Cycling Program v3.0 - 2010 - 2011 (Page 6)

Will be starting after finishing my first IM in two weeks.

I thought I'd post this as a public service announcement for why you need a powermeter   It's week two workout 1 of the prep phase.  (well, obviously you don't need one, but this kind of thing really justifies it for me, since I'm a sciencey/data/concrete feedback type):



While I'll admit this is a little extreme because the efforts are so short, my HR and power really don't match up for me in the WU and CD and 5 min efforts either (i.e. HR is about a zone lower than power for WU and CD and the 5 min).  Actually, if I show this, it show's the actual zones so you can see what I mean better:

Interesting.  I don't have a powermeter so I will be doing heart rate.  I haven't started the program yet as I'm waiting to get a half marathon out of the way in a couple of weeks, but when I have done intervals previously (admittedly longer than the ones you have posted) I get a reasonable correlation between heart rate and speed.  Certainly sufficient to clearly discern the intervals.

I'll see if I can dig out the plots from Garmin connect and will try shorter intervals this weekend and report back.

I agree this was extreme and longer intervals will certainly help because HR will creep up slowly.  Anything less than 5-10 min or so (for me, and depending on how "warm" I am) and the HR never creeps up enough.  I end up going way to hard early to get it up, then backing off to try to maintain it.  I have consistently seen my HR about a zone lower compared to power for longer efforts too (but it does track with it), that was more my point here (but it is also very nice to have exact numbers for the shorter intervals too).  Like in the HR tests, I need at least 10 min at threshold before my HR matches my power (or in races the swim seems to get my HR up enough to track from the start of the bike).

Edited by jsiegs 2010-10-28 9:34 AM

In the case you don't have a powermeter, but do have speed/cadence you can do the following:

Try best you can to setup the trainer the same way every time.
To check this, pick a gear and a cadence and try to hold it for a minute or two.  (Perhaps the easiest gear and 100rpm.)  If you maintain the same speed at the same cadence in the same gear with the same tension, you are setting up consistently to use speed if you don't have a PM.
I'll leave this to Jorge, but you should be able to use the percentages shown for power now with speed.  You can probably also do the power tests instead of HR as well.
This is what I'll be doing.

I'm confused.  Why did you choose to use the easiest gear and 100rpm for trainer setup?  I thought we were to calibrate tire pressure and trainer tension.

Yes, you want to try to always create the same setup (pressure/tension), but to check, you can use cadence and speed.  For example if I'm in 42x25 and can hold 100rpm comfortably and that equals 20mph this is my baseline.
The next time I do a trainer workout and I'm in 42x25 doing 100rpm and am going 21mph, the tension is too small - I'll need to add tension (or perhaps my tire lost a bit of air).
(Personally, I use 42x17 as a baseline, easier to maintain a smooth cadence).
It doesn't matter what the variables are (gearing, rpm or mph), just make sure they match the baseline each time.
FWIW: If you happen to be running a 52/42x(12x25), the 52x21 and 42x17 are virtually the same gearing and should produce the same speed at any cadence (ie 90rpm = 18mph for both and 100rpm = 20mph for both)

I'm also going to be doing some testing with my trainer and see how the baseline speed and variable gearing match up between the Kurt Kinetics power/MPH spreadsheet and Sheldon Brown's gearing calculator http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/. Then we can see if can make some head way on power/gearing/mph using the trainer....unless someone already has a source for this info???

I should also disclose I'm no expert when it comes to all of this, just trying to apply

I think I've got it now.  Before each workout session use the same Cadence, Gears, Tire Pressure, Speed and (RPE or HRM or CP) to calibrate Trainer Tension.  Thanks for the explanation. 

I assumed  that if the trainer was tight enough to prevent the tire from slipping that it was tensioned correctly.

It's a good start, but to really dial it in, use the protocol I described.  This also will "fix" the tire pressure variable as well if you aren't checking your pressure prior to every session.

One of the things I enjoy about Tri is that it is as much a learning experience as it is an endurance event.  Thank you BT and Jorge for opening new horizons.

I can see checking for consistent trainer tension (and tire pressure) for RPE and HRM, but for powermeter users I don't see why it's necessary.  If you're measuring power (and calibrate the powermeter before every ride), any variation in the trainer tension or tire pressure is irrelevant because it's reflected in the power measurement, right?

I would agree, but probably still try to keep my tire pressure consistent.

I was going to post something similar but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I'll just add the following for those going by HR.  When doing the shorter sets, and the target calls for 95-100%, you should not "feel" like you're going 100%, not even close.  Remember, you're interval is 100% of what you can hold for an hour - not what you can hold for 30 sec, 1 minute, whatever.  When I was doing the 30sec intervals from Q1 for this week's sessions - they were not difficult.  Why?  Because I was supposed to be able to hold that effort for much longer.  So, if you find that you're really pushing yourself and getting gassed, and wondering why - it's cause you're working way, way too hard. Your HR will never catch up to your effort until you're into the middle or end of your main set(s).

If you are talking about adjustable magnetic trainers then you may get a ball park at one point, but the curve will not be known.  Blackburn has a pdf that shows an example of what their magnetic min and max curves look like vs fluid trainers, etc.

KK had on an old web page a couple of formulas for some trainers they tested.  Their older computer enabled you to adjust the A and B variables in the formula so that the computer could be used with some other trainers.  Note that none of these are adjustable magnetic trainers, if a mag curve was known (e.g. Blackburn's min or max curves) then that curve could probably be approximated in the formula for use in the spreadsheet:
Kinetic Cyclone - 6.48109x + 0.020106x3 (wind trainer)
Kinetic Road Machine - 5.244820x + 0.01968x3
CycleOps Fluid2 -  0.74715x + 0.0466912x3 (found that CO made a change to the Fluid2 recently (08/09?) and that the curve is now virtually identical to the KK road machine and was confirmed by a rider with Powertap measurements on a 2010 Fluid2 from 14 to 21mph)
BlackBurn Fluid - 9.00528x + 0.00999636x3
Elite Fluid Alu - 7.11346x + 0.00885877x3
PerformanceTravelTrac Century Fluid - 4.145000x + 0.01217x
Spinervals Super Fluid 4.5 - 5.244820x + 0.01968x3 (Made by Kurt Kinetics? same formula)

If anyone has one of the above trainers and want to use MPH for power training the formula in the spreadsheet available on Jorge's blog can be modified (or send me a note and I can do it of you).

OK, I take back what I said about one of the workouts not being that hard...

Just finished Prep 2, Day 2, that last 5 min in the main set was a killer burn!

Looking forward to next week's testing.

I do my workouts Mon, Tues, Thur and Sat.  I finished day 3 last night and man did I sweat.  It was pretty tough because I did some weight training and a mild hill repeat run workout the day before. 

I'm also looking forward to the testing because just a couple weeks has shown me a lot about what I was doing wrong last year on the trainer. 

Donto -
Thanks for posting.  I have an ancient Blackburn (not even sure what model) and I'm just going to assume since most of the mag trainers look to have a relatively linear curve it will only require some simple math with enough data points to hopefully do a reasonable regression analysis.
The Kurt Kinetic Power/MPH curve increases at a decreasing rate (if I remember correctly I think that means it's a negative exponent?) and it's linear (trendline) equation is MPH = 0.0388x + 9.0109.

Looking at some data points from last nite: the 42x17 and 52x21 same MPH theory does not apply.  I must be missing a variable somewhere.
At 100rpm 42x17 = 17.8mph and 52x21 = 19.2
At 90rpm 42x17 = 16 and 52x21 = 17.4

The official start of the plan is almost here! Please find the first week of the program posted on my blog, enjoy!

Week # 1


PS. I'll catch up on thread replies over the weekend, we have a bunch of work adding new stuff to our company, lots of exciting things happening

Day 3 of week 2 prep is completed. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to finish the last 5 of the 3rd interval but I made it through it.  Going to try to get the optional day 4 in on the 31st and then start the real thing on Tuesday.

Thanks again for all the time and energy you have put into this Jorge.

Have a great weekend

Darrell

 

That won't last long..LOL!  Just messing with you..it is a very hard workout...mentally and physically to do a 30 min TT.  I dread them but they are a necessary evil to be a good cyclist.  Make sure you are nice and rested for the workout and enjoy!  I will be in the basement grinding through it myself.

Edited by rymac 2010-10-30 12:03 PM

Just finished this one and had the same thought.  That was a good workout!  I'm already seeing an increase in performance just from these two weeks of prep work. 

For those of you that use WKO+, can I get some pro/cons versus just using Garmin Training Center or Golden Cheetah?  I am reading the Coggan/Allen book, and so far most of what they have discussed, I won't really use.  Is it worth the $125?  Thanks.

Edited by shmeeg 2010-10-30 1:19 PM

Am I right in assuming that next week's day 1 testing for heart rate users is just a 30 min TT?  Wait I should re-phrase that and not say 'just' and say a grinding 30 min TT test.

The Day 4 workouts seem to be the most difficult for me.  I just finished the week 2 / day 4 and man, I felt that.

Now the fun begins!

You can find the details on Jorge's blog here