Slornow and Wannabefaster's mentor group...Closed (Page 42)

Well done Neil and Marc!

Marc/Neil - well done!  Considering you both didn't feel ready for this race, those are some great results!

Originally posted by marcag

Originally posted by wannabefaster No beer? The beer and poutine was the best finish line food ever. It knocks this race down a notch for me

I know the RD, so when I saw him I submitted a formal complaint :-) Apparently this year they are doing something special for the volunteers, so it's all good. Poutine was served.

Do WTC events ever serve beer at the finish?  I can only really ever remember lukewarm water, Gatorade, and crappy pizza.  Though Tremblant did have poutine when I did it, but I certainly don't recall beer (found that afterwards as I stalked Daniela Ryf ). 

Originally posted by ligersandtions

Originally posted by marcag

Originally posted by wannabefaster No beer? The beer and poutine was the best finish line food ever. It knocks this race down a notch for me

I know the RD, so when I saw him I submitted a formal complaint :-) Apparently this year they are doing something special for the volunteers, so it's all good. Poutine was served.

Do WTC events ever serve beer at the finish?  I can only really ever remember lukewarm water, Gatorade, and crappy pizza.  Though Tremblant did have poutine when I did it, but I certainly don't recall beer (found that afterwards as I stalked Daniela Ryf ). 

Poutine will be good enough.  I can always have someone sherpa me a cold beer

Are any of you guys signed up for IMMT this year?

I know there are a few Lionel fans in the group.  Here is his post-race Q&A from a local Sprint tri a few weeks ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlolzT1MjRU

Leading up to my 40k TT, I was stressing because I wanted it to be a good reflection of my CP, but realized that the heat was taking a lot out of me and may not result in optimal performance.  Marc joked (I think/thought) that we could test after if I wanted....and though I was pleased with my performance, I thought about it for a few days and decided that I did want to test in more controlled conditions.

I did a 20' test this morning and am really pleased with my progress!  I finally broke into the 200's....with an average of 211W over 20 minutes.  My goal was 210, so I started right there and just tried to hang on for dear life.  The middle period, probably from 8 to 14 minutes, feels like it drags on forever....power sagged by a couple watts during this period, but I made up for it in the last few minutes by being able to go up a few watts (but nothing excessive that makes it obvious that I had more in me).

My estimated (indoor) CP is probably right about 200W now -- will confirm with a 5' test next week.  But in the meantime, I'm thrilled!  In the past, I've done a 199W and a 198W 20' test and was never able to cross that 200W barrier....I was confident I could do it this time and really pleased with the outcome.  And yes, I wanted to die at the end!  I was spent, just like you're supposed to be

Fantastic Nicole, that is a great result!  From what I recall, you have really dialed in your position and lowered your CDA.  Should translate to some fast bike splits in your future.

If you don't mind me asking, what was your CP from your first test?  Just curious how you have progressed since the Power Mentor Group.

I was thinking the other day that I am due for another round of testing but really, really not looking forward to the 20' test.

Yes, CdA is getting well dialed in these days.  I have a baseline from a day when I was aero testing with a sleeveless tri suit, Specialized Evade helmet, and training wheels where it was 0.29.  And then there was another day where I was wearing my M2 sleeved top, P-09 helmet, and Flo 60 wheels (with disk cover in the rear) and it was 0.25. 

Since then, I've made some modifications to my position (raised seat height, lowered front end, and more stretched out) and cleaned up the front end quite a bit (new aero base bar, tri rig front brake, WAY cleaned up cable routing) and CdA is about 0.22 now with the same clothing/gear noted on the 0.25 day!!!

During the power mentor group (2014), my CP was low-190's (but suspect the PM was reading ~10W higher then than it is now, so let's call it low-180's).  I did a bit of a run focus in late 2014 and early 2015 and had a lot of personal stress in my life at the time, so my CP had dropped down to about 170 when I first started working with Marc.  As of October, 2015, it was back up to 191W and now about 200W. 

They aren't huge power numbers, but the W/kg ratio and the W/CdA ratio are pretty good.  I'd like to break an hour at a 40k TT sometime in the future (have a lot of work to do still, but I think it's attainable eventually). 

Very impressive Nicole!  I'm still trying to figure out Aerolab, but using the data from my last race I believe that my CDA is down to around .255.

But it was a time trial start by age and I was bib 190.  I likely got the benefit of quite a bit of legal drafting and so my CDA may be artificially inflated (or deflated).

I did use the LG M-2 sleeved jersey for the first time which likely helped to lower my CDA.

Had a good time racing up Haleakala.  Good conditions, but just execution was all over the place.  For starters, I forgot my HRM.  Secondly, my Garmin decided to power itself off right when the race started...I think it had to do something with me trying to use the virtual partner course from my previous PR.  Got that up and running a couple minutes later, but power seemed to be reading really low but had no way to confirm it.  I didn't get a chance to zero offset as there is no place to back pedal on this climb so I basically just went by feel...or at least tried to.

Virtual partner was reading that I was 9 minutes ahead of pace at the 4000' mark, which meant I was on pace for a 20' personal best.  I knew that wasn't possible and figured out that I was going out way too hard despite my AP only being about 215 watts...which was well below my 230ish goal.  That was my confirmation that I had to totally ignore power at this point and just go into damage control mode.

I started to pick off some riders but I was also losing pace as my time ahead dropped from 9 minutes...slowly down to about 5 minutes.  Found myself in a group of 3 with two other friends as we approached the summit and I was pretty wasted...and started to cramp in both legs about a mile from the finish.  I basically had to come to almost a track stand to slow my pedaling down to let it release and made my way up the steepest section where I picked off one of the two I was previously with just before the line.

24th overall with a PR time of 3:31:54.  About 1:45 faster than 2014.  I was in really good form 2 months ago, especially with weight below 155.  But the last 2 months have just been crazy with work and training suffered.  Was closer to 160 on race day and my CTL was down about 20 points.  I hit the halfway at about 1:37, so the second half was about 1:55...which is pretty horrible pacing.  Probably could have managed 3:28 if I paced it better.

Lessons learned though as I had a feeling I was going out way too hard.  My Quarq may have crapped the bed though.  It's having issues with battery drain and not waking up from sleep.  The last battery I put in didn't even last a week.  Strongly considering moving to P2M for next year as this 975 model I have is no longer supported and out of warranty.

4 loop hill climb road race this weekend, and not looking forward to it at all.  High chance I may DNF as my fitness feels like total garbage.  Really not sure how I PR'd.  Felt more like I rode a 3:50.

Nicole-awesome improvement with the testing.

Marc-that is a fast TT. Well done.

Jason N-always interested in reading about these types of experiences...comparing our perceptions to what the true metrics are. Sounds like a solid effort.

Nothing too exciting here.   Been riding a good bit but no real intensity as the knee continues to recover.  Still able to have a good mileage June with over 500 miles despite the time off and limited riding due to the knee surgery.  May try to shoot for 750 miles for July since I am still not running.  Guess I could go to the pool and do some swimming but why ruin things.

Looking forward to watching the Tour....always motivating. 

Between the Tour and the Olympics, this is gonna be fun!  Though I have to get my stupid DVR working again since I can't always watch in real time.

I'm doing a 4th of July five mile race on Monday....should be about 80F and 99% humidity, so I don't expect my pace to be faster than my 10k PR....maybe more in line with my HM pace!  But it should be "fun" and a good effort.

Actually felt OK at the RR today.  Came in 6th OA in the Cat 1/2/3 race, and 4th in masters 35-49.  247 NP for 2:45 which is pretty darn good for me as I normally fade pretty bad after 2 hours.  Might have had a shot at 3rd OA and 1st in my division if I didn't do work to help bridge the gap on the top 2 for a friend of mine...we didn't make up any ground at all.  But all in all it could have been a lot worse judging by how my training has been going.  Here's to hoping my quarq battery lasts more than a few days...

Hey Jason, the CR2032 batteries that the Quarq uses are pretty commonly counterfeited.  The bad batteries will die in a hurry.  I'm not sure which ones you are getting but you might try another source if you haven't already.  Read this, for example:

http://www.microbattery.com/counterfeit-sony-watch-batteries#counter-img-

Been using duracell from the local drug store.  They are actually cr2450s. The issue I'm having though is not only draining battery, but the quarq not waking up when I spin the cranks to start a ride.  Each time I have to flip the battery to get it to wake up.  The battery drain started to happen the exact same time the wake up problem started. I'm on my 4th battery in 4 weeks.

Sounds like the battery is making intermittent contact inside the housing or there's maybe a short?  Although the battery drain is still weird.  I'm guessing it would be a pain for you to send the whole crank off from Hawaii to be serviced?

Yeah...trying to hold off on sending it in for now.  At the worst, it just means I need to buy a lot of $3 batteries.  For now I'm removing the battery and storing it in a plastic case between rides to preserve life.

I suppose it could be a magnet issue, but again it's just weird that I'm having both issues waking up the quarq and battery drain.  You would think either the quarq would never go to sleep and drain the battery, OR it would have issues reading cadence at all and never wake up.

I use the magnet glued to the bottom bracket, and it hasn't moved at all since I installed it 3 years ago.