ritual
I've deleted two longwinded posts about
these folks and their PowerTapped
singlespeeds. What I think will be
interesting to follow is their personal
experience of learning the how of
ss racing vs interpretation/applying
the data as they prepare.
what's that saying about boxing?
"everybody has a plan until they get
punched in the face...."
one thing I can't get my mind around,
and this is getting into the basis of my own
programme, is that the Earth isn't flat.
It rolls and drops and dips and kicks you
in the teeth and hits you with body blows
before turning the corner and showing you
a 22% switchbacked punch to the neck.
Planet Earth doesn't divvy out the
punishment in 45/60/90/120 second
hi cadence intervals with 52seconds of
zone 3 recovery between each.
In sets of 3.
Your race course might be PA styley,
steeper 20ish minute power climbs with
punchy techy singletrack in between.
Or you could be hitting the hour plus
sustained climbs at the Shenandoah
linked by long flowy recovery downhills.
Which is why my programme has
evolved into what it is. Put in the base
work now, then start mixing a bit of
climbing into the long Saturday ride.
Once those pedal strokes are tallied
it's time to go out and really find those
climbing legs, a month's worth of focus
on the local climbing routes and working
over the orchard roads. Top end is next
so bring on some speed via the local
road TT series and downhill fixy work.
By mid summer, just finessing the form
from there on out. Build and recover,
keep it sharp and cover the chinks in the
armor. Train on the terrain that gives
you trouble, cuz racing a ss is as much
about the course as your competition.
Learn your body and
just ride your damn bike.
what was that about long winded?
14 comments:
Downhill Fixie work. Now that sounds interesting. On trails?
mostly on road, on trails those type of sessions are referred to as ninja pedal stroke skillz practice.
I hope you don't get me wrong, I find what ya'll are doing fascinating, and I know it'll work for ya. I just can't get around how it makes something that's pretty straight forward seem awfully complicated. Filing a post ride TPS report doesn't sound appealling to me, but I've got 20 years of saddle time knowledge and kinda know what works for me. I keep a journal and track weekly hours, running a HRM as a tachometer to see how the engine is running. I'm not trying, nor do I need to translate that into something digestable for a 3yr experience level trainee...adds to the fascination in what ya'll are doing.
good times.
um yeah. i'm with you on the powertap ss thing!
LW &DH rock!
Love trying to keep up with the 2 of them. I don't understand all the gagets they use butt damn they are fast!
Man-o-man. What about the "burning one down and ripping around the woods for five or six hours" approach? Anyone want to see my data?
Sheeet Tomi, I can't even wrap my head around using an HRM in my "training" program. Powertaps sound like a sure way to make me dislike throwing a leg over my steed. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.
yeah, I use mine mostly as a tacho. I know what 160 should feel like, I know what 180 should feel like. If 160 feels like 180, I'm tired. If 180 feels like 160, it's go time.
When I look down and it's all blurry and I can't read it, that's what I call the 'red zone'. If I look down and can still read it, then I'm more than likely not in the 'red zone'.
Oh, it also keeps an avg, but when you don't stop the clock until after your first apres' ride beer, I think the numbers get skewed. And it beeps, but I always turn that off.
Elk - Screw the data. I prefer practice over theory so a first-hand experiment would work better for me.
Chris - why not have the best of both?
Self-imposed limits are so...limiting.
Dave - That was a joke referencing seeing Elk's "burning one down" data. 8-)
I've been following your blog and experiencing your epic rides vicariously. Though I don't use a power meter I'm interested in what you learn from your analysis of SS power and training.
Though I don't use a power meter or hrm perhaps I can glean something from your experiment.
Thanks for sharing.
Chris
I've found when trying to download the data sets from one of Elk's 'training sessions' that the short term memory buffer usually can't handle all of the information & crashes.
My data sets are mostly comprised of smoke signals. The data tends to be amorphous and somewhat hard to decipher, but it works for me.
As I get ready for the upcoming race season, I'm thinking about tracking how many times I puke in my mouth during hard efforts. Anyone have experience with gathering that data?
Hey Elk, maybe your dentist can show you how to measure the amount of tooth enamel wear from all the acidic bile. Couple of new cavities and a lost crown = go time!
why hold it in? the key is to not get it on ya while still pedaling....
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