Tough, but not that tough
"Cyclists equate suffering with excellence, and its widely believed that those who can endure the most punishment will rise to the top of the heap." That quote from Hell on Two Wheels (by Amy Snyder) was still fresh in my mind yesterday morning, and I'd be lying to you if I said it didn't factor into my decision to forgo the option to ride on the trainer to instead don two or three layers of cycling clothing and face the brutal temperatures outside. A little part of me was convinced that only the hardiest of riders could muster the willingness to brave the bitter wind and cold of yesterday morning. While it wouldn't allow me to rise to the top of the heap, I stepped out into the icebox with a mental image of me finishing Battenkill ahead of a few races who opted to spin in more comfortable conditions.
The suffering was constant for the entire ride. It was cold enough (started at 8F and when I finished it was 15) to shut down my powertap. I was on a point to point ride mostly headed to the Northeast, which kept my nose pointed directly into a steady headwind throughout the ride. It was windy enough to slow me down by 30 minutes, extending my suffering and making what should have been a 3.5 hour ride into a 4 hour trek.
I'd be tempted to call myself a hardman after fending off frostbite for four hours, but Hell on Two Wheels didn't just inspire me to do the ride. The story of the "endless discomfort" endured by the competitors in the Race Across America kept me from glorifying my toughness. I put in a paltry 4 hours in some modestly cold weather to get from CT to MA; the truly tough RAAM racers overcome almost unimaginable pain and suffering as they trek literally almost non-stop for 3000 miles over 8 days! There were a few points during yesterday's ride where the suffering got me thinking of calling the Mrs for a rescue pickup, but each time the dreams were dismissed as I quickly put my suffering into proper context by thinking of how bad things really could be.
Base
So while my ride yesterday won't be regaled by authors as some feat of human perseverance, it does go down as the final ride in a six week base block for my 2012 training plan. The strength required to tough it out on yesterday's ride was buoyed knowing that a rest week was to be my reward at the conclusion of the ride, and there was no way I was going to finish the 1,300+ mile training block with a whimper.
And now that I have today off from work, and only about 90 minutes of exercises planned for the day (50 minutes of lifting at the gym, and then 30 to 45 minutes of light spinning afterwards), the extra time available to me after finishing a big base block has me looking at numbers of course. Unlike race season where I can easily gauge my training plan's success (or lack thereof) by how well I finish, or perhaps also by whether or not I broke a Personal Record, assessing progress during the base season requires me to dig deeper into the mounds of data. For a numbers geek like me, its a fringe benefit to the suffering investment made during the winter months.
So the question I sought an answer to was this. Up until two years ago, I trained following a plan of my own creation. Last year I trained with a coach for the first time, and a few months back I switched to a new coach, Bobby. Am I better off now with Bobby than I had been last year, and two years ago when I was alone?
I first tried to look into a comparison between this year and last.
The chart above plots the number of hours (y-axis) that I logged over the last 28 days for this season (blue) vs. the same 28 day period last year. The time spent is chunked off against the Wattage recorded (x-axis). I logged about 5 more hours of training this year as compared to last year (52 to 47), but what had me most interested was the distribution of hours. As you can see this year I've spent many more hours doing "endurance" paced rides (for me that's between 170 and 190 Watts).
On the surface, you might conclude last season had me more focused on Muscular Endurance (ME) as the highlighted by the slightly larger red bars above 225 and 250 Watts. But what the chart above doesn't show is that this season, in addition to the ME cycling efforts, I've also been beating up my legs for upwards of 2 hours of leg & core work at the gym every week since the start of November. It's all been recorded in my notebook, so unfortunately I can't show you a chart that would highlight the added weight, reps, and intervals that have accumulated over the last 10 weeks of lifting.
I also chose not to show you the veins now visible on my legs. While the appearance of blue lines on my legs that look as if I have an interstate map now tattooed on my legs might be great evidence of progress, showing you pictures might cause me to lose the PG rating for this blog.
So why am I so focused on assessing my time spent during Endurance rides and building up my Muscular Endurance? A look at my "Top 15" chart offers some insight. In 2010, when I trained according to my own plan, I tended to focus exclusively on getting big numbers on my max 5 minute and 30 second power. As you can see below, many of my Top 15 best 5 minute & 30 second entries (the green and blue lines/dots) still come from 2010 rides. However, come race time I rarely was able to call upon that strength as I found myself struggling just to hang in and endure.
Despite moving to a coach designed program in 2011, I failed to wipe clean all of my Top 15 5 minute and 30 second PRs from 2010 as I had anticipated. However, I did nearly wipe clean the 2 hour (red dots/lines) and 1 hour (yellow) PRs because of a heavy investment in a solid base. And that investment in building stronger muscles and more endurance ensured that I rarely wilted during the many ups and downs during the 2011 racing season, and that in turn played a big part in my Cat 3 upgrade at the conclusion of the 2011 season.
So am I better off now than I was this time in 2011? One early sign of progress compared to last year is that I've already notched a few Top 15s for 1 hr and 2 hr (and even 20 minutes, the black) during interval work-outs. I have to imagine that if I'm doing that now, and without even focusing on setting records, there's no telling what I'll put up once racing starts in March!
