Riding Mountains in Indiana

I coach an athlete who lives in Indiana. His favorite events are mountainous centuries and fondo rides like Six Gap Century, Cheaha Challenge, Haute Route, and the Hincapie Gran Fondo. It's a challenge to have him ready for the mountains at these events because Indiana is pan flat. I do have him perform work at low cadences, ride in the drops to engage his muscles used for climbing, and prop up his front wheel. All of these things help some but do not mimic the constant changes in grade and resistance like on a real mountain. About a month ago I received this text message that changed the way we have him execute workouts:

The Kickr Climb is a device that is used in conjunction with the Wahoo Kickr. The Climb attaches to the fork and changes the height of the front of a bike to simulate grade changes. These grade changes help the athlete engage different muscles just like if they are doing an actual hill or mountain outside.

This is my athlete's setup

In order to make this setup work I sent this particular athlete many GPX files for different climbs I have done. He was targeting the Hincapie Gran Fondo, so I sent him the infamous Skyuka Mountain of course. The athlete takes the GPX files and loads them onto his Garmin 1030. The 1030 sends the course to the smart trainer controlling grade with the Climb and resistance with the Kickr smart trainer. He is also able to slice and dice the GPX file, so he can perform his intervals on the climbs and perform his rest periods on flats at very low watts. For endurance rides I even sent this athlete GPX files with rolling terrain like out at the Donaldson Center Tuesday Night Worlds and other rolling rides I have done.

The Kickr used in conjunction with the Kickr Climb really changes the smart trainer game, especially for people who live in flat areas. It makes the smart trainer more realistic and fun. I am really happy I received that initial text from this athlete about the Kickr Climb because it really took training indoors to another level.

How I KOM'd Paris X

This past Saturday I showed up to Paris X, an event put on by Tim Thome, Hincapie Ambassador, where riders are challenged to ascend Paris Mountain ten times. It is quite the challenge! I did not know when I arrived that Tim and Jay Baker would challenge me to attempt taking the KOM set by Jeff Michenfelder the day before. I asked what Jeff's time was and was told it was 2 hours and 54 minutes or 174 minutes. I did some quick calculating in my head and realized I'd have to ascend and descend the mountain around 17 minutes per lap, a pace that is relatively quick. This was going to be a difficult task with a lot of other riders on the mountain and traffic on a Saturday morning. I happened to have a bag with bottles and ride food at the bottom of the mountain, so I figured I'd at least give the challenge a try.

I knew the total ascent time was going to be around 2 hours, so I knew I could hold tempo (around 80%-85% of my functional threshold power) without cracking. Whenever you start a long effort like this you want to go out that a pace that is relatively easy for you. If you do your first efforts too hard you will remove all the glycogen from your muscles, so the effort will become very painful very early, and you risk cracking. There will also be a mental toll on you where you know you have to complete a lot more efforts when you are already sore. That makes it even easier to give up! As I did my first few efforts I was always one to three minutes behind my pacing strategy, but I did not panic and kept on my pacing.

After I finished the first four efforts I knew I had about an hour and 15 minutes left of ascending. My legs did not hurt at this point, so I decided to increase my effort to around 90% of my functional threshold power (FTP). I stopped at the bottom after my fifth effort for my only stop to take on two more bottles and two brownies. When you do an effort like this you want to keep stopping to a minimum because the clock never stops ticking. With my fuel onboard I kept the sixth effort to around 90% of my FTP. After the sixth effort I still felt ok, so I increased the pace a little more for the next two efforts. I still felt good for the final two efforts, so I increased the pace to close to my FTP. I finally got on track with my pacing goal at the start of my final effort. By using this pacing strategy my legs didn't really hurt too much until the final 4-5 minutes of my ninth effort, and they hurt roughly the entire tenth effort. I ended up beating the previous KOM by about six minutes, which I do not consider too much for a roughly three hour duration.

You can see from laps 2-10 that as the effort goes on I increase my pace

You can use a similar pacing strategy for yourself so you can hurt the least and achieve your best performance for a long effort. You just need to know your FTP and be able to ride a lot of tempo! Here is a link to my activity on Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1902405495

End of Season Breaks

The cycling season is a long one. Even if you manage rest by taking a rest week every fourth week and take a couple 3 day to 7 day rest periods throughout the season you will likely arrive to September/ October mentally and physically fatigued. If you did not arrive to this period exhausted congratulations! I would still recommend taking some sort of break in order to perform at your best during the next racing season. What an end of season break consists of differs from rider to rider.

Pro riders put in a ton of hard work and travel every week or two for races. Pros also have years and years of base behind them. For a pro I feel 2-3 weeks completely off the bike and resting is the best approach in order to have a super next season. For new riders (riders who have been training for less than 5 years) I take a different approach. Cutting volume to 33%-50% and cutting interval volume to 25%-33% for 2-3 weeks will suffice. The new rider has less aerobic base, so 2-3 weeks completely off can take 6 months to rebuild, where it will take a pro a few weeks to 2 months to be near their top level again. For the rider I recently helped take a bunch of short Strava KOMs we concluded that his sprint Strava war was an appropriate end of season break.

The end of season break will differ from rider to rider, but no matter what your goals are for next year it is best to take a break before beginning training. You want to arrive at your new training cycle physically fresh and wanting to crush your next goal. If you are not physically and mentally ready you won't be able to get the most out of yourself.

What to do as the season ends

Road racing season is coming to or has already come to a close depending on where you live. Maybe you are tired of racing and are taking your "offseason" break. However, if you still have legs and still mentally want to go hard tackling some Strava PRs could be something you try in order to keep some focus in your training. I had an athlete's season end a few weeks ago, and he decided he wanted to PR or KOM some Strava segments around town.

It would be wise to tackle segments that play to your strengths. This particular rider is a sprinter, so he sent me a list of segments ranging from 10 seconds to 30 seconds in duration. If you want to hit peak power for these durations it is best to dial training back to as little as possible. I cut his training volume to about 60% of what he normally trains, and I cut all intervals (besides sprints) from his training. Another thing you want to do if you want to increase power for the 10-30 second duration is not do a ton of efforts. For all his workouts I have him perform 4-6 efforts maximum. That way he is setting peak power for all the efforts.

Another thing we have to look for in Strava is the necessary speed to enter the segments. Most of these segments are slight uphills but the average speed is over 30 miles per hour, so entering the segment at or above the average speed is critical. For a couple of the days I paced my athlete into some of the segments to help him save energy and enter the segment with speed. However, he tackled most of these segments on his own.

One of the KOMs my athlete took

This is just one idea to gain some motivation when it may be low at the end of the season. Remember to have fun and stay safe. Also when it is time remember to take that necessary break to recover and recharge for next season. 

Some Numbers from Tour de l'Avenir

I recently had an athlete compete in the Tour de l'Avenir (literally Tour of the Future), the equivalent of an under 23 Tour de France. The best under 23 racers in the world go here to fight for a spot on a World Tour squad. I was very pleased Conor received the opportunity to race because he is 19 years old, the youngest a rider can be to compete in the Tour de l'Avenir. The race consisted of 10 stages ranging in distance from 12 miles to 112 miles. There were flat stages, rolling stages, mountainous stages, and a team time trial. Throughout the race Conor burned a total of 19,494 kiloJoules.

Heading into the race I wanted to be sure that Conor was fresh and ready to work hard. He headed into the race with an all time low for the season chronic training load (CTL) of 92 and a training stress balance (TSB) of +16, and throughout the 10 stage race his CTL rose to 104 and his TSB dropped to -44

         Conor's Performance Management Chart
                  Throughout Tour de l'Avenir

Conor had some good days and some bad days throughout the race. He learned a lot about himself. He had some days where he was doing 348 watts for 16 minutes and 332 watts for 35 minutes. On the ninth stage he got dropped doing 352 watts for 16 minutes up the first climb of the race, and that was it for him for the race. Like I mentioned these guys are the best under 23 riders in the world. They ride quick!

He always tries his hardest and pushes to his limits. Near the end he experienced pain and fatigue but could not sleep and sometimes had the chills. This is all normal stuff when you are pushed to your limit. The performances he did deep into the race were close to or at his FTP. As a coach I could not ask for more, and I am super proud of Conor. Next year we will go back and he will ride even better with the gains we will make this winter.

           Conor and I before the USPro Road Race