World Masters Report Card......

Well, the 2008 World Masters Track Championships here in Sydney finished yesterday, and I've come away with a "mixed bag" of treats............ a PB, a broken bike, and a bent body.

My first race was on Wednesday and was my priority 2000m 55-59yrs Pursuit. My medium term goal is to go sub 2min 30sec for the eight laps, and my intention was to go "rip, shit or bust" and have a shot at this in qualifying.

But I had second thoughts when Wednesday turned out a little cooler than it had been in the days prior, and after discussion with a club mate, decided to go out on a 2.32 schedule. I had instructed Mike (Popplewell....750TT silver medalist at these Championships) to let me run if I happened to be up a little early on.....as long as I was able to settle back on scheduled lap times within a lap ot two.

As it turned out, I was able to ride virtually every lap within a .2sec range and still hold reasonable form over the last 500m or so. Finished with 2min 32.085sec for a two second PB.

Might have been a high 2.31 if I hadn't caught and had to go around my opposition going into turn 3 with 500m to go. Surely must have dropped .085sec minimum there :-)

I had no thoughts of getting close to the medal rides, just wanted to PB. Missed out on a Bronze ride off by .8sec .......which is still a decent amount, but much closer than I had expected.

So far, so good.

Next evening was my Scratch Race and unfortunately was involved in a crash about 7 laps from the finish when a rider higher on the banking, touched wheels and slid down into my path. Nowhere to go, so finished up T-boning him, breaking my forks on impact and hurting my right shoulder, hip and ribs.

Sat on the trainer for 15min the next morning, but was a bit sore. Spent the rest of the day icing all the sore bits and swallowing anti-inflamatory medication.

Went out on my road bike for an hour the next morning (Saturday) to see how things were. Was OK as long as I didn't have to change hand position on the bars. Things were looking up.

Did a couple of jumps of 30-45sec to see if my shoulder would hold up and while still painful, was manageable.

Unfortunately, these efforts stirred up my ribs more than anything, and by that night I was getting a sharp pain when I took big breathes.

So everything was good.....unless I rode my bike ....or breathed. Not the ideal combination with the prospect of trying to ride in a typical aggressive Points Race next day.

So for once in my life, commonsense prevailed and I sat in the stands to watch the action instead of participating. In hindsight, it really was the smartest thing to do (really unusual for me)

Finished the week a little frustrated, but satisfied that significant progress has been made towards the 2.30 barrier. Good thing is I will get 4 opportunities for quality Pursuits next year with State Champs in March, Nationals in Launceston, Tasmania in April, UCI World Masters here in Sydney again in October, plus World Masters Games within a week or so of the UCI meet.

Really happy with my preparation, although there are definitely areas where there is still "work in progress".

After Nationals earlier this year, I made a list of every aspect of my preparation where I thought gains could be made ...... from actual physical training, to equipment and aerodynamics. I'll post again shortly with details of the list, where things stand right now, and what I plan to target over the next 12 months of preparation.

I'd like to thank a few people for their advice, assistance and encouragement in my ongoing quest for this 2min 30sec thing.

Dr. Andrew Coggan has been generous with his time and provided some thoughtful suggestions and back up for some of my plans along the way......what else would you expect from this bloke.

Alex Simmons for his patient analysis of data from CdA testing at the velodrome.

Pete Barnard for providing me with my sweet NRT carbon frame, forks, and seatpost at a great price. http://www.tracknut.com.au/

Michael Popplewell who has helped out whenever he could with advice and loan and sale of various peices of equipment..... I used Mike's very fast front Fluid disc/Dugust tubular combo in the Pursuit.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your help.

More soon.

Mike

Inside the final week.....

Well my last week of training has gone pretty much to plan. Last weekend I was rostered on day shift with the Fire Dept., but was able to get KK trainer sessions done on both days. Saturday was a short 2 sets of 5 x 30sec on/off @ 380w / 120w, preceded by a "track warm up".

Sunday, after the standard warm up, I rode 2 x 2min @ ~350w (3min R), 2 x 1min @ ~375w (2min R), 2 x 30sec @ ~400w (1min R).......although these 30's got a bit ragged towards the end which surprised me a bit....but like the old saying goes..."all you can do is all you can do".

Trained on the track on Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday I ran the bike in full race set up with front and rear discs and race gearing. Turned out to be a good day.

After warm up, a couple of Flying 250's and a couple of half lap starts, I rode a Standing Start 1km in 1min 16.4sec, and that's about as good as I've ever done. Certainly in training it is. Followed up with 1 x FL1KM in 1min 12.5sec and a controlled FL500m in 36.7sec. Pretty happy with all that.

Friday just 1 x SS1KM (self timed with the last 750m in 55.9sec) and 2 x FL500m in 35.5sec and the second as a "paced" effort in 37.3sec. Legs a bit "heavy" feeling today.

With the World Championships starting on Tuesday, quite a few early arriving International riders were on the track on Friday, some who could do with a lesson or two in track etiquette.

Have just arrived home after 2hrs 45sec on the road with a few steady climbing efforts thrown in. Tomorrow, Sunday, I'll head out to the track after day shift to register and ride a couple of FL500's to top me off for my Wednesday Pursuit qualifier.

Looking at my WKO+ Performance Manager Chart, I'm sitting around CTL of ~95, with TSB of +9 and 803 TSS points for the last 7 days before this mornings ride.

All in all I feel ready for a good ride in my Pursuit qualifier on Tuesday. Smart pacing will, as usual, be critical for a good result.

On Wednesday I have Scratch Race heats and Sunday, Points Race heats. I'd love to make the finals for both but not sure if I have the horsepower to stay close enough in the sprints. Gonna be "fun" trying though :-)

So with three days to go, the plan is for a couple of FL500's on Sunday on the track, easy road ride on Monday and a couple of 1min "openers" on the road on Tuesday before my "test".

I'm rostered on night shift on Tuesday and Wednesday. Not ideal, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a quiet night on Tuesday at least, before my Pursuit the next morning.

Gee, it's kinda come around quite quickly after all these months of planning and preparation.

Stand by for results.

Mike

The last two weeks

Don't know how I did it, but woke with a very tight and sore lower back on Friday last week. Had trouble bending enough to pull on my shoes. Seemed to have a lot of referred pain in legs too. Not quite sciatic pain, but enough to make things uncomfortable.

Fortunately, my back loosened up over the next day or so. I was assigned to fill a Rescue Operators spot at Gordon Fire Station on the Friday and Saturday, so I commuted, and included a bit of SST/ low L4 work each way.

One route I took was around 2.5hrs all up, the other, around 2hrs.

On Sunday (28th Sept.) I trained on Dunc Gray Velodrome with all the usual suspects. I started with a Standing Start 1500m and timed the last 5 laps at 1.36.9....only 2m 39sec Pursuit pace for me :-( And it felt way harder than it should have!

I then joined three other riders and we rode a Team Pursuit formation for 1500m, 2km and 2km........well, that's as long as I could stay there anyway. Found myself really struggling to get into a rhythm. My guess is that I was still suffering the after-effects of that lower back drama a few days earlier.

Monday was just a "Track warm-up" on the KK trainer, which goes like this: 10min easy build up to ~250w, then off the bike and walk around and sit for 5min or so. I find this really helps reduce the soreness and tightness I often feel in hamstrings during the early part of my warm up. I then go into another build-up alternating 1min @ 235w, 250w, 270w, 290w and 320w with 1min @ 200w. I then take another two or three minutes easy, hit 3 x ~500w for 15sec with 45sec easy spin between, and then pronounce myself ready for action.


I decided to do my Tuesday L6 workout on the KK trainer to sort of look after my back, so repeated my track warm-up then went 3 sets of 5 x 30sec on / off with the efforts starting at 450w and decaying to 390w in the last couple of reps in the first set, 430w down to 390w for the second set, and the third set I "paced" and held a constant 380w for each rep. Still not feeling 100% but at least a bit better.

Steady 2.5hrs with 45min of low L4 work on Wednesday, and on Thursday trained on the road on my TT bike with 5 x 10sec Starts, 2 x SS500m and 1 x FL1KM.

I have a Power Tap set up on this bike and saw 486w and 475w for the 500's and 396w for the flying kilo....feeling reasonably comfortable. Seemed to be over the back thing now.

Back on the track today for a couple of Flying 1 lappers at the end of my warm-up, then 2 x Flying Kilos. First kilo was 1.16.5 and felt very easy....suppose it should at that pace, but as I've mentioned before, I have always seemed to have trouble producing good training times on the track, even though my Wattages are adequate when I train on the road.

Anyway, the second kilo was 1.13.3.........harder, but a bit short of all out. I don't ever recall riding faster than 1.15 in training before. I hadn't planned on doing much more, so I stopped after that second kilo. Trying to keep some semblance of "freshness" going into my last ten days before the World Championships start.

I've got another L6 trainer workout scheduled for over the weekend. I'm on duty with the Fire Dept. both days (and Monday and Tuesday nights), but should be able to find a quiet time to get my training done.

I'm planning to be back on the track on Wednesday, running full race set up with discs, "good legs", etc. From that time on, it will be just fine tuning my pace judgement and keeping legs fresh with short, fast efforts until race day. Can't wait.

Mike

Here comes some form??????

Since my last post, as the Euro pros say, "I have good sensations" in my legs. Pretty happy with last Sunday's training on the velodrome. We had warm conditions, which is a bit of a contrast to the usually cool mornings when I've been doing most of my training on the track, so that certainly would have helped my speed on the day.

After a 15min warm up, I rode 3 x Flying 1km reps with long 15+min recoveries, followed by 2 x Flying 500m and a Standing Start 500m.

Haven't been using my Power Tap on the track bike, just hand timing everything. Because I'm often on my own on the track in the mornings, I've taped a stop watch to my aero extensions to record each interval. Usually works OK ......except when I don't press hard enough or accidentally double press the buttons and get a time of 0.16sec for a kilometer :0

So after buggering up the timing of my first two reps, I saw a 1min 15sec for the third kilometer.
Now that's not going to make anyone nervous, but it's about as good as I ever see in training, so I'm happy, especially as I know the first two were definitely faster. At least according to the speeds I was carrying throughout each of them.

My 500's were 35.0 and 34.7, but the most satisfying was my final effort of the day, my Standing Start 500m, in which I went through first lap in 22.3 and the 500m in 40.3 ...both PB's for me. All the work was done on my expected race gearing of 52/15, and it's the first day I've had where I felt like I was finally getting on top of that gear. Probably the warmer conditions were responsible, but it still left me feeling much more content.

On Monday I rode a very easy 90min but included 5 x Standing Starts of about 10 seconds duration. Saw two new PB's here.....1034watts Peak Power, and 971watts Peak 5 second power.
Again, not earth shattering, but they are PB's nonetheless, and at around 65kg, they're edging closer to my pre-preparation targets.

Back on the track today (Tuesday) for 2 x Standing Start 1 km, 1 x SS 750m and one SS 500m.
I planned 3 x 1 km but speed was dropping away dramatically on the second kilometer, so I shortened up the next reps so I could sustain as close to race pace as possible.

Because I couldn't time the start lap, I just recorded the subsequent laps for each rep and got 57.4 for the last 750m of the first rep, 58.5 for the second, 38.4 for the final 500m of the SS 750 and 18.9 for the last lap of the SS 500m. A bit off the pace, but sort of ok after the last two days.

While at the track today, I dropped in to the Cycling Australia offices and picked up my International license and my Australian Team skinsuit which I'm entitled to wear after making the podium at the National Championships in April. Gotta say I feel quite proud to have the opportunity to wear the Aussie colours in competition.

Mike

More L6 suffering

Well the last week or so has gone along pretty well as planned, but the only time I managed to get on the track, last Monday, wasn't a particularly fulfilling session.

On the day prior, I had spent some time on a favourite loop of mine sprinting the short (10sec to 20sec) little hills as a "Points Race" type of workout and it left my legs a little heavy.

The track workout was planned to be a series of flying kilometers, but 500m into the first, my legs were saying enough is enough.....yelling pretty loudly actually. OK, these are supposed to feel hard, but when it was obvious I wasn't going to be able to sustain anything like race speed, I thought it better to pull back in distance so I could at least hold some semblance of quality.

So it was 4 x FL500m with ~ 8min recovery, all in the mid to high 36sec range, followed by 1 x FL 1km. This last rep, ridden as a paced effort instead of all out was a 1min 17sec. Not target race pace exactly, but it's rare for me to go fast in training .......probably 'cos of tired legs most of the time..........maybe I should be spending more recovery time so I CAN ride the speed I need to?

In the past, I can't recall ever going faster than 1.15 for a FL 1km in training, and really struggling to do that! But it all seems to come together on race day with fresh legs. Gotta trust that the same will happen in October :-)

I suppose when you consider that these times are ridden when tired, in the morning with temperature inside the velodrome of about 12 degrees, and on crummy training wheels and tires, then there's scope for improvement.

All the Pursuit specific work I've been doing on the road and trainer with my Power Tap equipped bikes have been within my target range of power, so I've just got to trust the process.

On Wednesday morning, I rode 3 x Standing Start 1km reps on the road (in the rain) with 10min recoveries. Not a particularly high start power, around 895watts, but averages for each rep was 400w, 396w and 389w. That's in target range but there was a drop in power towards the end of each. But again, that's what is to be expected the way I'm riding them, i.e. all out from the gun.

I'm riding most of my L6 reps in this fashion to REALLY create a high lactate environment. There seems to be reasonable evidence, and I've had good advice, that this method has shown in the past to provide a strong stimulus for adaptation. We're gonna find out soon aren't we.

Even though I've been running on tired legs most of the time, with a touch of freshness, in the last two weeks I hit an all time peak power PB of....and don't snicker, 1031watts, and twice have PB'd my 5sec Power with 934watts and 935watts. So I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the last week when I'm well tapered.

Tonight I'm heading straight from day shift with the Fire Dept. for the last of the Friday night RAW (Race All Winter) track series, then from night shift on Sunday morning directly to join the regular Sunday morning group back on the velodrome.

Put my entry in today for World Masters in the Pursuit, Scratch race and Points race. Stay tuned to see how things go in these last couple of weeks.

Mike

Getting down to specifics

Well it's only a month now to my target race, Pursuit qualifying at Masters World Track Championships here in Sydney, so recent weeks have been taken up with track specific work, done either on the Dunc Gray Velodrome or on the trainer or road.

I've been doing mostly L6 work in various formats along with L7 stuff to work on my starts. This has been filled out with moderate volumes of SST and low L4 work.

Have managed to get out to some RAW (Race All Winter) track meets on the last couple of Friday nights. I was rostered on night shift last Friday but arranged 4hrs leave to race, then rushed back to the Fire Station to begin my shift at 10pm.

Everyone gets about 4 races at these meets organised by Paul Craft. Paul always makes things interesting with unusual and "fun" race formats. For example, last week I had two scratch races, a Keiren and a race he called a Miss 'n' Out Points race.

We started the race with 23 riders, and a Derny following the field. Each lap, the last rider over the line was "eliminated" and dropped back to follow the Derny. You were awarded points as you were eliminated.....1 point for the first rider off, 2 for the second, etc, until it came down to the last two riders, with the winner taking 23 points plus a bonus for the win.

Remember, all this time eliminated riders were dropping back to the Derny. So after the final Miss 'n' Out sprint, it became the world's biggest Keiren with the Derny pulling off the track with two and a half laps to go. Points were again awarded for your finishing position with the overall winner being the rider with most accumulated points.

A very intense race with surges from 45-48kph each lap to try to avoid being eliminated, then tracking the Derny at similar speeds until the final sprint. Gee, it was almost fun :P

I had planned to train on the velodrome with the Sunday morning group but got a call to see if I would fill a Rescue Operators spot that came up as a result of another Firefighter calling in sick.
Overtime rates make it hard to pass up these opportunities, so I loaded my bike and trainer into the car hoping to be able to get a workout done during the day if we weren't busy.

As it turned out, I was able to get in a session of 3 sets of 5 x 30sec @ 400-410w with 30sec recovery @ ~100w. Pretty happy with this as in recent times, I've tended to fade just a touch in the last part of the last reps of each set. Not saying it was easy by any stretch, but manageable....just.

On Monday afternoon a session was arranged at the velodrome with a guy to operate the starting gates for us. So over 90min or so, I managed eight starts from the gates, mostly half laps, but included a couple of full laps and one 500m from the standing start.

Backed up on Tuesday with 2 x 1km and 1 x 1500m standing starts efforts on the road.
Didn't take too much notice of the times since they are affected by a little bit of breeze, different rolling resisitance on the road, etc, but power was 472w average for the first 1km rep, 498w for the second, and 382w for the 1500m. Happy enough with that since 380+w is what I'm targeting that level for my pursuit. With a bit of freshness in my legs it might just be within my reach.

Wednesday was my commute to and from the Fire Station, not ridden too hard, averaging 180w Normalised Power.

Thursday is another trainer workout with 2min L6 reps on the menu, backed up with another set of multiple 30sec on 30sec off reps. Can hardly wait :-)

Mike

Team Time Trial

August 24th was State TTT on the 43km Calga course. We finished up with quite a respectable ride in my opinion, since we were under no illusions about getting on the podium.

We "lost" one rider by quarter distance and our strategy was to protect our third man to help him get over the hills on the run back to the finish. So there were two of us doing the majority of the work, which was fine by me.

We finished 8th, but only just over 2min off a podium spot. We had some very strong teams starting behind us and I thought there was a distinct possibility of us getting caught. That didn't happen and while we did lose time, we were a lot closer to some strong teams than I thought would really hammer us.

I rode with my Power Tap and saw a Normalised Power for the 1hr 10min, and 43km of 255w which is pretty much what I've been calling my FTP in recent times.

Had my first Friday night track meet prior to the TTT and it was good to get some leg speed happening again. Paul Craft who started this RAW (Race All Winter) Series some years ago does a terrific job of providing a good night of racing for everyone. Mostly get 4 or 5 races a night, and Paul always creates some interesting race formats. I'm headed out there again this Friday.

Since the TTT, I've introduced some L6 work as specific training for my Pursuit in October. Ugly stuff!

Here are the details of my most recent L6 workouts:

#1: 4 x 90sec @ 380w (8min R) then 4 x 30sec @ ~ 500w (2min R) done on my trusty Kurt Kinetic trainer.

#2: 3 x 2min @ 380w but decaying to around 320w at the end of each rep (8min R) then 3 x 1min @ 390w (4min R) done on the road.

#3: This workout done on Dunc Gray Velodrome: Had planned for a series of flying 1km and flying 500m reps but had no legs on the day....they just wouldn't / couldn't produce the required speed / power, so I changed to 6 x flying 250's and 4 x Standing start 250's and went home with my tail between my legs.

#4: 3 x 2min @ 380w (8min R) then 3 x 1min @ 390w (4min R) then 3 x 30sec @ ~ 500w (2min R) on the road.

#5: 3 sets of 4 x 30sec @ ~500w (30sec R) with 10min R between sets) done on the trainer.

After some good advice, I'm trying the approach of very high (for me) power intervals. Short, with longer recoveries. Traditionally, AWC type training levels are done at ~135% of FTP, mine being ~ 255w at present, so it will be interesting to see how this translates to on track performance. As you can see, my minimum power for the above workouts is around 150%, with some decay of power in the last 30sec of longer (i.e. 2min) reps.

Did my commute ride to work this morning and sat up in SST / low L4 range at every opportunity for the ~ 50min. Gotta say, legs felt pretty good too. Will take it a bit easier on the way home, hoping to have something in my legs for my track workout in the morning.

Going to back up on Friday night for some bunch racing.

Current CTL is 104.1 with 682 TSS points accumulated last week. TSB is neutral or just in positive right now.

Mike