The Skinny on Power A Mea Culpa on Week 1/2

NATE

I stared down at the clock that hovered over the stove. It blinked an impuissant 2:38. In the morning. My stomach howled. It's taken some willpower, but I'm back to heavy caloric restriction on rest days. This is the result: Bonking in my sleep. There's nothing less enjoyable than glycogen depletion in a REM cycle, as a cyclist's carbohydrate-dependent brain begins to grind to an absolute halt, running on fumes.

I mulled where I was, what I was doing. Everyone loves a torturous journey, they tell me. I did that once. In the winter of 2010 I was bored, aimless, and 23 years old. Because a mentor told me I needed to quit screwing around and do something with my life, I threw every fiber of my being into the meatgrinder of a goal of becoming a domestic professional bike racer in a single season. I was successful. It's one of the only accomplishments I'm proud of - going from dangling off the back of a Cat 4 field to dropping Grand Tour podium finishers in the space of six months was impressive. It taught me that I was capable of anything I dedicated myself wholeheartedly to, but now, some five-odd years on, in a sense, I want to do it again? I was young then. Younger. I was also single-minded, ludicrously driven, and had nothing to lose. I'd conscientiously decided that if pedaling a bike for a tiny paycheck went belly-up, I'd be inking my name on the line for a five-year commitment with the French Foreign Legion. There was something deeply motivating in not caring about what the world thought about me, but more importantly, what I thought about me. It was cynically empowering.

Nate, circa-2012, contemplating life and death in the midst of the Redlands Classic.

Just as empowering was the novelty of the experience. Before then I'd never put my body through the intense gauntlet of riding 15 to 30 hours a week on a consistent basis. Everything was new, and even if it was detrimental, it was exciting. Absolute depletion of my sex drive? Passing out while taking a leak because my resting heartrate had dropped so low? Being hungry all the time? Craving raw meat? Exhibiting personality traits that were less-than human? It was all reason for delight. Now, I know all of the usual suspects when it comes to getting fit again - and they mostly annoy me. Almost fainting in the hallway on my way to a restaurant urinal is no longer cute, it's childish. But even still - it's somewhat invigorating. It lets me know there's progress, that the work is paying dividends.

It leads me to where I am now, some three-ish weeks into where we are from whence we started. Before, I was off the bike, in a serious sense, for about six months. Once it became apparent that my off-again on-again spot with Smartstop in 2015 was a slim chance well on its way to non-existent, I pulled the plug on my self-coached training sometime around July of 2015. Like most professionals who abruptly quit, I continued to eat and drink like I was still slugging out 32,000 calorie weeks. After a few extra kilos, I sheepishly made my way to legendary Marin-based coach Craig Upton in January for a lactate threshold test to get the ball rolling.

It was less-than exciting. First, let's chat about what a "lactate threshold" test is and does. Familiar? Skip the next two paragraphs - but this is the "finger pricking" test you see in all the movies. It's an excellent way to establish a baseline for training off of, as well as measure an athlete's current fitness. The very simple, one line answer, directly from Mr. Upton, is that he looks for how many watts an athlete can produce without accumulating lactate. He has the athlete ride a trainer at increasingly difficult power stages until they "fail" (blood lactate, measured from the finger pricking, spikes). Craig's test is harder because instead of the industry standard two-minute power stages, his last six minutes. This works to replicate "real-world" lactate buildup and produces a more accurate (and quite a bit lower) result than something shorter, or than a "20 minute power" field test that a lot of athletes do on their own. Anyway, lactate accumulation is measured in millimoles. Once lactate hits around 4.0mm (depending on who you talk to), the body begins to shift from reliance on fat as an energy source to using glycogen (the body's afterburner fuel - also known as carbohydrates). This is known as "Lactate Threshold", and reflects the ability of the body to move oxygen to the muscles. How does this matter when it comes to riding? Energy utilization!

Fat is virtually an unlimited energy source for even the leanest of athletes. As a contrast, most people only have 1000-2000 calories of glycogen stored in the liver and muscle at maximum capacity. At approximately 280 watts of absolute intensity on the bike, most people burn about 1000 calories per hour. Replenishing it takes a lot more time than just sticking a hose into your gas tank. The human digestive tract can only process 250-500 calories per hour (and that's a subject of hot debate). When you hit "E" on the gas tank, you bonk, and your power output drops dramatically as you run out of jet fuel. It's why that "one guy" on the group ride is a hammer for the first 1.5-2 hours, and then fades dramatically towards the end. Which leads us to our logical conclusion: Being fast and fit is a battle for efficiency. The harder you can go without chewing through your glycogen stores, the longer you can prolong the bonk, the better you'll ride for longer, and the better your chance of "winning". In a bike race, it's not who has the most power - it's who has the most power at the end.

Finally: My LT test! For me - this is low, especially when we take into account my current hefty weight of 176lbs/80kg. An LT of 350 watts (for reference, Craig showed me Chris Froome's test, and it's just under 390 watts at 150lbs). It's what happens when you quit doing intervals on the bike and instead do them on craft IPAs. But, there are benefits to being a grizzled former pro with a half-decade of training under my belt. Craig says, "In your test, we can see a solid aerobic system, producing 270w before we see any lactate increase. This is very good and shows a great level of fitness, as well as good potential if we can improve this a little". The motor is still there! Maybe there's hope? Craig thinks we can boost my LT by a solid 20-30 watts in the next 90 days, which, if my weight cooperates, would put me solidly back into "PRO" shape. I asked Craig for his greatest improvement story as inspiration. He told me that he coached a guy wanting to pull off an Ironman in a single year. In his first test, he was completely out of shape. One year later, at the Ironman, he rode with more average power over 112 miles than what he failed at during a six minute stage during his LT test. He was able to hold a wattage for six hours at a power higher than he could for six minutes. That's rad.

Right now, my training volume is on the lower side - 15-16/hrs a week or so, with some easy tempo ("Zone 3") workouts at a high cadence. Craig is really into cadence work, which is something I began neglecting as I got older and more set in my ways. Most people who ride with me have seen my penchant for mashing everything in the big ring. While that looks cool and develops a lot of torque, it's also really inefficient. Our objective with the high-cadence stuff is to develop the ability to drive power anywhere across the RPM range. I'm really enjoying a workout he's having me do right now, which involves climbing while alternating between seated/standing at a higher cadence (90RPM) and tempo (320-340) power. It's a lot tougher than it sounds to turn 90RPM while standing on the pedals!

Nutrition is still a struggle for me, especially with a family and work to focus on. It's a lot easier when I was just focused on me - but when eating in a more communal setting, keeping track of everything is tough. On the upside, my IPA consumption is approaching 0...relatively speaking. My goals over the coming weekend are to absolutely nail my volume, as well as track all nutrition. Back to weighing my food!

Strava stalk away - I'm posting exactly what my workout was, as well as leaving power/HR data intact for everyone to pick over.

Two weeks in! My main goal with starting this ‘challenge’ was consistency.  I really hadn’t put together a solid week of training, much less 90 days in over a year and was feeling it. Slow, no snap, tiring too quickly on the climbs, getting sore and worse, getting injured (IT Band) from going a bit too long and too hard keeping up with Nate with no miles under my belt.  So, I took a full week off the bike, worked on stretching and foam rolling.  Then I put in 4 rides in the following week, SUPER SUPER easy, pretty flat, missing one day.  IT band was better, but still suspect.  Started seeing a massage therapist and that helped, but really it was the yoga and stretching. But, more than just consistency on the bike I wanted consistency in the rest of my life.  Keeping it easy on myself I just picked four things to concentrate on.