Crosseyed and Painless

Light Show, Part Two

2005-11-08T20:18:00.000-05:00

In an earlier post, I expressed some excitement over my new Planet Bike Super Spot, which uses the fairly new Luxeon Star LED technology. Tonight, I commuted with it, and it met my expectations. This is a fine bicycle light.

For comparison purposes, I paired it up on the handlebar of my commuter bike with the Niterider NR-50, a 7.5-watt alkaline-powered incandescent light I used very successfully last winter. (The NR-50 uses four C batteries, although I got longer run time by putting together a homebrew connection to a spring-connection lantern battery). My route takes me on fairly well lit streets as well as dark, unpaved bike trails and park roads. Almost everything about the Planet Bike light matches up with the Niterider, with the exception of the pool of light it throws. The patch of light illuminated by the Planet Bike light is not as big, which may make some people nervous in terms of their ability to pick out and avoid road hazards. I was comfortable with it, however. The Planet Bike was every bit as bright as the Niterider. It even made a visible patch of light on lit streets (a rule-of-thumb test standard applied by some fellow light geeks--whether it's a proxy for brightness or an actual safety need, I have no idea). Using four AAs, compared to the four Cs used by the Niterider, the Planet Bike light wins easily on weight. With a purported run time of 30 hours, it easily beats the Niterider, too, which has something like a two-hour run time with four Cs. (The run time with a lantern battery was far longer, but that's even additional weight compared to the four Cs.)

This is not a light you would want to use bombing down singletrack off-road trails at night. It's clearly not going to pick out hazards well enough to allow for safe riding. On the other hand, this may be the best light/technology ever for commuting or randonneur-style nighttime riding. With a pair on your handlebars, it's likely that this light will rival any 12-15 watt Niterider, Cateye, Cygo or other brand light marketed to commuters. The longer run time means more convenience, and the lighter weight means less to lug around on your frame/body. In short, this is a major leap forward in the bicycle lighting field. We have (in a figurative and probably literal sense) moved from vaccuum tubes to computer chips here.

Light Show, Part One And A Half

2005-11-06T21:02:00.000-05:00

Last night, I mounted a Minoura Swing Grip on my DeRosa to mount the two headlights I mentioned in the post below. The purpose of the test wasn't necessarily to try the lights out in the dark, but rather to see how they rode on the Minoura mount. The Niterider, with a rather traditional, bread-and-butter screw clamp mount, was solid all day, but the Cateye, with a weird rubberized strap mount, was wiggling all over the place. I found I couldn't get it tight enough on the Minoura grip, so on rough roads, and even on not-so-rough roads, it was rotating around the bar. After I got back, I slipped a piece of inner tube under the clamp to see if that helps it hold more solidly.

By the way, the Minoura Swing Grip is by far the best "off-the-handlebars" mount I've come across. It takes up almost no room on the handlebars (in fact, I used the stem instead of the bars as an attachment point) and drops the lights down lower, where the angle can pick up road hazards better. It survived some rather rough roads today in Upper Montgomery County, MD, so I suspect it should be a solid performer.

Light Show

2005-11-05T21:41:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit of a bike-light geek. It comes in part from commuting by bike, made possible half the year only by having good lights, and from ultra-riding/randonneuring, which I did for a number of years before becoming a full-time duathlete. Lighting has until now been a game of trade-offs: Run time, lighting power, weight, and resistance are all factors one had to consider when choosing a light system. The rechargeable commuter lights threw out a nice patch of light, but had limited run times, but the alkaline-battery powered lights were a little underpowered for many circumstances. The battery powered lights required you to change batteries often and weighed you down, but the dynamo powered lights sapped power from your pedaling, faded when you were climbing and (in the case of the sidewall driven generators) slipped in the rain.

Lately, much of the research has been in how to create LED headlights and make them stronger. The first LED headlights were crap. I rode with a 1.5W cateye that threw out a very weak bluish light and was made so cheaply the case cracked at the mount (not just once, but twice, with virtually identical cracking patterns).But the light manufacturers have been doing some good work, and I think the LED lights are getting better. As the change back to standard time has loomed over the past month, I've started playing with this Cateye model and the Niterider Ultrafazer 3.0. Neither is good enough to be a primary light source on a dark commute down a bike trail, although they might be adequate if one is riding on fully lit streets--if one is only concerned about visibility to cars and maybe picking out a road hazard or two. But what has me really excited is the Planet Bike Super Spot, a 1-watt bike using the new Luxeon Star LED technology. (I have one of these on order. I'm just waiting to put it on and try it out.) This Luxeon Star technology has the reputation of being every bit the equal of strong incandescent lights, with a far longer run time and lower battery consumption. I suspect that we will see some great strides in this direction in the near future. For the time being, though, I'm looking forward to playing with these new lights to find out what they can do.

Wow! A Newspaper Covers A Triathlete!

2005-11-02T08:54:00.000-05:00

Besides making a decimal point error, this Washington Post article on junior world triathlon champion Stephen Duplinsky is pretty good.

(The decimal point error is that they said the tri swim is 7,500 meters. Wow, that would be a long way!)

From Stone Age To Computer Age

2005-10-26T20:27:00.000-04:00

Thanks to blogging compatriot Josh, I'm now signed up for trainingpeaks.com, an automated coaching/training tracking system (Thanks, Josh!). I've known for years, in broad general terms, how to periodize and peak for goal events, and I know the importance of logging your training volume, and I've done both in somewhat unsophisticated (yet effective, at least in my opinion) ways--mostly involving logging my volume in a notebook and keeping my general plan in my head--but this has a lot of automated features in both the monitoring and the planning department, and this is improving my training sophistication. My annual training plan doesn't kick off until next week, according to "Hal" at trainingpeaks, so everything I'm doing now is theoretically unimportant, but I'm logging now just to get the feel for the system. Based on your A races, trainingpeaks works backward and sets up the annual training plan for you, starting from the "anatomical adaptation" phase, in which you do strength training to get your body for the training stresses ahead, right up through the base, build, peak, and racing phases. Next week, my first two workouts are a strength training workout and a session of strides on grass, so I know what's ahead. The web site also includes an expansive menu of workouts that it designates for you based on where you are in the training cycle (including a glossary, thankfully).

As for the tracking, this is a screenshot of what I reported from my morning workout:

As you can see, we list fairly detailed data: Ratings of our physical well being, heart rate ranges, routes, which bikes (or shoes, in the case of runs) and a tag that correpsonds with a workout from the trainingpeaks menu.

So far, I'm pretty satisfied. Yes, it's pretty cookbook-y, in the sense that it's busy telling me what I need to be doing five months from now based on only a little bit of data--but I'm always free to ignore what trainingpeaks is telling me for a given day.

So, if you like what you see, throw Josh a little love: contact him through this web site and he probably would be happy to take you on as a coaching client using trainingpeaks.

Getting To Zero

2005-10-17T15:17:00.000-04:00

I had an interesting conversation today with central Maryland triathlon coach David Flynn, trying to learn more about his approach to fueling for iron-distance and other long- to ultra-distance events. David is writing a book right now, so he probably would like to preserve a full exposition of his ideas for the book, but he did discuss with me his methods.

What David factors into his calculations that nobody else does is the speed of the athlete. So, for a long- or ultra-distance event, David develops a spreadsheet that uses the athlete's weight, rate of speed, and the duration of the event based on the speed they're traveling. "Humans are like automobiles. You need to know all three. It's the only way of doing an accurate energy assessment," he says. He builds in some assumptions about the athelete's level of glycogen stores, and also assumes that 50 percent of the energy will be derived from fat. From that basis, he tries to derive how many calories the athlete will need, and a feeding schedule to match intake with output. The goal is to finish the race with a net of zero. With the CheseapeakeMan experiment referenced before, he says he was able to identify when one of his athletes participating in the experiment hit the wall, based on a missed drink bottle or two.

Again, all other training guides use duration as the only factor in the energy consumption calculation. Factoring in speed is something fairly innovative, if not revolutionary. As David puts it, "I wonder why it's not in any triathlon book in print."

If you're interested in hearing more, David can be reached here.

Not Gathering Dust

2005-10-14T09:21:00.000-04:00

Over at Duathlonblog, I've been doing some posting on a recent Inside Triathlon article on the decline and fall of duathlon in America. Since IT doesn't post their content online, I did a public service and posted it online for my readers (at least until the cease-and-desist letter comes). If the topic interests you, go have a look.

Triathlon Results

2005-10-11T16:43:00.000-04:00

Detailed personal results are done now. No real surprises, other than both my bike (26th fastest) and run (22nd fastest) were about equal relative to the rest of the field. That means I finished the swim in 331st place, but it settled nothing in terms of the final finish, given that my 30th overall finish was only a little bit behind my overall bike and run splits. I surrendered something like four minutes to the fastest swimmer, but he also was able to bike and run faster than me, too.

If I had time, I'd analyze cumulative bike, T2, and run times of all the folks ahead of me and identify how many of them I lost to because of my swim. I'm guessing it's only a couple.

Nutrition And The Ironman

2005-10-11T10:25:00.000-04:00

Central Maryland triathlon coach David Flynn ran an interesting experiment with some of the athletes he advises at the recent ChesapeakeMan iron-distance triathlon in Cambridge, MD. David doesn't put his content online, but sends it out via email, making it next to impossible to link to it, so I'm going to quote liberally and then send you over to David himself.

(T)he goal of this test was to test a calorie model for race intake such that Scott and Patrick would have better performance than their peers. ... In this case, we charted the calories needed for both Scott and Patrick per race hour per event based upon the latest calorie charts using their weight and predicted race speed. They assumed an 11 hour effort, swimming about 30 minute miles, 20 MPH on the bike and 8 minutes per mile in the marathon. ... Our pre-race assumptions were that Scott could carry 1500 calories (90 minutes worth) in stored muscle glycogen, and anything he ate or drank would be useful 1 hour later. Further more, we assumed half of his race calorie need would come from stored fat after his initial 90 minute pre-race store was expired.

We did a post mortem on the race to get the actuals Scott ingested, and created column H. As you can see, Scott was at minus 99 calories just before hour 10 of the event. This is the wall people talk about, but one missed yogurt smoothie at the run transition was what had the wall come so early.

As a result of this test, both Patrick and Scott added significantly to the calories they planned for the race without the chart. Even so, they both fell short of the charts goals, but Scott followed it closest.

Interestingly, Scott had the fastest time of this group of six, and new comer Patrick was second fastest. Those not in the study finished between 15 and 60 minutes after Scott. All are accomplished Triathletes, and I by no means mean to take anything from their accomplishment in finishing a race this long, by implying diet make the key difference in performance.

But, in fact, I believe this kind of detail that I have been using all season is now proven to work on others. I firmly believe after this test that it IS possible to dramatically predict a racers caloric needs, if I have their speed and weight.

Most coaches and nutrition advisers that I'm aware of use weight and time exercising as the only variable in predicting the nutrition needs of athletes in ultradistance events, so adding the twist of the speed is new to me. I'll be interested in seeing further research into this.

Another interesting twist: David's choice in nutritional products.

We planned 260 Calorie Yogurt Smoothies (the highly fortified Yoplait ones I use) which out class any gel on the market.

I'm staring at an empty bottle of peach-flavored Yoplait Nouriche SuperSmoothie on my desk right now. Yup, it's pretty powerful: 260 calories, 0g fat, 55g carbohydrate (42g sugar and 5g dietary fiber), 10g protein, a decent vitamin and mineral profile. The lack of fat tarnishes its star a little bit, particularly for multi-day events. Its top ingredient is milk, however, which would make me nervous using it in a race (plus it needs refrigeration, reducing its usability in a long event in which refrigeration is not feasible). Also contains sugar and high fructose corn syrup, the current vogue demons of the American diet. I can't necessarily criticize it, but there are some warning signs to me.

But beyond that, David has brought to my attention some new things to consider as I try to conquer my own demons in competition nutrition.

Out Of The Water ...

2005-10-09T21:27:00.000-04:00

... but nearly not. The ocean surf was so rough I don't think I would have liked to have been out on a boogie-board, much less swimming a quarter mile in it. Long story short: Rough surf had me swimming Tarzan-style, head out of the water, for what had to have been the first three minutes of an eight-minute swim. I wanted to keep my head up to make sure I wouldn't be slammed by a breaking wave unaware. If I did 100 strokes with good form through the entire swimming part of the race, it would surprise me. Luckily, we were pushed up the shore to the finish, making it pretty elementary once we cleared the break zone. Just swim, sight, swim, sight (more sighting than swimming), make the turn on the last buoy and wait until the waves pushed you onto the shore. The most impressive sight -- 100 red-capped swimmers rising a huge swell as they rounded the first buoy ahead of me.

On shore, a top 40 bike clawed me up to the pointy end of the race, and a top 30 run landed me a 30th place finish (though well down in the age group). Text file is here (no photos yet, but that should be pretty hilarious). I'll link directly to some individual stats tomorrow. Right now I want to have a beer and relax.

UPDATED: Forgot to mention--in the brief warm-up we were allowed, a wave yanked my heart-rate monitor off, so it's probably down in Davy Jones' locker. Should you be in Cape Henlopen, DE, in the near future, and come upon a Polar Coach watch, and it's still working, well, contact me through this blog.

Into the Water

2005-10-06T06:53:00.000-04:00

I'm competing in a triathlon this weekend, something I don't care to do too often because my swim is so lousy. But after the last one, which my neighbor talked me into, I started mouthing off, and before I knew it he had entered, so I felt obligated to, and from thus stupid macho challenges are born.

Anyway, I really don't have a race plan. I plan to survive the swim, which while it will likely be wetsuit legal, is still going to be an ocean swim. (I've only been pool swimming, which gives me no reference point for my relative strength and mental abilities in murky and disorienting ocean surf. Meanwhile, it's not like I've been killing myself on the bike and run lately, so I don't know my strength there, either.) The relative length of the swim compared to the rest of the race, however, gives me a definite leg up in that I won't lose too much time to better swimmers. On the bike and run, I intend to try and appreciate the beauty of the park and town through which the race passes.

One side note: Cape Henlopen is well known for being a ground for horseshoe crabs to lay eggs in the springtime. To wit:

The most incredible spectacle at Cape Henlopen comes in May close to the time of the full moon. It is during this time that endangered horseshoe crabs, prehistoric arthropods that have remained unchanged for 360 million years, come to the beaches to mate and lay their eggs. The small green eggs are laid in nests between the high tide and low tide lines and a single female can lay 80,000 eggs during the mating season. It is around this time that hungry shorebirds flying north arrive along the shores of Delaware to the waiting feast just a short distance under the sand. By the end of June the birds have doubled their weight and the horseshoe crabs have returned to the bottom of Delaware Bay.

Housekeeping

2005-10-04T20:28:00.000-04:00

I've won the golden ticket from Wordpress to use their new hosted site, and because I like it better than blogger, I'll be moving the Crosseyed and Painless blogging activity over there in the next few days. If you come over here and don't see any new content, look for it at http://jgardner.wordpress.com/.

Alotta Pilates

2005-10-04T19:55:00.000-04:00

I've begun taking a mat pilates class. I didn't really seek pilates out, but it happens to be offered four times a week at the gym in the building where I work (which I belong to for sheer convenience's sake, simply to give me a place to shower and dress after bicycle commuting). All classes are free there, so it's that much more convenient. It's in the middle of the day, which doesn't interfere with my training schedule (unlike the twice-weekly yoga class, which is after work). So it really is simply a matter of convenience over any particular faith in pilates as a superior technique for strengthening and stretching.

Joseph Pilates' methods were first most popular among dancers, according to this brief history of pilates, which also goes on to say "he drew a following with dancers who took to Pilates for its ability to create long, lean muscles and a strong, streamlined physique. Legends Martha Graham and George Balanchine were among his clientele." For a beginner like me, accustomed to using brute force, the deft, dancer-like movements required of quality pilates practice is as much a challenge as the strength one must demonstrate to complete the exercises. A good hourlong class helps me also detect tightness and imbalances that must be evened out to have a complete fit body. An area that seems to be a challenge for me is in the hip flexors--not in holding the legs up, but rather holding my trunk upright while seated on the ground with my legs held out in front of me.

Now I'm not of the opinion that one must necessarily do strength training in order to be a good runner or cyclist--plenty can and do succeed quite well without it. But when fatigue sets in, having good trunk strength can help you maintain good form, averting the slowdown that can come with poor form.

Having done both yoga and pilates, I can say that I prefer yoga by just a little bit--the relaxation that yoga engenders is what I look for in any workout I do that doesn't involve my bicycle or running shoes. However, I must say that pilates is a much more efficient use of time in terms of improving flexibility and trunk strength.

Tatyana is my teacher. I don't know much about her, other than that she has an eastern European accent, perhaps Russian. If I knew the studio from which she was hired, I would link to it. She also is knowledgeable about yoga because we've done some yoga poses to warm up for pilates workouts.

I've purchased this DVD to help me in my practice, especially the days (like Thursday) when work appointments will take me away from my hour with Tatyana. For more about Joseph Pilates theories, check this out.

What Are Intervals? (Part Deux)

2005-10-01T12:10:00.000-04:00

In an earlier post, I discussed the issue of recovery time in intervals in reference to an October Running Times article (I can't link because they don't appear to put current content online). The November issue has a report from Pete Pfitzinger that I think ought to clarify things for RT readers.

The optimal ratio of hard running time to recovery time depends primarily on how intensely you run the intervals and only secondarily on the length of the interval. Thus, cruise intervals, which require only a modest amount of recovery time (e.g. 30 second to two minutes) because the intensity is only moderately high, have a relatively high work to recovery ratio, about 5:1. VO2 max intervals are shorter but faster than cruise intervals, with reatively longer recoveries (e.g. 90 seconds to three minute), resuting in a work to recovery ratio of 1:1 to 2:1. Because shorter repetitions to improve your speed are run at an even higher intensity, the recoveries are comparatively long, with a work to recovery ratio of 1:2 to 1:4.

There's not much more I can add to this, other than to recommend that you go buy the issue or go down to your mailbox to see if it's arrived.

(Disclaimer: I do not work for Running Times, although if they're hiring ...)

How Much Mileage?

2005-09-27T14:52:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post sports section had an article this morning about summer miles put in by some of the top high school cross country runners in the D.C. area. I'm usually of the "no pain, no gain" camp, but these kids were logging up to 100 miles a week to prepare for a race of five kilometers or less.

To prepare for his senior cross-country season at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, Mikias Gelagle decided his summer needed to be high in mileage -- and low on everything else.
He got a job at a bakery in June, then quit before his first shift because he feared working would keep him from running. Dinners cooked by his parents seemed too greasy, so Gelagle learned to make basic, high-carbohydrate meals for himself. He stopped going to movies or parties with friends, instead sleeping 11 or 12 hours each night.
For three months, Gelagle, 17, trimmed his life -- and his focus -- to a singular goal: run up to 100 miles each week to build endurance and gain an edge over other high school runners.

I admire Gelagle's single-minded focus--hell, I wish I had three months to dedicate to a single race--but balance is really important in life, too. If you're not a professional, this is overkill. The most I ever logged was 72 miles in a week, and that was while training for a marathon. Getting up to 100 miles might have benefited me as a marathoner, but there wasn't enough time in the week for that. For a 5K, however, so much more is dependent on the quality of your workouts--your ability to tolerate moderate levels of lactic acid for 16 to 18 minutes and, while suffering from that, change speeds to gap your opponents. I can't see how the extra 50 miles makes a difference in developing those qualities, and really makes the kid vulnerable to injury and burnout. I wish him well--and maybe he'll prove me wrong. I hope he does, but reading this makes me apprehensive.

Back To Basics

2005-09-21T20:40:00.000-04:00

If I were a philosophy student trained in logic, I would have titled this post "Occam's Razor." But since I only have a BS in journalism, I didn't (and there are those who would argue that an education in journalism is BS, but I digress). The issue is this: Starting five years ago, I began having trouble with nausea and vomiting in long-distance events. I've tried different products, ranging from Spiz to Extran to Perpetuem to Sustained Energy. I've tested all kinds of theories: First I thought it was caloric density that was the problem, then routine hyponaetremia. But (and here's where Occam's Razor comes into play--that notion that when you're given two equally predictive theories, you should choose the simplest) I have to pursue the theory that it's the engineered food products that are causing me the problem. There was a time, a two or three year period, when I rode my bike 100 miles almost every weekend, consuming along the way nothing but normal foods. I learned then that certain foods, such as doughnuts, did not agree with me when I rode, but in general, if I chose simple, light foods, I thrived on solid foods.

In the process of trying to figure out why I was getting sick, I learned a lot about my body. I learned I could ride for hours consuming just 190 calories an hour, well below the 240-280 calories that the experts recommend. I also learned that even though I don't think of myself as a heavy sweater, I can lose 40 ounces of water an hour in hot conditions. So I have a knowledge base to work from, which gives me some help.

As examples of simple "real foods" I'm planning on using in the near future:

-- Last autumn, I rode a couple of centuries relying on a recipe (which I read about in Ed Pavelka's very informative newsletter from the RoadBikeRider web site) for a panini popular even today in the professional cycling peloton. It consists of toasted white bread, dipped in a saucer of wine (to aid digestion, they say) with a spread of jam and soft cheese. Ham can be added if it's not too warm. The panini is sliced in four squares. Made with brie and sans ham, that sandwich comes out to about 350 calories, or not quite 90 calories a square. Two squares in an hour roughly meet my caloric needs.

-- The vegan ultrarunner Scott Jurek uses as part of his training/racing nutrition dates rolled in chopped almonds, a treat that would pack about 60 calories, or slightly less than a single serve packet of a typical gel.

Given that I've had more success using real foods instead of engineered foods, I am cautiously optimistic about my upcoming performances.

Heel Strike in Running

2005-09-16T19:31:00.000-04:00

With the growing popularity of POSE and Chi running, I read in online forums and discussion boards about the evils of heel strike (here, for example--and, of course, a lot of interest in different ways of improving form). Well, my name is Jon, and I'm a heel striker. I've never regarded it as evil, and have considered it to be a far more efficient means of propulsion than one of its counterparts, the toe strike. (Toe strikers are painful to watch, and have all the grace of a first-timer on a pogo stick.) I've never understood what people mean by "mid-foot striker," because try as I might, I can't modify my stride, at least while walking, such that the absolute middle of my foot is the first part to strike, at least without going through some ridiculous and unnatural contortions. Same with toe striking. Yet lots of experts--probably many who have more hours in POSE clinics but many fewer miles and palmares to their names--tell us that heel striking is bad, wrong, inefficient, a sure route to injury, a sure way to slow your running times, etc.

I've reviewed the basic principles of Dr. Romanov's POSE method and find most of them very sound (although his crossover into speed skating and swimming leaves the distinct scent of huckster in the air), but I'm still baffled by this notion of the mid-foot strike. (I'm also amused by another idea he promotes, that of trying to use gravity in a vertical plane to accelerate one in the horizontal plane.) How, exactly, does one stride forward, which necessarily brings the heel closer to the ground than the arch or the toe, and yet have the middle of the foot strike the ground first? Does one point one's toe in order to make the foot parallel before the foot strikes the ground? Is one's foot accelerating backward at such a speed that one's foot actually strikes the ground behind the hips? What does this mean? Neither of those anatomical contortions seem to be more efficient than the heel strike.

In truth, I'll bet if you surveyed sales clerks at running stores, they would tell you that 90 percent of runners land on their heels, even the ones who purport to be mid-foot strikers. When I run, I may feel it the most on the middle of my foot, but the outsole wear tells the not-so-sad truth that I strike on my heel.

So, as a response to all of this, I went to my reference on all things running, Galloway's Book On Running, (mine is a first edition) to see what the master said about running. The drawing below encompasses Jeff's attitude on the whole heel strike issue:

The issue is overstriding. Overstriders almost by definition must be landing on their heels. Not only does overstriding actually slow you down, it's very hard on your ankles, knees and hips. But landing on your heel with shorter strides, simply is not a bad thing, as Galloway demonstrates above.

I know it will take a lot of convincing, but I'm determined to demonstrate that even the most devout POSEur is a heel-striker, and that it's not necessarily a bad thing.

"Self-Awareness Is A Beautiful Thing"

2005-09-06T10:07:00.000-04:00

Those were the words my wife said to me shortly after I made the decision to drop out of The Canadian half-iron duathlon on Saturday. With rising nausea on the final 15-kilometer lap and 13 miles of running confronting me, the race was either going to end with me walking out of the transition area voluntarily or vomiting in the medical tent. When I decided to DNF, I was instantly at peace with it. This is a problem that I can't seem to shake, and the only way to address it is to, well, choose shorter-distance races. I wish it didn't have to be so, but that's how it is. Next year, I'll change my focus.

Now on to happier news.

On Race Day Preparation

2005-08-30T15:06:00.000-04:00

It's more than obvious that one must train sufficiently to be able to finish any endurance sporting event, from the lowliest 5K run to the Ironman World Championships to the Race Across America. But what about the little details that make the difference between champions and runners-up, or steal seconds and minutes from the middle-of-the-pack competitor?

It's said that one of Lance Armstrong's strengths in his seven Tour de France victories (recent French press reports notwithstanding) was his attention to detail in his preparation. As his coach, Chris Carmichael, pointed out on Cyclingnews.com before the 2002 Tour:

He's ridden all the decisive stages of this year's Tour de France, at least once if not more. Mont Ventoux, the two time trial stages, the team time trial, the other mountain stages - Le Deux Alpes and La Plagne.

Lance Armstrong almost lost the Tour in 2000 on the La Plagne climb, and that was an important reason why they went to the Dauphine. In 2000 if Lance Armstrong had bonked 3 km earlier he could have lost the Tour.

There's some pressure on Lance Armstrong's team to keep him in close enough striking distance going into the mountains. His opponents will try and take suicide breaks to gain as much time on him as possible. [Andrei] Kivilev did a remarkable ride last year [he gained 30 minutes in break only to gradually lose it in the mountains]. If you just sit and wait and calculate out how much time you can gain each day - that's fine unless he has a bad day. If for some reason he has a crisis and he can't do it, you start to run out of stages.

Most of us don't have the time to go out and pre-ride every race we compete in, but we can usually make a good assessment of the conditions that will face us. Is the course flat or hilly? Is it wide open and windy, or forested and still? Are there lots of straight roads, or is it winding and technical, with plenty of turns? Is it likely to be crowded at the start? If swimming is involved, is it an inland lake, or is it in the ocean?

My goal race is in four days, in Ottawa, Canada. Pre-riding the course is obviously out of the question, but I have had plenty of time to consider the conditions I'm likely to face. It's in the city, so it's likely to be fairly still when compared to the countryside. The course borders a canal, so it's likely to be flat. All of those things favor a fast time. The only adversity I'll face is the course's multiple out-and-back segments--for my race, six times over a 56 mile bike leg. That means I'm expecting to face 10 180-degree turns on a two-lane road.

Now, 180-degree turns aren't the worst thing one could face, and yet, if done poorly, especially if you do it poorly 10 times, they could be costly. So with blogging compatriot Josh, who has attended bike camps focusing on the time trial, I put myself through a turnaround clinic to get better at it. Ideally, I would have been practicing for the last month, but as it is, I think I'm getting pretty good. As Josh points out, the difference between doing a 180 well and doing it poorly is worth 10 seconds. Gaining a minute and 40 seconds for no extra work during the race other than proper execution seems to be more than worth the investment of time I've put into it so far. So far, it's been about a half-hour or so spent over two sessions. I believe that preparation time will pay dividends on race day.

Rolling With The Punches

2005-08-26T13:07:00.000-04:00

... and I do mean punches. Tuesday night, just 11 days before my A race for the season (read about the race here), I was taken down by an errant soccer ball while bicycling home. The damage: Whiplash, small bits of road rash on my left leg and left elbow, and a significant patch on my left hip. In the meantime, what I thought were allergies blossomed into an upper respiratory infection. Yesterday, soreness and respiratory issues kept me home from work. Now I know that the most important thing for me to do over the next eight days is to heal, both the infection and the injuries. So rest is paramount. Wednesday was a pre-planned day off. Yesterday I decided to take off to assist in the recovery from the upper respiratory infection, and I'm pretty sure I'll take today off also. The only thing that panics me a bit is that I have a freshly glued tire on a new front wheel, and I need to get that out on the road a bit before I'll be confident. In addition, I do need to be practicing bicycle handling, since the race will include 11 180-degree turnarounds. Rain appears to be moving in for a few days starting Sunday, so I'm crossing my fingers that I'll feel OK tomorrow for an easy spin and some turnaround practice.

Updated

It could be worse. Reading this report from Powerman Zofingen makes me feel a little bit better about my current status. To wit

The bike course of Powerman Zofingen is a 50 km loop that we have to do 3 times. The normal training day leading up to Sunday for most everyone is a lap of the course. Friday was no different for me and after rolling around most of the course I couldn't help but wonder how I would do. In fact, I was so nervous I had a hard time handling my bike! As I flew past a field at 30 mph I found my daydream suddenly interrupted by a curb scraping my wheel! In a few milliseconds I was catapulted over the bars, on my side, and slid to a stop use my own skin. In what seemed like seconds later my bike finally landed beside me in a heap. I guess I made quite a sound because the farmer in the field nearby shouted to me in German. I just waved my hand and inspected the damage, which was pretty bad. I managed to climb aboard my bike, which was surprisingly in good shape, and drag my sorry butt, or half my butt as it turned out, the remaining 10 miles to the house.

End of the story? The writer in question finished third overall.

What are intervals?

2005-08-26T12:18:00.000-04:00

"The Finishing Kick" in the October Running Times has an interesting point of view on how to run intervals (can't link to it because it doesn't appear to be on the RT web site). In the article, Roy Benson cites the example of Woldemar Gerschler, the "father of interval training":

In the late 1930s, Dr. Gerschler used his refinements to develop Rudolf Harbig into the world record holder at 800 meters with a time of 1:46.6. As an expert on cardiac output and blood volume pumped during exercise, Gerschler's contribution involved using pulse counts to determine the length of the recovery period. According ot Dr. Gerschler's calculations, a runner was ready to run the next segment of the workout when his pulse had dropped down during the recovery interval to 120 bpm.

Leaving the obvious imprecision of the 120 bpm calculation as being "recovered" (what about older athletes with lower maximum heart rates, or those who have naturally occurring lower max heart rates? 120 bpms might not be low enough to indicate adequate recovery), I think Benson's large point is valid: Recovery should probably be measured by cardiovascular data, not by the very imprecise measurement of time or distance jogged during a recovery interval. After all, who reading this blog right now doesn't set out to do 12 X 400 meters with a 200 meter recovery jog between, or 2 X 20 minutes on the bike with a 10 minute recovery spin? A tired athlete might not sufficiently recover in that time period.

But on the other hand, some interval workouts are designed to not allow total recovery as a way of training athletes to duplicate race-day conditions. An 800-meter runner, Harbig's race was mostly an anaerobic battle of fast-twitch muscles and lactate tolerance. For Harbig, to duplicate race conditions, 400 meter intervals should have been done at nearly top speed to stimulate the fast-twitch muscle fibers and test his ability to continue running with a high lactate load, for which a long recovery period is necessary. But for a 5,000-meter specialist, or a marathoner, the distance requires the ability to function under moderate lactate load and at a steady heart rate. In this instance, I believe a shorter recovery period is called for to duplicate the length of the race.

An example: Last summer, my nephew, at the time a high school cross country runner, was visiting, so we went out to the track to do some intervals. I was training for sprint duathlons (5K/30K/5K), so I was training as if I were a 5K/10K runner. He was training for the 5K distance. I did my intervals as a 400 meter run at race pace with a 200 meter recovery (about a minute or a minute and 10 seconds). After two or three, he was feeling very whipped, because his coach had never given his runners that short of a recovery period. In essence, he was having them go all out and then giving them two or three minutes to recover. That's great training for an 800-meter runner or a miler, but not ideal for the 5K(in my opinion) because it doesn't train the body to go near continuously at race pace.

This Running Times article probably best explains how to approach interval workouts as a runner. Most importantly, it notes

The two types of speed training most critical to distance running success are: VO2 max training and technique training.

VO2 max training is designed to improve your maximal aerobic capacity. Your VO2 max is determined by the maximal ability of your heart to pump oxygen-rich blood to your muscles, and of your muscles to extract and utilize that oxygen to produce energy aerobically. By improving your maximal aerobic capacity, this type of training will help to improve your sustained speed, which is most important for distance running success.

The most effective training to improve your VO2 max consists of running intervals of two to six minutes duration (typically 600 to 1600 meters) at your 3K race pace. Your recovery jogs between intervals should take about 50 to 90% of the time it takes to run each repetition. (emphasis added) The stimulus to improve your VO2 max is provided by the amount of time that you accumulate in the optimal intensity range during a workout.

Given that over 90% of your energy in races of 5K or longer is produced aerobically (and the proportion gets higher the longer the race), it is this sustained speed that you need to improve your racing performances. Running your intervals faster than 3K race pace will reduce the stimulus to improve your VO2 max by building up high levels of lactate in your muscles and shortening the duration of your workout.

Yes, heart rate should be a factor in determining your recovery period, but achieving total recovery can be counterproductive, depending on what your goals are.

Nike Free 5.0 Review

2005-08-24T14:30:00.000-04:00

Over at Duathlon Blog, I've posted a review of the Nike Free 5.0, which I've been wearing for two months now. More thoughts on interval training coming up, including my reactions to a Running Times article on this topic.

2005-08-22T10:28:00.000-04:00

Quality Rest, or When Is Enough Enough?

Last Tuesday, I had on the agenda a workout that consisted of two intervals of 20 minutes apiece, with a 10-15 minute recovery. It was threatening rain, so I chose to do it indoors on the trainer rather than deal with the thunderstorms. After a 15 minute warmup, I started the workout and found I could barely exceed my anaerobic threshold (AT), the point at which the muscles cannot get enough oxygen to produce energy in the normal fashion, and begin to produce lactic acid (the legendary "burn" that indicates high-powered training). I know lagging heart rate to be a sign of fatigue, and yup, looking at my training log confirmed why I should have been tired. The preceding Sunday had consisted of a six-plus-hour run-bike workout, and the following day was a one-hour, twenty-nine minute running workout in which I had pushed myself above AT for a couple of miles, just to test myself. I was tired, and in a normal week I would have delayed that workout later, except that I was leaving the next morning for a four-day business trip and wouldn't be able to ride the whole time.

Essentially, I was overtrained, if only for a short time. I've learned over time as I've gotten a little wiser and a little older that overtraining is worse than undertraining (you can always rely on adrenaline to get you through some races). And it's particularly important as one ages, because the body's ability to heal itself declines with time. So I'm always gratified to see articles like this one in Triathlete magazine that talk about the dangers of overtraining. This author points out:

"This is a common problem seen in many athletes who are beginning their training. Contributing factors include a desire to see continued improvement, the sudden weight loss that occurs after a couple of months of regular exercise and a mistaken belief that skipping a day or two of training will result in a loss of previous gains. Experience and research has shown conclusively that overtraining has marked effects on physical and psychological wellbeing. Immune system depression, difficulty concentrating and sleep disturbances are all recognized complications. Furthermore, it is also well understood that recovery periods and rest are as important to a successful training program as are periods of intense exercise. Recovery allows for muscle remodeling and adaptation and allows for more prolonged and intense exercise afterwards. Important components of a successful recovery period are: adequate time, (depending on the athlete and the duration and intensity of the exercise in the period just prior), proper nutrition and rest (including sleep and entire days without exercise)."

How did my workout end? I called off the first intense interval after three minutes, recovered for about 10 minutes, and then focused on pedaling form with a series of high-cadence intervals (110 rpms and higher) and slow one-legged pedaling. It was the best way to get value out of the workout without causing any more damage.