Good news and bad news

First I’ll start with the good news.  Last week I had a great long run on Thursday and followed up with an equally good long ride on Sunday.  I started at 6am Sunday on the CompuTrainer so I would still have a time with the family.  I chose to do the EagleMan 70.3 course (56 miles) figuring that it would take me around 3 hours.  My last long ride was 2:30 on the same course (50miles of it) and my legs were fried after that effort.

I started with a warm-up and after calibrating the CompuTrainer I settled into a good pace, around 19-20mph.  I chose to drink only water for the first 90 minutes, then had 2 gels in the next 30 minutes and finished the last hour with Pertetuem – as a test to see if it would work on race day.  This was an effort to start training with the nutrition that I want for the 70.3 race in June.  I managed to finish the 56 miles in just under 2hrs 49 minutes, a time that I’d love to replicate on race day.  Average watts were 184 for the whole ride and my power split was close to 50/50 too.  This is all great!  I felt that I had some in reserve and after the ride I had plenty of energy, so I complete a short brick run after the ride.  I did notice a surge of energy once I started with the gels.  The other encouraging thing is that I have read some recent discussion forums that people often see 1-2mph speed increases over the CompuTrainer when they are riding outside, I’d love to see that happen!

I have completed 3 brick runs in the last few weeks, all have been average at best – legs feeling heavy and a pace that is a fair bit slower than my normal runs.  Sunday was different – I felt pretty good immediately running sub 8 minute miles, which is really good for me.  My goal was to run for 30 minutes, and gradually build this up for the next month prior to EagleMan in June.

Towards the end of the 30 minutes I felt a little tight in my left calf – so I slowed down and and didn’t push too hard.  I went through the usual stretch routine that I learned from all of the Physical Therapy for the right calf in January/February.   

On Monday I was a little stiff, which I was ok with, considering that it was my first 3hr ride in a long time, and I was coming off 2 weeks of a heavy cold.  My only workout for the day was a 2000y easy swim (10x200).  I figured that it would be good for recovery.

Tuesday morning I still felt a little stiff, so instead of a hard bike interval session, I decided on a slow 30 minute run.  I took it much slower than normal, in the 9-10 minute mile range – and after 20 minutes felt some tightness in the calf again.  I stopped and walked home, then worked for the day before going to a masters swim session in the evening.  Once the swim session started, I could feel the calf even with my almost non-existent kick.  With each lap it seemed to hurt a little more, and for the first time I had to leave the session early.  At that point it was really hurting

Wednesday morning I woke up and could really feel it.  this is not good news.  I was hoping that it would magically go away, but no, it is definitely a muscle tear.  I followed the R.I.C.E method (rest, ice, elevation, compression), which has helped, but I fear that I’ll have to go back to Physical Therapy to accelerate my recovery.

I’ve really disappointed that I have another setback to my training, but I am determined to do the right thing and not hurt myself any more.  I am so close to good form, my running has been great recently and the bike is coming along too.  I’d hate to go backwards from where I am, but I am hoping that it means missing a week or two of running.  I am hoping to race the Kinetic sprint on May 15th as a tester to see how my form is before EagleMan.

So this week I have adjusted my plan, reduced the workload and made an appointment with my physical therapist.  I am hoping that riding won’t cause any discomfort, and I think when I swim next I may use a pull buoy so I don’t have to kick at all.  Fingers crossed I can recover quickly and get back to training soon.

Why I love my Computrainer

Today I completed another interval workout.  It was a tough workout, but that is what intervals are all about.  I did it on my computrainer – using the coaching software.  This allows me to specify the precise power that I need to generate for the whole session. 
Today’s session looked like this:-

• Warm-up – 10 minutes
• start slow and increase power for 7 minutes
• hold 172 watts for 2 minutes
• rest for 1 minute
• Initial Set – 5 minutes - to get ready for the main course
• 30 seconds @ 230 watts
• 30 seconds @ 123 watts
• repeat 5 times
• Main Set – 45 minutes
• 6 minutes @ 240 watts
• 3 minutes @ 123 – recovery between sets
• repeat 5 times
• Cool down – 10 minutes
• reducing watts to around 125

1hr 10mins total – the actual watts were calculated based on power from previous workouts.  The great thing about this is that it really helps to keep your focus when all you have to do is ride, the computrainer dishes out the power/pain – so there really is no cheating.  I’d find it hard to do this workout on the road or a regular trainer.  Most of the time I listen to music or podcasts whilst riding in the basement.

The cool thing is that once the workout is over (and actually even during the workout) you can see what you have done (or are about to do) – check this out…

you can easily see the green line at the bottom represents the workout power, as described above.  The yellow line is RPM and the pink line is my heart rate.  I switched off other measurements to make it easier to view.  The view at the very top is the plan for the workout – a visual representation of the description above.  You get to see all of this during the session.

It is interesting to see the curve on the HR lagging behind the watts, which is expected.  This good thing here is that the HR/watts/cadence for each interval are all taking on the same shape (except for the first part of the first 6min interval). I  guess this means that my endurance is decent, meaning that I am not really struggling to complete the last 6 minute interval, it felt about the same as the 4th and 5th.

The blue vertical line just right of middle is where my mouse is positioned, it tells me that at that instant, my power output is 255w and the HR is 166 @ 99 rpm.

I had a look at as similar workout from a few months ago.  Back then my cadence and HR were at similar levels but my power during the intervals was much lower @200w.  That is some pretty good progress.  I still have a long way to go, but

Even though my CT is around 10yrs old – it still seems to work very well.  I am looking forward to the updated software which should be available in the next few weeks.

Computrainer Power/Efficiency

I usually spend a few hours a week reading articles, blog posts and other materials.  One thing that really interests me is the whole concept of power meters.

Earlier this year I purchased a 10yr old Computrainer.  After updating the handlebar controller chip and replacing a few other parts, I now have power when training indoors! 

I can see some good progress on my power output, using a 30 minute time trial on a flat course (10 miles). I have gone up from 194 watts to 214 after 6 weeks, and after 3 months I managed complete 30minutes at 245!  This is pretty amazing, for the last test I was hoping for something in the 220’s.  So that works out to around a 25% increase in 10 weeks, a great effort. 

Whilst my power is going up, my riding efficiency is something that I have to work on.

The computrainer software has a large amount of data available, both on screen while you are riding, and of course on the computer after a workout has been completed. 
Some of the more interesting statistics are :-

• left/right power split – which helps to make sure you are in balance
• spinscan value – how efficient or even each pedal stroke is
• ATA – average torque angle. a measure of where the most power is generated – in degrees from top dead center.  This is something that I am working on understanding

It is obvious that you want the left/right split to be an even 50/50 – I am right around there most of the time, sometimes it drops 48/52 for a while but for the most part I seem evenly balanced.

Spinscan and the ATA numbers are something that I have to work on.  The idea is to get the spinscan numbers as high as possible, with 100 being perfect (but practically impossible, unless you are an electric motor). 

The question that I had was is:  what is a good/bad/average/excellent spinscan numbers?

For most of my recent training – I have been in the low-mid 60’s and a few times in the 70’s.  it is generally trending upwards, but I still didn’t know if a 65 is good or not.  I found an article on YouTube (here) which suggested the following for both spinscan and ATA:-

So – I am a C in ATA numbers, and lower (a D or E) for Spinscan.  This gives me a new short-term goals to work on for the off season.  I’d like to improve my efficiency before/during base training over the winter.

I’ve also read a lot of articles about power on the bike – and almost all of them refer to the “bible” – “Training and Racing with a Power Meter” by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan. 

I am really looking forward to reading this and getting a deep understanding of the whole power concept.  I want to understand as much as I can before I purchase a power meter for the bike.  I am considering waiting for Garmin to release the Vector unless is can somehow find the $$$ to purchase one sooner (not very likely).

Before I start reading this book – I am still working on finishing “Iron Fit” by  Don Fink.