Jerseys and Suffering

The Etape de la Defonce stage race in Wales went pretty well, all things considered; I'll write a proper blogpost about it later with pics and data. I came home with what I'd hoped to get, which was the women's GC leader's jersey and prize. It wasn't easy as strong Welsh rider Ang Mason was also there, but with the help of my teammates I gritted my teeth and got it done.

At a particularly low moment in the first road race, it occurred to me that cycle racing is just an adult verison of those games you play as a kid, the "who can suffer the most" games. Stuff like holding your breath for the longest time, who cries uncle first when someone's punching your arm, who's the first to chicken out of a head-on collision with another kid on a bike. Everything else being more or less equal, it isn't fitness that tests the best riders, it's nerve and determination and ability to suffer. Mental toughness as it were. Sadists, the whole lot of them!

On a different note, I've now worn four different jerseys this racing season.

From left to right:
-- my home club the Kingston Wheelers
-- the Surrey Cycle Racing League, our women's team for Team Series and other team races
-- the London Women's Cycle Racing league leader's jersey (which I currently hold but could lose at any time)
-- the Etape de la Defonce ladies' overall winner's jersey (which I technically never wore to race, but no matter).

Good legs

Funny how it only takes a few days of good riding to feel happy again about being on the bike. My saddle sore has recovered and I'm over whatever mysterious illness I had a week ago at Hog Hill (blinding all-day headache stupidly compounded by riding 50km to get to the race through the dustiest smoggiest part of east London) which left me dropped from the lead group on the bell lap and struggling for a 7th place finish.

Sunday saw me at the Team Series race in Melbourne, Derbyshire, one of the more hilly races on the calendar and thus suiting me well. With three of us from the Surrey League team in the front group of 18 (it was a race of attrition more than attacks) and the other two in the second group, we managed three top-12 finishes and fifth place overall team. Considering my form and preparation wasn't the best, I was pretty happy with the result against a strong field with several big teams represented.

Monday's ride saw me in Richmond Park under the guise of recovery, but my legs despite being a bit fatigued were awesome and I actually stopped to recalibrate my powermeter because I thought it was reading too high! Two clockwise laps in under 45 min and 195 watts... so much for recovery.

Tuesday's Palace race was off due to the wet course, but I was commissairing anyway and we ran the kids' races on the top circuit instead. I had opted to drive the car for some stupid reason and learned my lesson there: nearly 30 min longer than it takes to ride my bike! Never again.

Then yesterday was our club 10 TT, this time a 2-up team event though I had asked permission to run a 4-up with Leona, Emily and Lise as training for this weekend's Etape de la Defonce stage race. I headed out early to the hills to get a few more miles in my legs and to my surprise the supposed southwest headwind felt like a tailwind. And my powermeter must have been off again too, as the watts were reading a bit higher than the effort would have said. Nope, all good... so there I was, gliding up the hills and flying along the flats, trying to hold back a bit for the TTT but my legs would have none of it. Until the puncture of course, but that just gave me more reason to haul it along the A25 to get to the club 10 signing-on in time.

The TTT itself went very well, we took the first half steady (again I noted the lack of headwind and wondered how the return leg would go). When we turned around to come back, there was no wind there either and we caned the last few miles in a very smooth through-and-off for a respectable 24:34 time -- all of us on roadbikes with not a stitch of aero gear.

Siting in the car on the way home, I mused that it had been one of those rare days when there's always a tailwind, the hills seem flatter and riding a bike is just plain fast. It was the anti-Shut Up Legs day. We cyclists often moan about the omnipresent headwinds, the steep hills, the crappy road surfaces, etc. but yesterday was just the opposite for me. Seems my legs are coming back nicely. Dare I hope for a good result at the race this weekend?


(Click the pic to order one of these t-shirts from the Cycling Tips blog)

Unscheduled Downtime

My dwindling fitness graphically portrayed, thanks to some unscheduled downtime.

After our 10-day monster training camp in Lanzarote in early March (blog post about that still to come), I carried some pretty great form and fitness straight through til the Bedford stage race two months later. Well... to be fair, that form was starting to get somewhat ragged around the edges by then, and as a former "big event" triathlete I wasn't quite sure what to do about it. My years of training until this year have been based on the train hard, train harder, train so hard you're dead, taper/rest, then race schedule that I really had no idea how to approach this week-in week-out constant training and racing. How does one maintain fitness without too much fatigue and still have good form for races? So after Bedford I decided the best way to hang on to my form yet stay fresh was to forego the weekly long rides and stick mostly to shorter stuff, either as races or faster training rides. After all, the longest non-TT race I'll do this year will be less than three hours, so why the need for 100 mile training rides?

So with a CTL hovering nicely around 110 and TSB plus or minus a few digits, I settled in these past few weeks to that plan. And while it seemed to be working in terms of freshness and fatigue balancing into some semblance of form, I still was missing that zip in my legs that I had back in mid-April. I wasn't awesome when I wanted to be; form in races seemed to come and go when it felt like it. Thursday night handicap AKA training race? Great performance! Southeast road race divisional championships? Meh. Crystal Palace saw me relying more on good position and timing than on good legs, and the National 10 mile TT last weekend could barely garner FTP watts. What to do?

Then, a crash a week ago Friday (bringing with it some unwelcome road rash and bruises) made the link between my body's fatigue and freshness even more tenuous, and finally last Tuesday the saddle sore I'd been carefully nursing for the past few weeks was no longer a minor annoyance. So as a result I've been off the bike for six days with at least another two to come before I dare try my luck matching arse to saddle again.

I've been trying to find a bright side to this as I watch my CTL drop like a stone with every passing day, now below the level it was when I finished the training camp in March. And I think it's this: downtime isn't necessarily a bad thing. The timing isn't catastrophic. I'm not truly sick or injured, so building my fitness back up shouldn't be an issue. My peak from the last major build came about six weeks later, and looking at the calendar, the same timing now should mean good form for the Essex Giro national series race at the end of July. So in the end I think I've answered my question about form and fitness and how one races all summer long trying to hold a peak: you don't. At some point you just have to let it go, take a rest, then work to build it up again. I mean, I could race 12 months a year non-stop, but I suspect I'd just end up frustrated that I never felt 100% fresh and zippy. Some downtime, unscheduled or not, is required.

Now I just need to figure out how to make the races that count your best ones... but I have a sneaking suspicion the answer will be much the same. This is a big reason why I love cycling: there's just so much that can't be predicted, though we data geeks sure love to try.

The Boxhill Challenge or Why I'm a Big Fat Liar

According to Cycling Weekly, the 2012 Olympic road race will take place on roads I know well and love to hate, including that Alp of Southeast England, Zigzag Road up Boxhill. So popular is this little climb and the woods around it that on any given weekend the cafe at the top is overflowing with mountain bikers and road cyclists scarfing down tea and cake. The Olympic course will include at least one and hopefully more loops of the hill, and while hardly a bump in the road for pro cyclists, it will be an interesting spectacle nonetheless.

With any climb comes a challenge, and the very nature of Boxhill with its easily identified start and finish points, unique switchbacks, low traffic and promise of cake at the end means amateur cyclists like myself can't resist racing themselves and the clock to get to the top. Thus the Boxhill Challenge was born, and it's one in which I fare pretty well compared to a standard TT or Richmond Park's 3LC (three lap challenge). Climbs level the playing field for smaller riders as long as their power is high relative to their weight. I'm not a pure climber by any means, but when the road goes up I don't mind at all! The longer the better, in fact.

Boxhill Gradients

Boxhill at 2.5kms with 5% average gradient means hitting it at full-on VO2max power, bouncing over the rough road, fighting an oft-present headwind, and forcing the pedals to keep turning over when it slightly steepens. It begins as you turn into Zigzag road, sheltered from the wind, and quickly progresses to the steepest section at about 10%, though you hardly notice it if you're carrying good speed after having sprinted to get a quick start!

Turning the corner into the next switchback usually means a tailwind, much welcomed albeit short-lived, and if you have a tailwind here, you're guaranteed to suffer a headwind on the third leg. That one parallels the first and is almost fully exposed to the elements. It's the longest leg and seems to go on forever, bringing about the inevitable bargaining and promises made with oneself: "just a few more minutes, you're almost there", "keep going, at the top you can stop", and my personal favourite "once this is over, you'll never have to do it again!"

Finally the last corner comes into view, inviting a sprint to get around it as the road starts to flatten. The last few hundred yards are a frantic dash to the "finish line", which is at the carpark entrance directly across from the cafe. Gasping for air, you hit "stop" on the bike computer and try to see through bleary eyes what time you did.

While I climb Boxhill as part of my rides around the Surrey Hills quite often, I only take part in the Boxhill Challenge once in a while. My brain does a pretty good job at remembering those bargains and promises I made to myself the previous attempt. Of course, those promises fade into lies, as I always find myself climbing Boxhill full-tilt not two months later, gasping and struggling and cursing the clock, the hill, the road, myself and all the other people who think it's important to race up Boxhill and test themselves, then post their results to motivate everyone else.

And my result? Yesterday's effort -- with a rare but favourable tailwind from the NW -- clocked 6:19 at 297 watts, more than 10 watts higher than my previous best and only one second off my best-ever time (set with my TT bike last September). In fact, I smashed my previous best road bike time by 14 seconds and set a new five-minute peak power record. And of course, I lied to myself that I'd never have to do it again, but in a month or two I'll be back again to see if I can break 300 watts and get closer to six minutes.

Boxhill Climb (297 watts):
 Duration:   6:19
 Work:       113 kJ
 TSS:        16.6 (intensity factor 1.255)
 Norm Power: 295
 VI:         0.99
 Pw:HR:       6.46%
 Pa:HR:       0%
 Distance:   2.487 km
 Elevation Gain:     185 m
 Elevation Loss:    60 m
 Grade:      5.0 %  (125 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        133 479 297  watts
 Heart Rate:   149 186 178  bpm
 Cadence:      75 112 93  rpm
 Speed:        13 35.5 23.6  kph
 Altitude:     61 190 132  m
 Crank Torque: 15.3 53.8 30.5  N-m

Crystal Palace 2010, Race 5

Having missed round 3 because I was helping as assistant commissaire and round 4 because I was recovering from Bedford, after Sunday's disappointing race at Hillingdon I was eager to burn up the tarmac at Crystal Palace last night. We got another good field of women out with 15 on the start line, though with the warm weather it seemed every 3rd and 4th cat guy in London was there as well. The average speed turned out to be faster than usual and 25 laps made it the longest so far, at just under an hour.


Such a close finish! This pic was taken a few metres before the line (courtesy of London Cycle Sport.)

We started out easily enough but within a few laps Natalie from Twickenham had come to the front to start pushing the pace. This dropped a handful of riders from the group, and spurred on by Charlie from Cyclefit, Natalie and I put in some attacks to try and get a gap. We never really managed to get away, but did manage to tire some legs, and with about 10 laps to go we were down to seven riders. Attacking more at that point seemed futile as the fracturing of the other races meant we had to endure group after group of men overtaking us (though we overtook a fair few men ourselves).

On the final lap, Natalie -- doing too much work on the front as usual! -- was pushing the pace with my KW teammate Emily on her wheel, followed by Emma P from the Dynamos (the only sprinter left in the group at that point) and me. I tried to time my now-customary bid for freedom on the hill so that Emma was out of position and couldn't jump on my wheel, but I think I was slightly overgeared as I hit the steepest bit of hill and felt like I was stalling. I managed to keep her to the outside on the bend but knew it was a losing cause as she quickly overtook me, leaving me with no option but to get on her wheel and settle for second. Or so I thought. Fifty yards before the line, she was labouring a bit, and I thought "could I? can I? actually win this?"

I stood up, found my legs keen to give it a try, dug in with everything I had and almost magically found myself coming around her left side. I nearly ran out of road but just nicked my wheel in front of hers in time. The few seconds afterward weren't ones of celebration but instead a mix of shock, disbelief and nausea as I tried to recover from what was apparently a massive effort; I hardly ever feel pushed right to the limit of being sick in a race. Power numbers show new peak watts for 45 to 55 seconds, so clearly I was working hard!

So it's the most exciting win yet in my short-lived racing career, but maybe not one I'll be able to repeat often as my typical "jump with a minute to go" must be looking old hat to the others! The good news is that Emily came in a strong third so I think we've got some more KW cards to play in the future. It'll have to wait two weeks though, as next week I'm back to my role as assistant commissaire.

Entire workout (197 watts):
 Duration:   55:30 (55:58)
 Work:       657 kJ
 TSS:        99.5 (intensity factor 1.037)
 Norm Power: 244
 VI:         1.24
 Pw:HR:       7.2%
 Pa:HR:       1.52%
 Distance:   33.053 km
 Elevation Gain:     726 m
 Elevation Loss:    727 m
 Grade:      -0.0 %  (0 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 716 197  watts
 Heart Rate:   118 187 171  bpm
 Cadence:      38 182 99  rpm
 Speed:        0.6 63 35.7  kph
 Altitude:     73 99 87  m
 Crank Torque: 0 89.6 18.6  N-m