Peaking and Tapering, Part II

In Part I, I talked about how (I felt) my taper wasn't quite right for Ironman Lake Placid. I've done more training hours, more consistent training, more intense training and more volume this year than in any year before, so my previous tried-and-true taper method also needed some reworking (it appears). For Ironman Hawaii, I'm going to be a bit stricter on myself in adhering to scheduled workouts in the last few weeks before the race -- both in the sense that I don't overdo it and I don't underdo it -- and hopefully I can have a better race day.

Ultimately, I want to use the Performance Management Chart (PMC) to plan my workouts to help me achieve two things by race day:
1) TBS of about +20
2) CTL loss of about 10% from its highest point.

To this end, the first thing I did was plug my proposed workouts for the next three weeks into SportTracks, along with their projected TSS values. Incidentally I find SportTracks with the Training Load plugin way easier than WKO+ to work with; the calendar makes sense, the notes field lets me add stuff seamlessly, and the general UI and feel of the software is so much more intuitive. And since I'm using TSS/TRIMP values to determine my training load and stress balance (the plugin by default uses HR), the PMC will look the same in WKO+ as in SportTracks -- just nicer. :)

I got my projected TSS values by looking at past similar workouts in WKO+. For instance, I know that a long ride of ~100km/4hrs at an intensity factor of .70 will give me about 200 TSS points. Similarly, an hour-long run including some mile repeats gives me a TSS of 100 or so. Swims I generally use one TSS point per minute, less if I swim easy and more if I swim hard.

Three weeks of workouts, including the final two weeks of peaking/tapering from my Endurance Nation plan, plugged into SportTracks gives me this for my PMC:


projected CTL/ATL for October 10, 2009

That's a CTL of 119 (down roughly 10% from a projected high of 131 on Sept. 29) and an ATL of 97 to give me a TSB of 22 the day before race day. The TSB is a bit high maybe. But it's also likely that my workouts will feel a bit harder once I get to Kona as I'll need to acclimatise a bit, so having a bit extra on the TSB should be fine. Interesting to compare it to my LP taper (the big drop leading up to July 26) and see how it drops off more gradually and with fewer ATL spikes until the final week.

It's an interesting balance, tapering to shed enough fatigue without losing too much fitness. The problem is, as TSB rises, CTL decreases which can mean more than 10% fitness loss on race day. So which one is more important, keeping to a no-more-than 10% fitness loss, or having a TSB of +20? I think this is probably a problem for most athletes who carry a high CTL: the higher your TSS/day (which is what CTL is), the more you have to do to maintain it. And the more severely you taper and cut your volume, the more CTL drops compared to its absolute highest.

The highly analytical article from Coggan describing the art and science behind the PMC is here, but in my view the most important sentence is this:

in the Performance Manager concept, an individual’s CTL (and the “composition” of the training resulting in that CTL – see more below) determines their performance potential (at least within limits), but their TSB influences their ability to fully express that potential. Their actual performance at any point in time will therefore depend on both their CTL and their TSB, but determining how much emphasis to accord to each is now a matter of trial-and-error/experience, not science.

But I think it's also important to keep in mind what ChuckieV has said about tapering and freshness (though I have to say he loses me with the "anyone training less than 15 hours a week only needs a few days of taper" bit!):

Quite often athletes erroneously aim for being "fresh" when Ironman day arrives, when they really just need to focus on being rested.

Rested is what I'm going to have to be to put on my best performance. That means early to bed every night, naps if I need them, limiting the time spent on my feet doing touristy things and generally staying away from the hustle and bustle of 2000+ other Ironman athletes stressing about their race.

Peaking and Tapering, Part I

Yesterday I had an enlightening moment reading Joe Friel's blog about Projecting Race Readiness. I had known that my IMLP taper wasn't right, that I had tapered too much and lost too much fitness, resulting in a less-than-ideal race performance, but hadn't really crunched the numbers to see how. I had followed the protocol of 70% of usual volume in the first week of taper, 50% in the second week, 30% in the third week. Still, I felt flat and underpowered on race day and terrible compared to last year at Ironman Germany where I had tapered so carefully and hit race day feeling great.

Two things stood out for me in particular from Joe's post:
1. Training Stress Balance (TSB, or CTL minus ATL) should be about +20 by race day.
2. Total loss of Chronic Training Load (CTL, aka fitness) should be kept to about 10%.

I had a look at my own Performance Management Chart from WKO+ and checked out the numbers. Sure enough, between my taper start date of July 5 and race date of July 26, my CTL (blue line) had gone from 133 to 112, a 15% drop. And my TSB (yellow line) was over 30, way too high! Ironically, being more "rested" through a lower ATL (red line, aka fatigue) and higher TSB is the very thing that helped me feel slow and tired and flat during the race.

Tapering is certainly part art, part science, and there are a lot of factors that could have affected my race day readiness in Lake Placid. But from studying my data below, I can see clearly now how my drastically reduced training load -- too much too soon -- nearly blew my race though a poorly-executed peak period and taper.


How not to peak/taper

In Part II I'll take a stab at describing what my peak period and taper for Kona should look like, and what I'll do differently to achieve it (and in doing so, hopefully achieve a better race day freshness than I did at Lake Placid).

If you're not familiar with WKO+ and all the terms I've used, here's a basic crash course.

Crystal Palace

Watch that pedal strike (and the tongue won't help in a crash!)

In my quest to get enough points for cat 2 and to visit all the race circuits around London in the meantime, I headed to Crystal Palace on Tuesday evening for their weekly race. It's by far the best atmosphere I've seen yet for a cycle race: lots of folks on the grass lounging around and chatting, a course that only takes about two minutes to ride per lap, and sunny weather that's the requirement for the race to run (too slippery and dangerous if it's raining). Apparently the women's race tends to attract pretty low numbers, so it was nice to see a dozen of us on such a beautiful late summer evening lining up at the start.


Early on and we're already chasing escapees

The Palace is more crit-like than any other circuit I've raced, save the Nocturne: a 1.3km course consisting of a 50-metre straightaway after the start, then a sharp 180-degree turn, a quick little twisty downhill, a long 180 degree corner, and a draggy uphill before a flat finish. The course is wide enough to allow overtaking, though with three groups racing (women's, men's cat 3/4, and men's cat E/1/2) it can be a little crowded at times -- as evidenced by the guy who swung wide into me on the corner and hit my front wheel, nearly taking me out! But as I proved at the Smithfield Nocturne, my cornering is pretty awful, and my descending and cornering combined is even worse, so even though I'd ridden a few laps in warm-up, I had no doubt that I wouldn't be going off the front anytime soon, if ever. And in 23 laps at Crystal Palace, I swear the lap counter said 14 before I even felt comfortable in the drops, not braking, and managing to lean my bike into the turns! The good news is that by the end, I sort of had it worked out, though I had to keep shouting to myself "lean! lean!" on every lap and focussing on weighting my right leg as much as I could for those left-hand bends. But for my first time at the Palace, I wasn't disappointed with how I rode.


Following Rachel's line, I'm getting better at the lean

I'd read some other reports of how this race usually goes down -- a strong rider goes from the off and manages to stay away the whole race -- but with Charlie Blackman out of town, it was going to fall to someone else this time. I thought, "if only I can keep her in sight, whoever she is, til my legs come around in the second half, then maybe we have a chance to get some ground back." Little did I know the effect the men's race overtaking us every 7-8 laps would have. Basically I learned from the wrong end the prime rule for racing at the Palace if you're in the women's race: get a bit of a gap, hold it as best you can, let the draft from the overtaking men's races give you a little boost to get even further ahead, then repeat seven laps later. Not sitting on wheels, mind you (that's not allowed), but just using that massive pack of guys to disappear from the sight of the women chasing you. I must admit I tried to do that myself when the guys came around -- use them to get a bit more speed and momentum to make catching our ladies' break easier -- but by then it was too late. If someone's away by the time the guys come around the first time, you can pretty much plan to see her at the finish line unless she either punctures or blows up.


Trying not to lose touch on the downhill



The effort is starting to show for all of us


Is that a grimace?

Still, a race at the Palace turned out to be the best 51-minute workout I could have asked for. Once I settled in (took me a good half-hour as usual -- and I'd ridden an hour to the race as warm-up!) I sat a lot on the front and drove the pace up the hill in particular. One of the two girls who went off the front was brought back; the other was too strong. I didn't trust my legs to try to get away myself, so I just worked hard and brought our group of 11 down to six by the finish. My teammate Leona and I -- both of us never having raced there before -- didn't have any kind of plan, so it came down to a bunch sprint. I knew that there'd be at least one person trying to come around and outsprint me at the finish, and given my awful acceleration and sprint power, I knew I had to use my head instead of my legs. Coming up the final hill, I was caning it quite hard but eased off just before the top, thinking I could jump on the inevitable wheel when it came around, but I mistimed it and she was by me before I knew it. A valiant effort to get on her wheel, but I ran out of road and finished a bike length behind, 3rd place overall.

Leona and I both have rental powermeters on our road bikes so we've been comparing power data lately. We're about the same weight, though she's taller and younger and I've been cycling for longer. Still, thanks to Leona's recent push into training and racing hard, we're remarkably close: FTP, top-end watts, even heart rate. It's interesting to break down the differences in our Crystal Palace race.

Maryka

Entire workout (207 watts):
 Duration:   51:29 (51:33)
 Work:       640 kJ
 TSS:        85 (intensity factor 0.996)
 Norm Power: 234
 VI:         1.13
 Pw:HR:       5.2%
 Pa:HR:       3.09%
 Distance:   30.413 km
 Elevation Gain: 683 m
 Elevation Loss: 682 m
 Grade:      0.0 %  (1 m)
               Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 678 207  watts
 Heart Rate:   123 187 175  bpm
 Cadence:      38 170 101  rpm
 Speed:        0 60.9 35.4  kph
 Pace          0:59 0:00 1:42  min/km
 Altitude:     73 99 87  m
 Crank Torque: 0 89.7 19.3  N-m

Leona

Entire workout (204 watts):
 Duration:   51:32 (52:41)
 Work:       630 kJ
 TSS:        94.9 (intensity factor 1.051)
 Norm Power: 231
 VI:         1.14
 Pw:HR:       5.25%
 Pa:HR:       1.58%
 Distance:   19.018 mi
 Elevation Gain: 1504 ft
 Elevation Loss: 1467 ft
 Grade:      0.0 %  (38 ft)
               Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 624 204  watts
 Heart Rate:   117 188 175  bpm
 Cadence:      31 182 91  rpm
 Speed:        4.6 41.4 22.1  mph
 Pace          1:27 13:03 2:43  min/mi
 Altitude:     219 303 266  ft
 Crank Torque: 0 1303 187  lb-in

-- FTP: judging from this race, I think Leona's FTP is probably higher than the 220 she's got in WKO+. In fact, given that Crystal Palace is the kind of course where you don't get much rest (sprinting out of corners, riding uphill, even blasting downhill to catch up to faster descenders), I'd say that if we'd ridden another 9 minutes to bring the race to one hour, her NP wouldn't have been much lower than 231. My tested FTP on my road bike is 235, and both my perceived exertion in the race and the numbers show that that figure is probably still about right.

-- Work: according to the kJ spent by each of us, I did more "work" per se, even though the overall training stress score (TSS) for me is lower than for Leona. This is because TSS is directly related to FTP -- the higher the FTP, the lower the TSS for the same training session, all other things being equal. The reason I burned more kJ is because I sat on the front of the group more and didn't draft as much behind other riders.

-- zero watts: what you can't see in the data summary above is how much time we both spent freewheeling, or producing fewer than 20 watts. According to Coggan and Allen's book, "most winning road racers do not pedal at least 15 percent of the time". Looking at our cadence distribution charts, I pedalled for 86% of the race at Crystal Palace, but Leona managed to pedal only 80% of the time. Again, this shows how much she was drafting and how much I wasn't -- and in fact, how much smarter she raced because of it! Maybe if I'd pedalled less, drafted and conserved more, especially in the last lap or two, I would have been the one coming around the others to sprint to the win. Or maybe not...

In any case, both Leona and I are signed up for a men's cat 3 race this coming weekend (Jim and a bunch of other Kingston Wheelers will join us), and you can bet that both of us will be doing as little work as possible!

Training volume + weight loss = getting sick more often?

Since my training year officially started the week of January 1, I've been trying more or less to improve my eating habits (i.e., eat less food in general, and less junk food in particular) and lose a bit of weight. Not lots, just the icing off the cake so to speak. According to popular research, each pound lost is a minute gained in a marathon, and of course climbing well on the bike is all about being lightweight.

After reading that Dutch pro triathlete and 2008 Kona runner-up Yvonne van Vlerken lost 4kg last year off her "athletic frame" (what a nice way to say short and stocky), improving her speed and performance, I figured losing the same would go a long way to achieving my Kona dream too. As of January 1, my own 5'2" athletic frame weighed over 57kg. The goal is to get down to 52kg for race day, August 2.

Right now, in mid-March, I'm at about 55.5kg. This is the lightest I've ever been in March and it shows -- my jeans are a bit loose now in the waist (though tight in the upper legs thanks to all those 14% hills I've been riding!) -- and I feel pretty toned. Since I don't have a body fat monitor, I have to use a combination of the scale, how I look in the mirror, and how my clothes fit, but I would say that even though I've been putting on muscle from all this running, cycling, upper body weights and core work, my body fat is still down. Apparently I'm now considered a hot roadie even, although I think there's a bias there....

In late January, we had a little holiday on Lanzarote to kick start the season with some high volume bike training, and as usual when we got back I promptly came down with a cold. No worries, within a few days of rest and reduced intensity training I was over it and back to the regular grind. Since then I've steadily ramped up my training volume to an average of 12 hours a week. I've been eating well, recovering well, sleeping mostly well (though never enough, it seems), and feeling fast, sleek and great. Strong as an ox, right?

Last week I had some shorter workouts with higher intensity, then the plan for the weekend was higher volume at lower intensity. Friday afternoon I ran 28 hilly km in 2:20, Saturday I rode 60km on flat terrain in zone 1/2, and yesterday was a 90km group ride with 750m of climbing spread over 3 major hills that I attacked reasonably hard, with the rest of the ride pretty easy. Came home, threw on my recovery tights, ate a good meal, and lazed in front of the TV for most of the evening. I even managed to make it to bed before 11pm as I was feeling a bit tired from 8 hours of training over the past 48 hours. But by 2am I was up and sneezing, coughing, completely congested... with what seems to be another cold.

My resting HR this morning was normal, so obviously I'm not too sick. Today's a scheduled easy day with just a short form run anyway, along with some core and upper body work at the gym that I may push til tomorrow. So I'm not too worried, but I am a bit frustrated and wondering what's up with my getting sick so often. This is my third cold in 5 months, and for someone who has more than once gone an entire year without a cold, that's pretty bad! Is it the weather in my adopted country? My increased training volume? My slimmed down physique? The fact that I'm now living full-time with a (wonderful and loving) night owl and poor sleeper? All of the above?

SportTracks has a great little plug-in called Training Load, which is basically a poor man's Training Peaks for those of us who don't have a power meter (yet!) It takes the time spent in various HR zones and intensities for training activities and calculates a TSS score for each, then graphs CTL, ATL and TSS over time. This is what mine looked like this morning:



blue = CTL aka fitness level
red = ATL aka fatigue level
pink = body weight
brown columns = the TSS or Training Stress Score for a given day's activities with general scales of low, medium, high and epic.

The "epic" event and accompanying spike on the farthest left is the marathon I ran on November 9, 2008. The following month I took it pretty easy as evidenced by the drop in both ATL and CTL, then got going again with serious training in the new year. The big jump in the middle-right, and corresponding drop in body weight is the Lanzarote trip. Since then my fitness has been steadily climbing, my fatigue is being managed through easy days and days off, and my weight has been dropping.

It's nice to see my hard work translated into pretty graphs showing improved fitness (being the data geek that I am), but I'm starting to wonder if 52kg is going to be too light to be both fit enough and strong enough for Ironman UK. Do I really have 3.5 more kg to lose, or is the risk of illness too great? If I keep going the way I am, I'll lose that weight just from maintaining my current diet and ramping up the volume in early summer when I start doing 5-6 hour rides. At that point, I guess I'll find out whether I get to eat -- must eat, even -- all the dessert I want again, just to stay well!