power zones with a set time in the last hour at tempo.

calistro

Early start this morning for a 1hr 20min spin (used as part of an extended commute) with 5 x VO2 max efforts. Lost count and ended up doing a 6th but found it hard to maintain the required cadence & power level for it so the 5 that were prescribed seemed bang on.

Inquitus

Another Q, do they explain the rationale behind the training they submit to you each week? i.e. is this process going to help you learn how to train yourself better in future?

calistro

Inquitus wrote: »

Another Q, do they explain the rationale behind the training they submit to you each week? i.e. is this process going to help you learn how to train yourself better in future?

Yes, they fill in the comments box in TrainingPeaks with full explanations of the sessions and also you can phone/email them with any questions, out of normal working hours also which is great.

calistro

Had a 3hr endurance ride in mainly zone 2 & a bit in zone 3 scheduled for today. Headed off from work through Meath, Westmeath & Cavan 84k in total. Class evening for it. Powertap battery failed midway through so went by heart rate for the second half.

Couple of hill reps for tomorrow.

calistro

Couple of Fartlek hill repeats scheduled for yesterday.

3 x repeats done at various power levels per climb to simulate the pace irregularity on hills in races. Hard into the hill then a slight easing up and then back up to a set power level until the top.

I enjoyed this type of effort/interval, could have done a few more or went harder for the last part of each climb but that wasn't the point of the session.

Easy/Recovery ride today or the day off, so will opt for an easy spin home from work.

Saturday looks like a tough enough day! Report tomorrow.

calistro

Planned on hitting today's planned session early but between one thing and another didn't get going until midday.

This was always going to be a hard day with 3 different intervals/efforts interspersed in the 3hr ride.

1st interval was done in a large a gear as I could manage, and was a 15 secs on/off scenario, each lasted ten minute and 3 sets.

2nd interval was hill repeats, again in a big gear alternating between sitting/standing for 3 minutes at a time. Have never tackled a climb of any sort while standing for the duration, and didn't think I would be able, but when it's laid out for me to do I do my utmost to complete it. This is possibly why I enjoy the coaching element as I know someone is going to analyse the workout, so I put in the effort to complete it fully. If I was training by myself I'd be tempted to sit down after a minute or so. It's the structure I crave:D

3rd Interval was spaced over an hour with an all out sprint interlaced throughout,

A tough day out but happy to have completed it, the only issue I had was not being able to draft off the hoards of tractors that have descended on the highways & byways of the country with the dry spell..............how many KOM's have been sacrificed I'll never know

Easy spin tomorrow, planning on getting out early but the Mojitos may have other plans!!!

calistro

got off to a late start Sunday, a 1.5hr easy ride scheduled with 3 intervals mixed in.

So that was my 1st full week with A1 Coaching, being on the bike 6 days out of 7, (Tues- Sun) Friday was either a v. easy spin or day off so I used it as part of my commute.

A tough week all in all but with great variety in the schedule it kept thing interesting. On the plus side I've also shed another 1kg which is great because after loosing the initial few kg things had stagnated a bit and bike strength hasn't been affected.

Day off today and back into the fray tomorrow with the week planned as follows: Tuesday (TT pace intervals), Wednesday (Endurance ride), Thursday (VO2max intervals), Friday (Race openers), Saturday (Race) - Sunday ( 2hr free ride)

thekooman

out of curiosity what are "VO2max intervals"? is that 10/10 effort in the biggest ring you can manage? i usually call them "power ups" which in my eyes build power.

calistro

thekooman wrote: »

out of curiosity what are "VO2max intervals"? is that 10/10 effort in the biggest ring you can manage? i usually call them "power ups" which in my eyes build power.

To my mind (and open to correction) VO2Max intervals are sessions that will tax both your heart and lungs, high cadence/high power zone. The purpose is to increase the amount of oxygen you can utilise while exercising at maximum effort.

To me what you are describing is more like muscular endurance/strength intervals.

All fairly new to me so someone might come on and give you a better explanation.

lennymc

10/10 would be neuromuscular.


Good information on the various zones here

calistro

Tuesday:

1.5hr with 5 TT pacing intervals @ FTP.
Got on well with these, bar the route I chose was like a bombsite for the entirety of one of the intervals.

Wednesday:

3hr Endurance ride with 45 mins @ power zone 3.

Felt tired during the 45mins session, thought maybe it was the heat, but realised I hadn't really fueled up enough during the day before tackling a 3hr ride. Need to be more organised.

calistro

Thursday:

VO2 max intervals. Managed 4 out of the 5 only, as in the earlier post I have been feeling tired not exactly sure if it is from the workload or lack of preparation for the workload. This week has been the most work I've ever put in on the bike with a race looming at the weekend.

Friday:

After uploading to my rides to A1 Coaching the lads advised me to take Friday very easy due to the way I was feeling on my last 2 rides, I've come to the conclusion that I failed to react to the training load and increase my calorie intake to match and this has caused the tiredness, although I was delighted with the associated weight loss, increasing my time on the bike and not eating properly is not a good combination.
So Friday was an easy 20k commute home with a few openers thrown in.

Saturday: Paddy Flanagan Memorial.

Wasn't quite sure how this would go because of the tiredness during the week as stated above. For the first lap it took me a while to get settled but on the 2nd & 3rd lap I put in 3 attacks, none of which were going to stick as it was a flat, fast course where everything would be chased down, but I wanted to test my legs. Mass bunch finish which I had decided I was not going to get involved in so kept to the inside and found myself going from about 25th to 12th or 13th in the finish due to a lot of lads either sitting up or blowing up around 30m's from the line.

Sunday: 2-3hr free ride planned so I'm taking my '85 Vitus 979 out for a spin to Slane to indulge in some coffee & cakes from Slane Bake, an excellent little bakery that does fresh bread & cakes on a Sunday.

calistro

Tough week again this week before a rest weeks kicks in.

Monday - Rest

Tuesday - Tabata session

Wednesday - 3hr Endurance with some over-geared intervals and hill reps focusing on cadence & sitting/standing

Thursday - Vo2 pyramid session (on turbo)

Friday - Recovery ride or day off

Saturday - Fartlek session on hill repeats

Sunday - 3-4hr endurance ride

calistro

Tuesday & Wednesday went well bar a complete soaking on the Wednesday 3hr spin, had gotten used to the warm evenings!!!

Tonight's pyramid interval was a new one to me and felt handy enough until the last 5 mins when the hurt kicked in! Hadn't really done any pyramid sessions before but these really workout your cardiovascular system!!

duffyshuffle

calistro wrote: »

Tuesday & Wednesday went well bar a complete soaking on the Wednesday 3hr spin, had gotten used to the warm evenings!!!

Tonight's pyramid interval was a new one to me and felt handy enough until the last 5 mins when the hurt kicked in! Hadn't really done any pyramid sessions before but these really workout your cardiovascular system!!

How has the training/coaching been going since?

calistro

duffyshuffle wrote: »

How has the training/coaching been going since?

Sorry, forgot to update!

Well the month I signed up for is over and it really flew. Have to say I got a lot from it, a whole different level of training from what I was at!!. I've a much better understanding of how to put a training plan together and the different type of intervals involved.

For anyone thinking of signing up for coaching I'd say do it, particularly if you want/require:

Structure
Definitive Training Plans
Support.

Will I be signing up for further coaching?.................

Most likely, went well in last 2 races with a 7th place finish in one of them, I've a hectic month ahead with holidays/family events etc, but after that the cyclocross season will be fast approaching and I'll need all the help I can get:D