Asphalt Junkies Winter Edition - CLOSED (Page 16)

Jo, it seems clear that you do best with a lower cadence. Just gradually introduce higher cadence drills in to your workouts to see if over time you can increase your versatility.
But don't feel as though turning 80 rpms is a big no no. In fact, Mirinda Carfrae turns a ridiculously slow cadence that looks like about 80.

I was asking about your crank arm length because if the crank arms are too long for your legs it results in a lower cadence because the feet have so much further to travel during a revolution that someone with shorter legs (relative to those cranks) might have trouble keeping up.

This is very interesting. I'm perplexed by your subjective perception of the effort since the average HR plus the max HR pretty much proves that from a cardiovascular standpoint things were relatively similar.
When you say that the HR was affected more during the higher cadence set, you must be saying that it was making bigger swings around the average, but never going higher than in the other sets....so that would suggest that it was going up, then down, then up, then down....but all within the same range as the other sets (since max isn't higher)....If so, then that makes me wonder....if it spent so much time at a value less than the average HR, why? Is there an efficiency there that you were stumbling on, then losing? A technique factor?

So the low rpm set was brutal mentally? Is that what I hear you saying? The legs felt the effort, but not the cardio system?


You know, now that I think about it, HR may not tell the whole story here. It might be that perceived exertion is better here. Here's why: I have a theory that the heart rate has nothing to do with perceived exertion. The HR is based on your body's oxygen needs. But your perceived exertion is based on your body's CO2 levels.
For instance, hold your breath while running for as long as you can stand it. You will notice that your HR doesn't increase until after you stop holding your breath, and it doesn't increase afterwards as much as you might expect..The 'suffering' you feel is the CO2 buildup in your blood stream and NOT a lack of oxygen.
So it's entirely possible that you were experiencing 3 different sets that required roughly the same amount of oxygen (hence similar HR) but that at different cadences you expelled CO2 more effectively making the difference in perceived exertion.
And on that slow cadence set, you were feeling lactate buildup in the muscles. So the buildup of lactate and the buildup of CO2 are independent factors too, because in that set you sound like you had the lowest levels of CO2 (lowest perceived exertion).

JoAnne the bike size should be on the bike itself. Typically there is a manufactor sticker that lists the bike size on the bike itself. For the crank length you should be able to look on the inside of the crank arms and it should be stamped in there. For example if it is 172.5 mm you should see 172.5 etched on the inside of the crank arm on both cranks arms.

I agree with Jeff on cadence. My cadence has been low as well and only over the past season have I really started to bring it up some more. I think when you ride the course in Wisconsin you'll be riding with a variety of cadence anyway since you'll be going up and down the many hills on that course. I wouldn't worry about that so much either. Just find the cadence that will allow you to ride comfortably and exert the least amount of effort over the distance of the course going as fast as you can of course. Your PER will dictate how hard you ride unless you have a power meter and know which zones you need to be in during the different segments of the course.

for the higher Cadence my HR was not jumping around much but more on a steady incline. The middle cadence actually shows more jumping around. That's correct for the low cadence, I definitely felt it in my legs bad very little cardio, but just the fact that I was spinning so slow made it harder mentally. Almost as if I was making no progress. See photo below for the actual graph.





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Hey everyone, just checking in as I've been out for a while. Just caught up on all posts.

TERRY!!!! 50 miles?????!!!!!! I am impressed... to say the least.

Tony, I'm excited you were able to get the power meter. I'm sure you will benefit from it.

Well, here's an update on my life the past 2 weeks:
First, I missed getting into the race I wanted (HIM Galveston). I was pretty bummed b/c a month before I had emailed IM and asked if they could tell me how many spots were left and they said it was against policy and also told me that it hadn't filled up in the past few years. Then a week after, they go and post on their fb page that their are only 30 spots left. A friend told me about it and i immediately went to sign up and it was full. I understand if they're policy is to not tell how many spots are left, but then they go and give everyone on their fb page an advantage by telling them. A little bitter about that. But of course, i know it's my fault for waiting. Honestly, it's probably for the best...
Second, I had a very busy week at work last week (75+ hour work week)... I got sick during and since I didnt slow down or go to the doc, I stayed sick all week. So, I missed 8 days of WO's. I'm still not fully recovered, but I was able to get a short bike WO in yesterday and a swim in today. I went to the doc Wednesday and am on antibiotics and something else, so hopefully I can get rid of this junk in the next couple days.

I'm also leaving for a mission trip to Ecuador in 2 weeks. I'm the leader of the trip, so there wont be any down time for me to get any WO's in... maybe an early morning run or two. So, all of this means it would have been very hard for me to be as prepared as I wanted for the Galveston HIM (April 6). Anyway, now I'm thinking about what to do... I would like to get in a HIM and actually race it and try to blow my previous time away. Galveston was perfect b/c it's the one I have done before (apples to apples). But, we'll see. Maybe I can talk my wife into letting me go back the the full I did last year and try to go sub 13... who knows.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Oh, almost forgot to tell everyone - I won one of the waterproof ipods (audioflood) BT was giving away! Basically, they were giving away like 3 of them... the way to win was submit a review of a product and i think each review got you one entry. Anyway, be on the lookout for the next drawing... doesnt take much time to write a couple reviews...

Terry good luck and have a safe trip. I hope you have a great race tomorrow. I still can't imagine doing a 50 miler and following that up a week later with a 50K! Have fun and be safe tomorrow.

Will glad to see you checking and I am hoping you are feeling better. Congrats on winning the waterproof ipod as well. With all the long swims you've done I can see where that would come in handy. Don't sweat not getting into Galveston. I think maybe this is a blessing in disguise since you'l be missing a few weeks of training while on the mission. There are plenty of races that are open that you can get into. I'm sure you will find something that fit your schedule. I'd love to see you do another full and better your time but I totally understand the constraints around doing that again.

Brenda I also hope you are feeling better as well. Glad to see you are making progress on the bike and a 20 mph avg is no joke for a workout. The hard work you are doing now is going to go a long way to conquering the bike course in Wisconsin. I totally agree with you when it comes to my wife Joyce, I still amazed she's not divorced or killed me yet. We'll see, there's still time and I need new racing wheels.

Edited by strikyr 2014-02-21 7:53 PM

Enjoy the race tomorrow Terry,

Well .. The run went well. took a bit longer than expected, but I ran through pretty much the entire course. I tried to walk for a while, but I had a few blisters and it actually felt better if I "shuffled" through the course. It was in the mid eighties and pretty humid. Hydration was good, but i should have eaten better the night before and the race fueling was not what it should have been.

What I learned after running back to back ultras: we are capable of much more than we think we are.

I learned that after 22 miles I seem to lose focus for a while (that's when I almost stepped on an alligator- it was on the side of the road, half in the brush and laying in the shadows and fortunately i was two steps away when i caught it out of the corner of my eye and even more fortunate that I had recently watched some olympic figure skating and was able to perform a back foot, reverse triple axle screaming like a 5 year old girl to avoid the sunning gator.) At that point I was able to incorporate some interval runs into the ultra for about a half mile.

Mile 24- 30 was pretty good. I was able to regain my focus and pass about six people on the way to the finish. I had a cold beer, two burgers and relaxed for a while before heading home.









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someone posted a photo of the gator at mile 23 on facebook..






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Terry, that is just awesome! I think I would find a different course to run though, or at least call swamp people to clear the path 1st!

I had a good run today, planned for 10 miles when a friend called saying he wanted to do 5. I figured what the hey, I can run 5 with him and then 5 on my own for a good day. What I did not take into consideration is that he is running on fresh legs and only doing 5 miles. I had to keep reminding him that I was not running a race and that I was not stopping at mile 5 and had to keep slowing him down. The 1st 5 miles came in at an average pace of 8:45 with several sections much faster. We split at mile 5 and I continued on, allowed my pace to drop down around 9:20 until the last mile where I picked the pace back up to be around 8:50 to finish strong.

best part of the run is as I was finishing up my step-dad was starting his morning walk so I went ahead and walked an additional 2 miles with him. It was nice to have the conversation with him and an easy cool down.

Tomorrow starts the organized training plan so it's time to kick it into gear and get down to business!

John congrats on finishing your race this weekend. I'm glad to hear that you are feeling better and that you've been able to resume your training.

Terry congrats on finishing back to back ultra's. This is no small feat and I do agree with you on the fact that we are capable of more than we ever thought we could do. I think I learned that last year training for my first IM. Thanks for posting the pics and I too had to laugh about your run in with the alligator. Also, like Brenda mentioned if you haven't used the race reports they are a great way to recap your race and we all look forward to reading them. Congrats again.

Matt sounds like you had a great run and walk today. Glad to see that you not only got your 10 miles in but you got to spend some time with your father-in-law.

Well for me I'm supposed to take a day off from training today. This week has been an especially tough week in the way of workouts. I swear Coach Rich and Coach Patrick from EN were trying to break me or kill me in week 7 of the outseason plan. I am feeling pretty good though so I think I will be doing my bike testing this afternoon. I'm gonna just give it my all and hope for the best. I'll be just swimming tomorrow so I can go all out during the test today and not have to worry about it. I've got plenty of beer on hand for my recovery afterwards.

I've been a bit absent over the past week because I was in Ohio visiting my brother who is in from Wyoming. I kept up with the posts but wasn't in a place to spend much time posting. I also may be back in Ohio this coming weekend again for a work/visit, so there may be little posting again for me beginning Thursday. My second trip may come because my company has ordered some dump trucks and the first one is coming off the line and we would like to take a look at it to make sure it's what we're looking for prior to placing an order for 3 additional trucks. The second trip may allow me to see Josh for another few days but allow the company to pay for my gas and that can be a good thing.

As I have been following the posts I have enjoyed the discussion about cycling cadence too. It's gotten me thinking about my knee injury and how it may (or may not relate to cadence. Something for me to consider (and begin to experiment with) is that lower cadences promote a more powerful pedal stroke but they can also add stress to the knee. The reason this is important to me specifically is that I am still dealing with remnants of pain from last year. Enough so that I am probably going to take a week away from running because my knee is beginning to give me fits again. But related to the bike, I have been allowing my cadence to drop to the mid-high 80's (86-88) for much of my riding throughout the winter training session. This is s drop of approximately 5 RPM. While this is not a significant number it has me thinking about the added stress to my knee and the potential effects of a more powerful stroke and the large amount of cycling I've done for the past 3 months. We'll see. Beginning with my next ride I'm going to try to maintain my low 90's cadence I had been using for the past year or so.

Terry, Congrats on the back to back Ultra's!! Being able to complete them is a pretty incredible feat. It has me envious on many levels! the pics are great and the weather is beginning to make me wish I was struggling with warmer temps. We're headed back into another cols cycle of teen and low 20's for highs and single digits for lows.

Edited by DirkP 2014-02-24 4:50 AM

Hey guys, hope everyone has been doing well and getting in some good training. Matt I did that test last year and ended up with the same results. All at same watts, however higher the cadence, higher the HR, but the less tired my legs felt at the end of the effort. Terry, great job on the ultra. Nice pics, the most wildlife I get on my runs is the odd deer. Although I have come across a goat, chickens, and a skunk in the road on several rides. So I ended up getting the flu pretty bad last Thursday night. Really felt bad and lost about 5 lbs. over 24 hours. But by Sat. I felt ok again and wanted to get out for a run since it was a beautiful day out. Well I decided to cut the run short after my HR was about 20 beats higher than normal, and my pace was about :20 per km slower. I did 7.5k and felt ok but figured I shouldn't push it. Also managed to get outside yesterday for a ride. (right after Canada won the gold in a Hockey, sorry). Took my old steel road bik out and did a quick 23k just to get some fresh air. Hope with the weather changing I'll be able to get out more often. I really need to get my run volume up, with the weather, work, illness, I've missed to many long runs, I guess I still have about 12 weeks before my HM and 20 weeks before my HIM.

I agree, Dirk.... it took me a while to figure that one out. I would do long rides and my knees would ache. I think i tried to adjust everything before i adjusted my cadence. It took me quite a while to realize that with a higher cadence i wouldn't really lose much on the bike, but my knees would feel much better afterwards. The run off the bike is much better as well. My knees never really ached after running, but after doing a century ride they would be on ice. Now it's much better.

I have about a month now to refocus on multi-sport ..

I agree, Dirk.... it took me a while to figure that one out. I would do long rides and my knees would ache. I think i tried to adjust everything before i adjusted my cadence. It took me quite a while to realize that with a higher cadence i wouldn't really lose much on the bike, but my knees would feel much better afterwards. The run off the bike is much better as well. My knees never really ached after running, but after doing a century ride they would be on ice. Now it's much better.

I have about a month now to refocus on multi-sport ..

I was able to complete my bike testing yesterday doing another 5 minute VO2 max test and the 20 minute FTP test. I felt pretty good so I figured I'd give it a go and it turned out pretty well. I definitely did see improvement over the last test 8 weeks ago based on the Kurt Kinetic bike computer power numbers. How realistic that is I can't say but the numbers are up. I also was able to get a good baseline now for the Garmin Vector power meter so I will be using those numbers going forward and updating my power zones with that info.

I also purchased EN's training with power webinar and the WKO+ software. I figured with the big investment in the power meter I should get the software to be able to analyze what I'm doing and better still understand it all. So I will be getting more educated on it this week. My test results are listed below,

First test Kurt Kinetic Bike Computer 8 weeks ago
257 avg watts for 5 minute VO2 max test
268 avg watts for 20 minute FTP test

Second test Kurt Kinetic Bike Computer yesterday
338 avg watts for 5 minute VO2 max test
309 avg watts for 20 minute FTP test

Second test Garmin Vector power meter yesterday
250 avg watts for 5 minute VO2 max test
207 avg watts for 20 minute FTP test

Dirk be safe in your travels back and forth to Ohio. Glad to hear that you got to spend some time with your brother and good to see you checking in.

Derek I hope you are feeling better and can get back on track with your training. We had a great weekend weather wise but it looks like it is going to be very short lived. The temps are headed back down again but at least we got rid of alot of this snow. I may actually be able to start riding the MTN bike and running on the trails pretty soon. I'm hoping so at the very least.

That represents a very nice improvement!

You first and second test with the KK trainer and bike computer seem to indicate a major change in FTP that looks like you had something change with the setup. Had you taken the bike off the trainer, changed the tire pressure or anything that would alter the results? That difference in FTP would have taken most people years to make up. What I would be most interested in seeing would be the difference between TR's virtual power and actual power using a power meter.

As far as the bike set up goes, in order to make sure I get as much training using the same set up I almost never take the bike off the trainer. For time when I do remove my bike from the trainer I have marked my trainer with a small black line and count the complete turns on the tension adjustment prior to removing the bike. I use 3 complete turns to turn the tension back off. This will allow the roller to be completely separate from the bike tire. I'll also check the tire pressure before most of my rides and use the same pressure each time. I'll allow only rides on back to back days without checking the tire pressure. On the third day I'll check the pressure and add as needed. Doing this seems to have allowed me to have very similar rides without large variances in "distances" or efforts.

Jeff thanks I would like to think that there was a little improvement but I take the numbers fromt the Kurt Kinetic bike trainer with a grain of salt. The next test with the power meter numbers would be a lot better way to validate any improvement.

Dirk I did remove the bike recently to get the Garmin Vector pedals installed by the bike shop but other than that I leave it on the trainer. I try and do the same with the tension on the trainer. I can't say for sure that it is exactly the same all the time but I can say I use a fair bit of tension because I don't like to experience any tire slippage. I try to eliminate that so I don't get those false high peaks in the power readings. I also pump the tire to the same psi for every ride as well.

I will say in the first test I did I don't believe I went out hard enough. If you look at my VO2 5 minute test it is lower then the 20 minute FTP test. I also don't believe that I went hard enough in the 20 minute FTP test. The second time around I went all out in the VO2 test and I went as hard as I could in the 20 minute test. Like I said I don't think I can rely too much on the KK bike computer results, they may be very exaggrated as I've seen a difference of anywhere from 50 to 80 watts in what the Garmin Vector gives me at a given time.

I think it is a good point that you are making here that we should try to emulate the same conditions that we did the testing under previously to try and get the most accurate results. I don't think my setup would have affected my results too much. I can say I feel like there is some improvement over the last 7 or 8 weeks and I do have good baseline numbers from the Vector to put together my power zones and to train with going forward.

Edited by strikyr 2014-02-25 12:10 PM