Trainer Confessions

Check Engine Light

Theories on Fatigue

One of the interesting take aways I got out of reading "Hell on 2 Wheels" was the author's summary of the various studies on fatigue and pain thresholds.  Most people can't tolerate the pain associated with having their hands in ice water for more than a minute, and I bet the majority of the readers of this blog get fatigued after laboring through just two of my paragraphs.  Yet the somehow the hardy souls who race across the US can endure unimaginable pain and can transcend the all consuming fatigue for 8 to 12 never-ending days.  So how can they do it?

I know nothing about cars and don't care to learn about them either.  Yet for some reason after digesting the information summarized in "Hell on 2 Wheels" I've packaged it all up in the following car analogy.  Those few who do succeed at the RAAM are those who can somehow keep the "Check Engine" light from ending their ride.

The RAAM isn't just a fun adventure ride; the guys who end up on the podium hold a pace that most causal riders couldn't sustain even for an hour!  Most engines would go kaput if taxed at even a fraction of the power generated by the likes of 5 time RAAM winner (and now tragically deceased) Jure Robic.  So clearly one element in avoiding the dreaded check engine light is to have high-powered, uber-efficient engine.

And of course, regular fueling and maintenance are essential -- it doesn't matter how fast and powerful a rider might be if they neglect to fuel up regularly with high-octane gas.  Upwards of 8,000 calories need to be consumed per day to propel them across on their trek!  Those that don't consume enough and/or the right calories don't last very long without an engine malfunction.

But of more interest to me were the scientific studies highlighted in the book that focused on what people did once that check engine light inevitably started to flicker.  There are some that try their best to place duct tape across their car dashboard.  If a check engine light can't shine through the duct tape, then there's no indication that you're in trouble and you keep speeding along.  That's a risky approach if you ask me, and odds are that you'll ignore something that results in a catastrophic failure of your engine (and the tales of the RAAM are littered with such disastrous endings).

There was also information shared on strategies to calm yourself once the check engine light began to shine.  Rather than immediately panicking and pulling to the side of the road to call AAA for service, the successful riders were able to do things like tapping their fingers or creating mental images of success.  These techniques either distracted or calmed the rider rather than let the warning signs consume their brains and force them into an immediate reaction.  (I've since employed the finger tapping technique myself over the last week.)

The thing that I found the most interesting though were the theories on what causes someone to through the towel in after too much suffering with the check engine light on.  Some have theorized that it is strictly a biological function -- once a specific condition occurs in the engine (notice how generic that condition is -- I know nothing about cars!) and it starts emitting smoke, you have no choice but to immediately pull to the break down lane.  But others have theorized that there isn't a fixed threshold that would trigger one to throw in the towel, but instead, there's an active decision making process taking place in the brain evaluating the return on investment achieved by incurring more suffering.  

If you are out on a Sunday morning drive with no obvious destination (e.g. a training ride without any structure), then the ROI on continuing on with the check engine light on is low, and you'll pull immediately off the high-way.  However, if you're 10 miles from driving to your big job interview, you might decide to pass by the service station even though the check engine light has been on for the last 30 minutes.  Perhaps the engine melts-down before you get to the destination (and you in fact kept going beyond the biological fatigue threshold/trigger), but your brain decided that the goal is worth the chance you're taking.

End of the Road

So why the extended dissertation on fatigue?  My check engine light has been shining brightly over the last week.  Over the last 12 weeks I have gone to the gym to pulverize my legs three times a week (in addition to my riding of course).  Each week I've added either more sets and/or more weight to my reps, even during supposed "rest weeks" (where I cut back on the cycling, but not the gym).  The muscular fatigue never ceased, and only grew.  

By Wednesday of last week, I seriously toyed with the idea of actually skipping a work-out.  And yesterday, as I slowly worked my aching legs up the stairs to the gym, my legs felt as limber as steel beams.  I am almost embarrassed to say that I started thinking of ways I might want to "cheat" on reps and sets to ease the suffering.  If I had to go again to the gym today, I imagine that old ladies could push more metal than me.

There's no doubt that I had reached a point where I decided I could no longer ignore the check engine light, and I needed to get off the weight lifting highway and shut things down.  I feel as if even looking at an image of a barbell right now would hit me with enough force such that I collapsed in exhaustion.  

Fortunately that won't happen, as yesterday was the final day of lifting for the winter training plan given to me by Coach Bobby.  But I have to wonder -- did the Coach give me such a perfect plan that truly took me to my limit of fatigue?  Or, did I become so fixated on the check engine light because subliminally I knew that I was at my final (weight-lifting) destination and that there was no return on investment for additional suffering?

In any case, I'm certainly glad to now have the gym work-outs in the rear-view mirror.

Building the foundation

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!

Using My Brain

Sub-Story

Just finished up reading "We Might As Well Win", the true story of how Johan Bruynell led two different riders, Lance and Alberto, to Tour de France fame, supposedly without the aid of performance enhancing drugs.  I'm not a literary critique, so I won't offer any commentary as to how well the book was written.  But for me, a person whose TdF viewing was limited solely to snippets shown on Sports Center, it offered up enough light entertainment to distract me from the seemingly never-ending endurance rides done perched upon the trainer.

While I whipped through the book at pace that paralleled the speed of my whirling pedal strokes, most of what I read went into my brain and then flowed right through just as if it was water passing through a sieve.  But there was one nugget that proved to be meaningful enough to lodge itself more permanently.  Before Johan embarked on leading others to cycling greatness, he had modest success competing as a professional cyclist.  He never had the genetics to put him into the elite category, yet despite competing against far more gifted riders, Johan was able to win a few big races and stages (even holding TdF's yellow jersey for a day), and he proved himself to be an invaluable teammate.

Given my own middle of the pack genetic make-up, you can imagine that the sub-story of Johan's cycling career held my interest long after the sweat had dried from my trainer work-out.

Playing Chess and Riding a Bike

While I'd like to think that I have at least a slightly above average intellect, a race official's starting whistle consistently acts as an off switch for my brain.  Once the race is underway, there's very little of what I'd call intelligent thought going through my brain; any processing cycles are of the more primative kind.  I am aware that I am in a race, on a road (usually) with lots of twists and turns, ups and downs, and there are people swarming around me.  

I process all of that information and react to it just as stampeding gazelle would.  How do I best react to what I see to use up as little energy as possible to safely get me to the grasslands ahead of us without falling victim to the cheetahs and lions lurking on the perimeter?  I'm making quick decisions in response to the situation I find myself in; myopically focused on that precise moment in time.  No forethought as to how a decision now might impact the rest of the race, and no historical information collection adding to what might have been already lodged deep in my brain to the point it was almost instinctual.

By contrast, Johan raced as if he was the Deep Blue chess-playing computer system.  While truly elite Grandmasters could still beat Deep Blue back in the 90s, the Gigabytes of available information armed the system with enough decision-making input to pick off all but the best of competitors.  Johan raced with his brain as much, if not more, than with his brawn.  He studied every nook and cranny of the race course before the whistle blew; he constantly scanned the pack making mental notes of how each of the racers he saw were performing throughout the race; and he knew exactly who was in the break away and after considering a few key factors could instantly, and with amazing precision, predict if and when that break would become a threat.  Even while the pace of the pack eased and his body could rest, his brain was racing, taking in what he observed, and continually evaluating the next three or four moves that might get him closer to a checkmate.

So in addition to all of the training I'm putting my body through this winter to help me compete as a newly minted Cat 3 in March, I'm wondering if it is possible start training my brain to stay in the "on" position to help close that gap genetics already opened up between me and the lead 3s.  

Perhaps I can start within a few winter group rides, not to get a competitive advantage against friends and teammates, but just to begin to learn to use my noggin while riding (I can already chew gum while riding!).  Normal group rides for me are led by someone else much more familiar with the area, so my brain is normally in complete relax mode, unburdened with the need to pay attention to anything but the essential safety warnings.  Maybe I need to test my powers of observation on such rides, and then jotting them down afterwards to incent the brain from slipping into "off" mode.

While I'll likely give it a try, I'm still wondering if the pressures of an actual race effort, when my legs will be coursing with lactic acid and my lungs ablaze with fire, will force my brain to shut down any ways.  Perhaps I haven't been lazy in not remaining mentally engaged during races, but rather, the course and competition are so challenging that there's just no spare energy left in reserve to keep the brain running in addition to the body?

And it still remains to be seen as to whether or not all of my hard work will get me to a point where the gap between me and those far more gifted than me would be closed by adding brain power to the mix.  Its quite possible that if I can train my brain this winter, I'll be playing chess by myself come race day as the grand-masters leave me behind.  An active brain might result in more informative race reports posted here, but I'm pretty sure you might find the write-ups from someone alone and off the back pretty boring!