:00 E1
:05 1 x 6s RGSS (prefered leg), 1 x 6s HCLR,:1
:10 2 x 8s PG-4" RS (120rpm seated):3
:16 2 x 10s PG RS (120rpm seated):3
:22 2 x 8s PG+4" RS (60rpm):3
:28 2 x 10s PG+4" RS (60 rpm) (seated):3
:35 1 x 40s PG-4" RS R/up (10:100, 15:125, 15:max)
:42 1 x 30s HCLR R/up (10, 10, 10) 100, 130, 150+
Man this one hurt. In the best possible way, I'm sure, but... man. Very tired afterwards. Probably the worst was the rolling starts from 120RPM, because it requires at least 5 hard seconds to get there, followed by the 8-10 seconds of actual effort! I felt okay actually doing them, but they left me pretty rooted for the rest of the session. I have to concede that I didn't quite make the 40 seconds in the PG-4 rampup - 35 seconds. In the 15second 'max' effort, I got up okay, but only lasted about 5 seconds or so before my cadence started dropping back, and I think the last number I saw before I slumped over was 118.
Otherwise it was a successful session. Got up to 145RPM in 6 seconds in 53x14, saw 192 (though the garmin only recorded 186 - must've been too fleeting!) in the HCLR, and hit 154-159 in the 8-10s PGish efforts. I did have a little trouble with the cadence sensor (have to fix it more tightly to the cranks because it moved slightly, giving erratic readings once or twice) but it was generally quite consistent.
Brief stats here.
29 June 2011
26 June 2011
DISC Session #10 with ABOC
Tonight was fun! And tough. I was still a little sore from yesterday, and tired thanks to catching up on sleep, but that only really affected me when I was sitting around and warming up.
We started off with Flying 100s, which I did on 99" and then 92", to get an idea for the difference. And the difference? Well, not much. Maximums of 56.3 at 120 on 99, 56.1 at 129 on 92. On first blush, looking at the shape of the graphs (by distance, not time) it might appear that the peak is rather more vertiginous for the 99" effort than for the 92" effort, but that's just an artefact of the total distance travelled - the actual entry plus 100m follows a very similar profile - peak speed just coming out of the first bend, speed drop of about 2km/hr for a sustained speed along the straight of about 54km/hr, and then the effort ends coming in to the next bend.
Even if you compare those two to my flying 200 of a bit over a week ago (which was on 92") the profile is similar (though top speed was a bit higher at 57.1) including the speed drop in the last 100m! Still, I don't feel like I'm jumping quite hard enough, even though I'm not trying to give it 100% at that point, because I have to last the distance. Say, maybe 95% for a F100, 90% for a F200. Not sure if that's what I should actually be doing though! Top speed of 56ish km/hr is too low though - even if I was not hitting the entry as hard so as to maintain speed, an average of 56km/hr only gives me a F200 time of 12.85s or so. Still getting tyre slip too - I've got some new tyres to put on which should hopefully be grippier, and just keep trying to get my position right accelerating out of the saddle.
I was pretty tired after that, and a bit concerned about the MACs and windout to come, but I was right when I said that I actually enjoy them - I was tired, but they didn't destroy me. I didn't do any of them perfectly though - I hit the roller on all of them, which may be okay, but it disrupts the rhythm. Especially coming around the bend to the point where the motorbike jumps and you have to respond to catch it. So I was a little slow there, though not too bad, but I did the same thing again coming around to the same point, where the bike accelerates again - except this time, I simply forgot that it was going to happen so I actually had to jump again rather than just accelerate in the slipstream. Which left me a little exposed. Not too bad, but stuff I need to work on. 62.2/143 and ?/141 (on 92") are reasonable results though - a good 4-5km/hr more than 3 weeks ago.
The windout was supposed to be on 82", but although I now have a 16T, my chain wasn't long enough to get it on, so I had to go for 86" on the 15T. Although again my form wasn't that great - touching the roller, not maintaining a very smooth line - I can't complain too much. I let the motorbike get away on the last straight, but I still managed a top of 60.5/149 and held my speed down the straight pretty well. Again, a good 5km/hr and 11RPM higher than 3 weeks ago.
So actually, now that I look properly at the stats and graphs and comparisons and so on, I'm quite happy with how things are going. It's a bit like losing weight, I guess, in that random variation (a brush of the roller, moment's inattention, whatever) can easily account for 2-3km/hr difference, and the improvement is incremental - and lower than the random variation. So you really need to step back a bit and say - hey, look, that's 5km/hr faster than only three weeks ago! Which is significant (though not as significant as it appears - 5 weeks ago I hit 59.1, only 1.4km/hr slower) as it confirms that yes, improvement is being made. Slowly, but it's real. The problem is that now I want to take all of my data, put it in a table and do actual statistical analysis of it. But I'm going to resist that because it's not even remotely worthwhile. This blog is already excessive analysis! Just so long as I record the information, reflect upon what I'm doing and use it for motivation. And let Carl know what I'm doing and how I feel about it, so that he can masterfully coach me towards perfection. Or, erm, something.
We started off with Flying 100s, which I did on 99" and then 92", to get an idea for the difference. And the difference? Well, not much. Maximums of 56.3 at 120 on 99, 56.1 at 129 on 92. On first blush, looking at the shape of the graphs (by distance, not time) it might appear that the peak is rather more vertiginous for the 99" effort than for the 92" effort, but that's just an artefact of the total distance travelled - the actual entry plus 100m follows a very similar profile - peak speed just coming out of the first bend, speed drop of about 2km/hr for a sustained speed along the straight of about 54km/hr, and then the effort ends coming in to the next bend.
Even if you compare those two to my flying 200 of a bit over a week ago (which was on 92") the profile is similar (though top speed was a bit higher at 57.1) including the speed drop in the last 100m! Still, I don't feel like I'm jumping quite hard enough, even though I'm not trying to give it 100% at that point, because I have to last the distance. Say, maybe 95% for a F100, 90% for a F200. Not sure if that's what I should actually be doing though! Top speed of 56ish km/hr is too low though - even if I was not hitting the entry as hard so as to maintain speed, an average of 56km/hr only gives me a F200 time of 12.85s or so. Still getting tyre slip too - I've got some new tyres to put on which should hopefully be grippier, and just keep trying to get my position right accelerating out of the saddle.
I was pretty tired after that, and a bit concerned about the MACs and windout to come, but I was right when I said that I actually enjoy them - I was tired, but they didn't destroy me. I didn't do any of them perfectly though - I hit the roller on all of them, which may be okay, but it disrupts the rhythm. Especially coming around the bend to the point where the motorbike jumps and you have to respond to catch it. So I was a little slow there, though not too bad, but I did the same thing again coming around to the same point, where the bike accelerates again - except this time, I simply forgot that it was going to happen so I actually had to jump again rather than just accelerate in the slipstream. Which left me a little exposed. Not too bad, but stuff I need to work on. 62.2/143 and ?/141 (on 92") are reasonable results though - a good 4-5km/hr more than 3 weeks ago.
The windout was supposed to be on 82", but although I now have a 16T, my chain wasn't long enough to get it on, so I had to go for 86" on the 15T. Although again my form wasn't that great - touching the roller, not maintaining a very smooth line - I can't complain too much. I let the motorbike get away on the last straight, but I still managed a top of 60.5/149 and held my speed down the straight pretty well. Again, a good 5km/hr and 11RPM higher than 3 weeks ago.
So actually, now that I look properly at the stats and graphs and comparisons and so on, I'm quite happy with how things are going. It's a bit like losing weight, I guess, in that random variation (a brush of the roller, moment's inattention, whatever) can easily account for 2-3km/hr difference, and the improvement is incremental - and lower than the random variation. So you really need to step back a bit and say - hey, look, that's 5km/hr faster than only three weeks ago! Which is significant (though not as significant as it appears - 5 weeks ago I hit 59.1, only 1.4km/hr slower) as it confirms that yes, improvement is being made. Slowly, but it's real. The problem is that now I want to take all of my data, put it in a table and do actual statistical analysis of it. But I'm going to resist that because it's not even remotely worthwhile. This blog is already excessive analysis! Just so long as I record the information, reflect upon what I'm doing and use it for motivation. And let Carl know what I'm doing and how I feel about it, so that he can masterfully coach me towards perfection. Or, erm, something.
25 June 2011
Back in da haus!
Back picking up heavy things and putting them down again. Heavy-ish things at least, and it's starting to get more noticeable - which is good, because my form still needs a fair bit of work. Especially after missing last week, as the pathways aren't exactly laid in... well, not even cake batter, really.
Anyway:
Rowing, skipping, warmups and so on.
Squats: 3x5x50kg
Press: 3x5x25kg
Deadlift: 1x5x60kg.
Anyway:
Rowing, skipping, warmups and so on.
Squats: 3x5x50kg
Press: 3x5x25kg
Deadlift: 1x5x60kg.
23 June 2011
Spin the black turtle!
Don't blame me, blame... well, me. This is one time it'd be handy to have a ghost-written blog.
Anyway, won't bother with the program, it was the same as Tuesday - except that this time, I did it in the right gears! Huzzah! There's hope for the boy yet.
Okay, I'll admit, I only did a 30 second PG rampup rather than 40 second, but at least that idiocy was due to end-of-session brain-fog rather than cool, calculated brainlessness. And I did it all-out, not at 40-second pace and just stopped after 30 seconds - I did it at precisely the level of suffering such that 32 seconds was out of the question. Which is kinda the way it's meant to be - so long as you can remember.
The HCLR rampup was interesting - it was 30 seconds, sure, but it was more MCLR, only getting up to 151RPM. Which just goes to show that my neural pathways weren't only cognitively shot by then!
Oh, it also goes to show that this track training malarky must be paying off, since a few months ago 120RPM would have been... well, not quite astounding, but still notable.
Other stats of note... well, all the PG+ efforts were ~150, except for one which slacked off to 146, the PG were slightly higher, and the other HCLRs were just slightly under 180, indicating that perhaps my neural pathways had roadworks right from the beginning.
Slightly more detailed brief stats here.
Anyway, won't bother with the program, it was the same as Tuesday - except that this time, I did it in the right gears! Huzzah! There's hope for the boy yet.
Okay, I'll admit, I only did a 30 second PG rampup rather than 40 second, but at least that idiocy was due to end-of-session brain-fog rather than cool, calculated brainlessness. And I did it all-out, not at 40-second pace and just stopped after 30 seconds - I did it at precisely the level of suffering such that 32 seconds was out of the question. Which is kinda the way it's meant to be - so long as you can remember.
The HCLR rampup was interesting - it was 30 seconds, sure, but it was more MCLR, only getting up to 151RPM. Which just goes to show that my neural pathways weren't only cognitively shot by then!
Oh, it also goes to show that this track training malarky must be paying off, since a few months ago 120RPM would have been... well, not quite astounding, but still notable.
Other stats of note... well, all the PG+ efforts were ~150, except for one which slacked off to 146, the PG were slightly higher, and the other HCLRs were just slightly under 180, indicating that perhaps my neural pathways had roadworks right from the beginning.
Slightly more detailed brief stats here.
21 June 2011
Spin and grind.
:00 E1
:05 2 x 5s HCLR:1
:10 2 x 7s PG+4" RS (80rpm):3
:16 2 x 8s PG+4" RS (80rpm) (seated):3
:22 2 x 7s PG+4" RS (60rpm):3
:28 2 x 8s PG RS (80 rpm) (seated):3
:34 1 x 40s PGRS R/up (10:100, 15:130, 15:max)
:40 1 x 30s HCLR R/up (10:100, 10:120, 10:150+)
I had a bit of a problem this week. Yes, you're right, this is not unusual. And yes, you're right, I shouldn't be allowed near any bike with an allen key in my hand. Anyway.
My first 'problem' was whether or not to stick with 53x17 as my PG, or jump up to 53x16 since I've recorded over 160RPM in 53x16. I figured in the end to stick with 53x17, as I've only just gotten there and we're doing PG+ efforts anyway.
The second problem was that when I jumped on the bike today, it started skipping in 53x17, jumping from that to 53x16 just for the fun of it. Then maybe back again. Yes, a simple adjustment (probably) but I've grown sick of 'simple' adjustments in spin sessions, so figured I'd just call 53x16 my PG after all, and go to 53x15 for the PG+4" efforts - that is, most of them. Even though 53/17 is 81.9", 39/12 is 85.4", 53/16 is 87.1" and 53/15 is 92.9". That is, instead of doing PG and PG+4 efforts, I was doing PG+5.2 and PG+11 efforts. Erm. Then, to make matters worse (and I've done the calculations to back this up) I did the PGRS 40s effort - the one that I did last time on 81.9" and almost survived to tell the tale - in 53/15. 92.9". I am, in fact, an idiot. A numby, even. And no, I didn't last 40 seconds.
Aside from all that, an observation of note is that I get no momentum assistance from my trainer - I stop pedalling, and even on the lowest resistance setting the back wheel stops after a few revolutions. This makes the long RS efforts much more difficult than they otherwise would be, because I have to expend a fair amount of energy (especially when I'm turning 11 more inches than I should be) to get to 80RPM just to start the exercise. Good training for a kilo, perhaps, but not quite what I'm aiming for. If I can get my gears precisely tuned such that I can trust them to go bang in to the right gear (and trust my fatigued brain to count the number of clicks) then I should be able to alleviate this to an extent by getting 80RPM in an easy gear and throw it in to the target gear at the last second. But then I'll be starting the effort not with 20 seconds of grinding in my legs already, but with a sudden deceleration instead.
Brief stats here.
:05 2 x 5s HCLR:1
:10 2 x 7s PG+4" RS (80rpm):3
:16 2 x 8s PG+4" RS (80rpm) (seated):3
:22 2 x 7s PG+4" RS (60rpm):3
:28 2 x 8s PG RS (80 rpm) (seated):3
:34 1 x 40s PGRS R/up (10:100, 15:130, 15:max)
:40 1 x 30s HCLR R/up (10:100, 10:120, 10:150+)
I had a bit of a problem this week. Yes, you're right, this is not unusual. And yes, you're right, I shouldn't be allowed near any bike with an allen key in my hand. Anyway.
My first 'problem' was whether or not to stick with 53x17 as my PG, or jump up to 53x16 since I've recorded over 160RPM in 53x16. I figured in the end to stick with 53x17, as I've only just gotten there and we're doing PG+ efforts anyway.
The second problem was that when I jumped on the bike today, it started skipping in 53x17, jumping from that to 53x16 just for the fun of it. Then maybe back again. Yes, a simple adjustment (probably) but I've grown sick of 'simple' adjustments in spin sessions, so figured I'd just call 53x16 my PG after all, and go to 53x15 for the PG+4" efforts - that is, most of them. Even though 53/17 is 81.9", 39/12 is 85.4", 53/16 is 87.1" and 53/15 is 92.9". That is, instead of doing PG and PG+4 efforts, I was doing PG+5.2 and PG+11 efforts. Erm. Then, to make matters worse (and I've done the calculations to back this up) I did the PGRS 40s effort - the one that I did last time on 81.9" and almost survived to tell the tale - in 53/15. 92.9". I am, in fact, an idiot. A numby, even. And no, I didn't last 40 seconds.
Aside from all that, an observation of note is that I get no momentum assistance from my trainer - I stop pedalling, and even on the lowest resistance setting the back wheel stops after a few revolutions. This makes the long RS efforts much more difficult than they otherwise would be, because I have to expend a fair amount of energy (especially when I'm turning 11 more inches than I should be) to get to 80RPM just to start the exercise. Good training for a kilo, perhaps, but not quite what I'm aiming for. If I can get my gears precisely tuned such that I can trust them to go bang in to the right gear (and trust my fatigued brain to count the number of clicks) then I should be able to alleviate this to an extent by getting 80RPM in an easy gear and throw it in to the target gear at the last second. But then I'll be starting the effort not with 20 seconds of grinding in my legs already, but with a sudden deceleration instead.
Brief stats here.
19 June 2011
DISC Ses... I mean, Spin at Home
I had intended to go to DISC tonight, but family needs won out, so I decided to do a re-run of the Spin session from last week - this time, actually on the trainer rather than by a river!
:00 E1
:05 2x5s HCLR
:10 2x8s 53x17 RS(80):3
:16 2x10s 39x12 RS(80):3
:22 2x12s 39x12 SS(seated/L,R):4
:30 2x6s 53x16 SS(seated/L,R):3
:36 1x40s 53x17 SS r/up (10:100, 15:130, 15:max)
:42 1x10s HCLR
Surprisingly enough, the results weren't even remotely similar! HCLRs gave 180 apiece, and the next two rolling starts gave 157/158 and 153/152. More interesting were the standing starts, which I did on my PG+3.5 and PG+5.2, respectively. Both times I cleared 160RPM, with 160/161 and 156/160 respectively. So that, perhaps, is an indication that I am, indeed, getting stronger!
Then came the horrible bit, the 40 second PG ramp-up. Again, I can't claim to have done it perfectly, because there's no way I can work that hard and keep my cadence constant. I was determined, though, to last the 40 seconds, and that I did manage. It was a bit touch and go - there's a bit of a divot in my graph where I drop from 126RPM down to 118 - but then I kicked it back up to my maximum of 134, held it there for probably 6-7 seconds, dropped down to 125ish over the next few, before collapsing in a wobbly heap on the bike.
I backed up with a final HCLR of 174 - a bit down perhaps, but frankly I'm amazed I managed to do it at all.
Main win for the session? Not talking myself out of being able to do the 40s rampup. Coming up to it I found myself thinking that I couldn't possibly push all the way through, that it was too long, that I'd quit 5, 10 seconds early, or I'd only get up to a maximum of 120 or some such. But I pushed through, poured sweat on the floor, scared the neighbours with my grunting, and got the motherfucker done. Yeah. I'm real bad-arse (somehow that doesn't sound quite as 'right' as 'bad-ass'. Oh well.)
Brief stats here.
:00 E1
:05 2x5s HCLR
:10 2x8s 53x17 RS(80):3
:16 2x10s 39x12 RS(80):3
:22 2x12s 39x12 SS(seated/L,R):4
:30 2x6s 53x16 SS(seated/L,R):3
:36 1x40s 53x17 SS r/up (10:100, 15:130, 15:max)
:42 1x10s HCLR
Surprisingly enough, the results weren't even remotely similar! HCLRs gave 180 apiece, and the next two rolling starts gave 157/158 and 153/152. More interesting were the standing starts, which I did on my PG+3.5 and PG+5.2, respectively. Both times I cleared 160RPM, with 160/161 and 156/160 respectively. So that, perhaps, is an indication that I am, indeed, getting stronger!
Then came the horrible bit, the 40 second PG ramp-up. Again, I can't claim to have done it perfectly, because there's no way I can work that hard and keep my cadence constant. I was determined, though, to last the 40 seconds, and that I did manage. It was a bit touch and go - there's a bit of a divot in my graph where I drop from 126RPM down to 118 - but then I kicked it back up to my maximum of 134, held it there for probably 6-7 seconds, dropped down to 125ish over the next few, before collapsing in a wobbly heap on the bike.
I backed up with a final HCLR of 174 - a bit down perhaps, but frankly I'm amazed I managed to do it at all.
Main win for the session? Not talking myself out of being able to do the 40s rampup. Coming up to it I found myself thinking that I couldn't possibly push all the way through, that it was too long, that I'd quit 5, 10 seconds early, or I'd only get up to a maximum of 120 or some such. But I pushed through, poured sweat on the floor, scared the neighbours with my grunting, and got the motherfucker done. Yeah. I'm real bad-arse (somehow that doesn't sound quite as 'right' as 'bad-ass'. Oh well.)
Brief stats here.
18 June 2011
Blackburn Sprint Night at DISC
Well, I intended to race, really I did, but... well, having been away from home all week, my heart just wasn't in it and though I showed up and did my Flying 200, I couldn't bear hanging around for another two hours when I just wanted to be home with my family.
Another part of it was that the Flying 200 felt awful. Really bad. I did it on 92", which didn't quite feel right, but mostly because I just wasn't focussed on it - and so my jump, my form, and my ability to push the whole way just weren't there. So I didn't feel I was going to get much of a training effect out of the evening. Because, well, I'm a sprinter; there's no point going out there at 60%. And as Craig Colduck said:
I didn't check my time after the Flying 200, but I knew in myself that I wasn't on. My goal had been a sub-13 second. I felt like I'd just scraped in a sub-30 second!
Interestingly, I was right in a technical sense - I hadn't made my target. It may be argued that aiming for a 0.4second PB shouldn't be an initial training target in this sense, but no need to quibble. It turned out I rode 13.34 seconds - which is precisely (where 'precisely' in this, hand-timed, context means 'within 0.2s or so') what I rode at the come-n-try day 10 weeks or so ago. So I actually qualified to go home on the other half of Craig's advice:
One interesting thing to note from the stats is that I started my jump for the F200 from ~42.4km/hr, hit the 200m line at about 54.7, hit my top of 57.1 (@131RPM) some 20m later, and then dribbled all the way back down to 54.9 over the next 60m, popped back up to 55.7 and held there for another 60m or so, and then plummeted away after coming out of the bend (in fact, I almost sat up in the straight) to cross the line at about 52.7km/hr. This is all slightly approximate, of course, as I'm inferring from the graph rather than correlating with a GPS plot, but it's probably about right.
Another part of it was that the Flying 200 felt awful. Really bad. I did it on 92", which didn't quite feel right, but mostly because I just wasn't focussed on it - and so my jump, my form, and my ability to push the whole way just weren't there. So I didn't feel I was going to get much of a training effect out of the evening. Because, well, I'm a sprinter; there's no point going out there at 60%. And as Craig Colduck said:
If you don't make the target times or loads on the first effort or set, you warm down and go home. You aren't fresh enough to train at a level that will make you improve.
I didn't check my time after the Flying 200, but I knew in myself that I wasn't on. My goal had been a sub-13 second. I felt like I'd just scraped in a sub-30 second!
Interestingly, I was right in a technical sense - I hadn't made my target. It may be argued that aiming for a 0.4second PB shouldn't be an initial training target in this sense, but no need to quibble. It turned out I rode 13.34 seconds - which is precisely (where 'precisely' in this, hand-timed, context means 'within 0.2s or so') what I rode at the come-n-try day 10 weeks or so ago. So I actually qualified to go home on the other half of Craig's advice:
If you do a PB, you warm down and go home.So even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't possibly have stayed!
One interesting thing to note from the stats is that I started my jump for the F200 from ~42.4km/hr, hit the 200m line at about 54.7, hit my top of 57.1 (@131RPM) some 20m later, and then dribbled all the way back down to 54.9 over the next 60m, popped back up to 55.7 and held there for another 60m or so, and then plummeted away after coming out of the bend (in fact, I almost sat up in the straight) to cross the line at about 52.7km/hr. This is all slightly approximate, of course, as I'm inferring from the graph rather than correlating with a GPS plot, but it's probably about right.
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