Road to nowhere...

couerdelion

Starting up a log to try and introduce a bit of accountability into training and racing. Feel like I've been on the road to nowhere the last few years without really identifying and achieving goals.

Background - started cycling as part of that sport that includes running and swimming, but cycling is by far my favourite sport and the one I spend the most time doing seriously. Also the one that I still have goals in.

I've been A4 for 8 years? No problem usually hanging with the pack but no desire to get involved in sprints when the groups are still massive - I prioritise being able to go to work over getting points. I do have a few points (5) but not really been a focus for the last 5 years. Have raced the club league for the same length of time moving between Limit and Semi-Scratch (up and down!). Would have been SL this year.

Started in the IVCA a couple of years ago. I was initially put in with the oranges but was dropped within a few km of the first race, eventually spent most of the year racing in the Greens. Won a couple of races but my tactics are to get clear early enough and TT. Was meant to have moved to Whites this year, probably next year now if we start racing again.

The biggest limiter is definitely my size. Started this current training block at 118kg. Usually, race around 108-110kg but ideally would like to be ~90kg which will be the lightest I've been as an adult, and I was told I looked anorexic at 95kg! As you can imagine this really shows on the hills where I can struggle.

Goals

1. Get the weight down to sub 100kg by the time the race season is due to kick off in earnest - for me this is 1st Apr.

2. Get my FTP up - currently 297w (testing again later today) I'd like to get it back to where it was about 5 years ago which was ~380w. If I can get to 4w/kg I should be competitive.

3. Upgrades - from Whites to Oranges, SL to SS and A4 to A3.

4. TT's - Do a 10m with avg >41kmh and a 20m with avg >40kmh.

I'm self-coached - have a fair understanding of what I need to do and how to balance my training. Doesn't mean that I don't do stupid stuff, or that I don't know that I'm doing stupid stuff too (Zwift racing during base...). I also have a few Tri's during the year so will be cross-training across the 3 sports aiming for an Ironman in Oct 2021.

couerdelion

I've been back training for 8 weeks - reasonably consistent but maybe not as good as it could have been. 5 and a bit weeks till I break for Christmas and hopefully go home for 2 weeks.

Training for the last 8 weeks has been base phase on a 3 week on / 1-week recovery cycle. A standard week consists of 3 x sweetspot sessions a week of roughly an hour and 1 endurance session of an hour, plus two runs of 30-60mins. Pretty low volume at the moment.

I mainly use TrainerRoad and have done more or less since it launched (first FTP test Jan 2010!). I use Sufferfest occasionally and still keep a subscription mainly for the Yoga and cooldown sessions. I'm not a fan of Zwift even though I've been on it since beta - I enjoy the racing, but it definitely doesn't transfer to the real world.

I've now got 5 1/2 weeks of build to take me up to Christmas and the volume will increase a little bit.
Plan is roughly:

Mon - 40 mins Easy Run
Tue - 60 mins Trainer Road + Sufferfest Cooldown
Weds - TI Zwift Race / Run intervals.
Thu - 75 mins Trainer Road + Sufferfest Cooldown
Fri - 60 min Easy Run
Sat - CI Zwift Race + Sufferfest Session
Sun - 90 mins Trainer Road.

I did an FTP test last night - TR Ramp Test and am now sitting at 315w. I didn't feel great starting the test, hadn't fuelled well all day so maybe need to learn from that.

Tuesday morning is my official weigh-in day - so 114.5kg (~2.75w/kg)

Hopefully, 4 good weeks till the next test will push the power up to 320w (not looking for massive gains) and weight down to ~110kg and leave me in a good position to push on in the new year.

Raymzor

couerdelion wrote: »

I've been back training for 8 weeks - reasonably consistent but maybe not as good as it could have been. 5 and a bit weeks till I break for Christmas and hopefully go home for 2 weeks.

Training for the last 8 weeks has been base phase on a 3 week on / 1-week recovery cycle. A standard week consists of 3 x sweetspot sessions a week of roughly an hour and 1 endurance session of an hour, plus two runs of 30-60mins. Pretty low volume at the moment.

I mainly use TrainerRoad and have done more or less since it launched (first FTP test Jan 2010!). I use Sufferfest occasionally and still keep a subscription mainly for the Yoga and cooldown sessions. I'm not a fan of Zwift even though I've been on it since beta - I enjoy the racing, but it definitely doesn't transfer to the real world.

I've now got 5 1/2 weeks of build to take me up to Christmas and the volume will increase a little bit.
Plan is roughly:

Mon - 40 mins Easy Run
Tue - 60 mins Trainer Road + Sufferfest Cooldown
Weds - TI Zwift Race / Run intervals.
Thu - 75 mins Trainer Road + Sufferfest Cooldown
Fri - 60 min Easy Run
Sat - CI Zwift Race + Sufferfest Session
Sun - 90 mins Trainer Road.

I did an FTP test last night - TR Ramp Test and am now sitting at 315w. I didn't feel great starting the test, hadn't fuelled well all day so maybe need to learn from that.

Tuesday morning is my official weigh-in day - so 114.5kg (~2.75w/kg)

Hopefully, 4 good weeks till the next test will push the power up to 320w (not looking for massive gains) and weight down to ~110kg and leave me in a good position to push on in the new year.

IMO opinion you should consider at least one day per week where you rest!

CramCycle

Raymzor wrote: »

IMO opinion you should consider at least one day per week where you rest!

I'd agree with this, your body can't keep that up and you will end up going backwards eventually, unless your easy run is very, very easy, like walking almost.

couerdelion

Appreciate the comments.

There sometimes seems to be a fascination with rest days, rather than looking at what load your body can handle and then spreading it across a week rather than putting it into 6 days. If I did all the sessions in one day and had 6 days rest to recover nobody would think that optimal either. Nutrition, sleep, external stress and training history would be higher factors in determining whether someone is likely to suffer overtraining than whether they take a day off to do nothing? If I was to do Saturdays and Sunday's session in one day and rest Sunday then would you think that was ok?

There's no real research on recreational athletes and optimal rest and what I've found isn't recent and seems to be considering running and they're training twice a day. I've no longer access to research sites though so there may be newer articles.

2 of the runs are at MAF pace - so for me, that's roughly 118 bpm max - very easy. It's also only a maximum of 9 hours a week at the moment. It will be hitting 17 in the summer and then I'll include a rest day. I didn't train at that intensity last year but around 15 hours a week would have been normal for the last 6 years or so previous. I do also listen to my body and if I feel tired I'll miss a session. I know the key sessions and I know the ones that don't really matter (Zwift races!).

CramCycle

Its a hard one to say but maybe a day in and of itself isn't key, but just suitable rest periods. I know from Zwift it was such an all out effort that I couldn't do anything the next day, sometimes a few days. Your runs sound light enough and probably not much more than most of us do running around in work. You are right in that it is hard to map out what we read to the reality that most of us are doing other things than training, work, family etc.

On the same note, I commute 5 days a week by bike, I go out for a spin on Saturday, sometimes Sunday as well, so I can't speak about it.

couerdelion

So week 1 of the log completed.

Tuesday 10/11 - Group TR session - Monitor +1 - 60 mins of sweet spot work and it felt tough enough with the new FTP targets. 7 x 6mins at (88-94% FTP) - probably a bit of fatigue from the Ramp test the night before. The group sessions definitely help me get through the hour - seeing others still going means I don't want to be the one who wimps out. I finished the group session and went straight into Sufferfest - Extra shot (at 50%) to cooldown.

Wednesday 11/11 - TriIrl Race league. I use this as a training session, it's nothing like a bike race. Still don't understand how someone averaging 2.1 w/kg beats someone averaging 2.3w/kg especially as I have the bigger numbers so, in reality, would make a bigger difference on the flat. But I keep reminding myself it's just training. Managed to lose my chain going up a hill on Zwift. Flashbacks to the last race of the club league in 2019 where I lost a chain twice going up the same hill! Total time was 54:01 - 22/42 riders. 269w avg and still the heaviest rider in the league.

Thursday 12/11 - Group TR session - Carillon +1 - 75 mins, more sweet spot - 3 sets of 2x8mins of 88-90% FTP. Tough again but completed it all and straight into a cooldown - Sufferfest Extra Shot (50%).

Friday 13/11 - Didn't get out of work till late and got home to a power cut. Was meant to be a 45 min run but went to the chipper instead.

Saturday 14/11 - Up early for the CI race. Bike setup, breakfast had and a quick walk with the dog ended up as a long walk with the dog and a missed race as I decided I didn't need to do it. The plan was changed then to do a different session but ended up at work then home late to a beer.

Sunday 15/11 - TR Group Session - Palisade - 90 mins Threshold Under/Overs session. First threshold session of this block and struggled. It was 5 x 9 mins of 3 x (1 min at 95%, 2 mins at 105%). halfway through the 4th interval I had to stop but managed to finish the interval and the same on the 5th interval. More threshold work this week and I aren't looking forward to it.

Monday 16/11 - Run - 40 mins easy MAF run. Met a mate and chatted the whole way round. 7:09 per km / 118bpm.

Tuesday Weigh in - 113.9kg (-0.6kg).

I've been reading a book by James Smith (This is not a diet book) and the big takeaway so far is what he calls NEAT - Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. Basically moving more outside of exercise. We (Royal we, meaning me) have a tendency to do exercise and then sit and be static outside of that so sometimes burning fewer calories than if there was no exercise. The lift has been broken in work for the last couple of weeks so that's made the decision to take the stairs an easier one, plus I'm making sure I take the dog out for longer walks - Morning one is time-constrained but the night walk will increase each week by a few 100m's.

He also talks about CFD diets - calorie f*cking deficits... which is pretty much use more calories than you put in. I started logging food last week using MyFitnessPal and will keep that going as it keeps me in check.

Large bottle small glass

couerdelion wrote: »

I've been reading a book by James Smith (This is not a diet book) and the big takeaway so far is what he calls NEAT - Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. Basically moving more outside of exercise. We (Royal we, meaning me) have a tendency to do exercise and then sit and be static outside of that so sometimes burning fewer calories than if there was no exercise. The lift has been broken in work for the last couple of weeks so that's made the decision to take the stairs an easier one, plus I'm making sure I take the dog out for longer walks - Morning one is time-constrained but the night walk will increase each week by a few 100m's.

He also talks about CFD diets - calorie f*cking deficits... which is pretty much use more calories than you put in. I started logging food last week using MyFitnessPal and will keep that going as it keeps me in check.

Havea look at Dr James Levine, Harvard I think, who has done a lot of work around NEAT(He may haven even coined the term I'm not sure )

He developed pants to monitor subjects activity, how much they sat, walked etc etc.

The take away; lean people are restless fidgeters.

By just looking at movement data from people in their office workplace they could identify the lean v obese without knowing another thing about them.

Get a lean person to overeat on purpose and don't allow them exercise and their NEAT subconsciously goes up to compensate. A person who struggles with their weight won't do that

He was on a Sigma Nutrition podcast with Danny Lennon maybe 5/6 years ago. Should still be up there