New Autumn Epic - recce ride #2

 Just back from riding another section of the all new Autumn Epic sportive route.  I wanted to explore the roads around the spectacular Lyn Clywedog reservoir - looking for a viable sportive route.

Here was the plan for the recce:

After Newtown and Caersws the route heads to Trefeglwys and there the idea is to turn right up the quiet Trannon valley.  Wide road and not much climbing, all looked good but then I came to 3 options out of the valley:

On paper Option A looked the most logical - but in practice it turned out to be super steep (20%) and super long, and very narrow too - if a car came there'd be no where to pass, and once you stop you wouldn't clip back in.

Option B was similar only with more gravel.

But Option C turned out much better - wider, smoother and with two or three 15/20% sections mixed in with much easier 10% bits.  A proper challenge.

Climbing out of the valley led to wide open views and a fast drop to Staylittle - where there might bell be a food stop on the event day:

After this there was a quick bit on the main road before turning off for the road bordering the Lyn Clywedog.  There were many very rough cattle grids throughout this section which will need strong tyres.

The road around the reservoir started very easy but then got challenging - there's a couple of long, steep climbs before dropping down past the dam and out onto a quiet B road for a long, fast descent to Llanidloes.

I didn't explore the other road options as the first route was really good - few cars, wide, good tarmac and spectacular views. 

Final bit of checking was to ride a back road over to Caersws to see if it was better than the main road (which is very quiet/easy):

But the alternative turned out to be too narrow for relaxed cycling, and had a couple of climbs - which we'll not really need.

That's it for checking this section, next up is the new route out of Knighton - but most of that I'm very familiar with.

Strava route for today: https://www.strava.com/activities/4115029619

The new 2021 Autumn Epic

 I'm starting work on next year's all new Epic sportive.  Here's the first draft of a possible route:

 

Draft route link here

Starts as usual Knighton but leaves in opposite direction and climbs to Clun and then again to the Anchor - so completely different.  More new roads all around Newtown and Llanidoes before a new approach to Rhayader - and a new exit.

Yesterday (Mon 21st Sept 2020) I rode the Newtown, Rhayader and Bwlch-y-Sarnu section:

 

Newtown - easy route through the town - logical and probably not needing that many signs to get you on the right road.

 

Good roads after Newtown - wide, good tarmac and not very busy despite being a "B" road.

After a drop to Caersws the road got a bit boring - but the plan is to turn right and head up towards Staylittle and return via the big reservoir (subject to another recce ride devoted to this bit alone).

Possible route around Lyn Clywedog reservoir

 

After Llanidloes there were a couple of long climbs on very quiet roads before a steep descent to Llangurig.  After this it goes very flat following the River Wye, then gets lumpy and also features at least 3 gates you have to open and shut behind you (I'll be asking people what they think of this - makes for a very car free road).

 

Just before Rhayader the route joins the old Epic route (in reverse and for 2 miles only) - this means there's an optional extra - go around the Elan Valley loop for 15 additional miles, making a total of 120miles!  I'll be asking people what they think about offering a 200km sportive...

Route exits Rhayader up a wide, long hill and eventually turns for Bwlch-y-Sarnu - there's a very steep approach to that hamlet.  After that the route goes East to Llanbister but I headed home via Newtown.

Strava route here - https://www.strava.com/activities/4092884759

Event Timing

To time or not to time, that is the question.

Rideventures has been asking participants about event timing recently.  And the results have been surprising.

A survey for the upcoming Ride Clywd got 44% wanting timing, but then 56% didn't want it or weren't bothered.  Another poll on Facebook was more negative - 55% didn't want electronic timing, 17% weren't bothered (so 72% total) , and just 28% wanted it.

Timing is usually a big thing, isn't it?

Its long been that sportives are electronic timed.  You get a chip, you put it on your bike or helmet, you set off going past/over the timing point.  And when you come back you go over/past the same point and you get a time.  All the results are published online.

That's the way, isn't it?

Least it was the way things started out 15 years ago - individual times and being like a proper continental sportive was the way for an event to be.

How come less than half the participants want it now-a-days?

Garmin, Strava, apps on your phone, GPS tracking services - people can have so much information - their path, their heart-rate, their power, how they did on particular hills.  Much more info than a mere "time".  If you are into performance and knowing how you went then you'll have a device and be tracking all this info.  Won't you?

I guess, one thing that's missing from all this individual tracking is online results.  Without event timing there'd be no published list of times.  Some people see that as a good thing - they don't want their times published.

For Ride Clwyd we're heading towards what feels like a radical change - no timing.  What do you think?

Another Way

Many people rate the winter training they do as leading to success in the summer.  I'm one of them.  But there are problems - training in the winter can be painful.  The cold, the ice, the wind, the rain, the dark.

I did my winter training in Dec, Jan, Feb and March and have now "transitioned" to more intense but less time consuming training.  So it's ironic - just as the weather gets better I'm riding less.

In March I did 900km but for April it'll be more like 500km.  That's the plan, it's what I should be doing because now I'm now focusing on intensity rather than distance.

The sun is shining, the sky is clear, there's no danger of ice or snow, it stays light well into the evening - no more hurrying home at 4pm.  Just the right time to start doing some serious distance, really.

Another way of doing things would be - start building distance in April, May, June, and July then switch in August and September to intensity work.  This would lead to a peak performance at the end of September or in October.

This way would mean enjoying long hours in good weather building your endurance, and then a chance to knock off a major sportive event just before the season finishes.  And it fits into a purely UK based training system - if you aren't planning on going to a big continental sportive in July then there isn't a problem.

Wiped out Sunday

3 weeks on, one week off.  And the week off has started with a "Wiped out Sunday" - so tired you can't get off the sofa, you snooze all afternoon and then wander around the house in a semi-daze.  You're almost worried you are so tired.

You started the day relaxed but happy to not be doing any more training.  As the day went on you've descended into weakness and super-tiredness.  It's like you let go, relax and the long-term recovery starts to kick in.  Your body no longer needs to hold itself ready for the next piece of exercise, instead it can start on the restoration project that it's been putting off whilst you've been hammering it.

And that's why you have a "Wiped out Sunday" - where you can totally get the rest.  If you tried to start your recovery on a Monday it wouldn't be the same - going to work, starting the week, commuting - all that actually adds stress and delays restoration.

If you don't know what I mean about feeling wiped out then perhaps you aren't pushing yourself in your training?  You should be going a little bit beyond yourself, doing a bit more than you can really cope with, and in the short term that means you'll be tired.  In fact you'll have accumulated tiredness over the 3 weeks - a bit here, a bit there - you carry it whilst you are busy training and then it all gets to come out once you stop.

If this isn't happening for you then may be you need to have another look at your training, and at what you want to do this year?

Week or Month?

I look on Strava and see friends who have set weekly training targets.  80km seems to be a popular target.

But the problem with the weekly training unit is one hiccup in you week and the target is gone.  Life can easily put your target off track - the once in 3 months event, the parents evening, the family event - all can knock your weekly target off track.  And because its just a week you are working with there isn't the time to reschedule - the week is over almost immediately.

Using a month as your basic training unit is much better, I have found.  Lets take the idea of 80km per week target - that's 320km per 4 weeks. If we're going to have a rest week lets do just 40km during that week, so 280km left to distribute across the remaining 3 weeks.

OK 280 divided by 3 = 94km per week, so a 50km and a 20km at the weekend plus a 25km mid-week would do it.  BUT one weekend includes a sportive you want to do - 80km, and another weekend is going to be a family visit with no chance to do any riding (its your sisters wedding so don't even try).  One of the weeks includes a Bank Holiday Monday.  So your 3 weeks includes a mixture of opportunities and limitations and you can plan accordingly to get your month target reached.

Besides helping you cope with real life this way of planning your training can also lead to inventive solutions and grabbing opportunities: days when you finish work early or make the effort to get up at dawn to knock off the final 40km.  It can also mean that you have the time to push yourself - you've got 140km to do in the last 5 days of the month - so, despite being pretty tired already, you push yourself to get that final 140 done.

Context or terrain training

I've been going on for a few posts about the difficulty for the amateur cyclist of using Zone systems to control training intensity.  I want to suggest another way.

How about thinking of the context you're riding in?  How about thinking of the terrain you're riding?  These are likely to be much more apparent to the amateur cyclist than an abstract Zone.

So if you go for a long bike ride on flat terrain, and you don't indulge in any sprints, you can be fairly certain you have completed a low-intensity, endurance capacity building training session.

If you head for the hills, and the hills are frequent and steep, then you have completed a hill climbing training session.

If you go out with the local club chain-gang you may be contributing to your speed training.

This is obvious I hear you say.  Yes, that's right and perhaps for the amateur cyclist "obvious" is a good place to be.  Obvious means you can think about your training in a way you can understand, and therefore in a way you can control and manipulate.

And it means you can relate your training to the nature of the challenges you want to take on.  If you are aiming to complete a hilly sportive then you know what sort of training might be appropriate.  If you are aiming to complete a week long tour then again you have some indications from the challenge for what you need to focus on.

Training becomes purposeful and directly connected to what you are trying to achieve.

Using the terrain to manage your training

I'm really interested in how an amateur cyclist can think about and manage their training.  I'm guessing that most don't have much of a plan, that the complicated published plans look daunting and that Zone training looks onerous and double complicated.

Cycling is supposed to be fun; after all we're not paid to do it so why get involved in activity that makes our pastime into a chore?

Despite all this though there are some basic training principles that will help.  Having some way of controlling the intensity of your training is important - if you just go as fast as possible all the time you may be missing out on important endurance capacity building.  This is the classic quick commuter who zips through urban car traffic at top speed but never does more that 7km at a time.  Alternatively, if all you do is potter about on day-long rides you may be brilliant at covering distance but when you ride with others they all go much faster and you can't keep up.

You may have noticed how I'm using the context of your riding to help describe the intensity of the training effect you'll get.  A commuter may be doing lots of short rides at speed, the tourer may be doing long, continuous rides at a much steadier pace.

What they are both doing is experiencing one of the basic principles of training - specificity.  You get good at what you practice.  I think this might be a more understandable way of thinking about your training than struggling with abstract Zones.

Managing load during training

I guess you may have heard of "Zone training" and may be even "Power Training"?  I used to do all my training with a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) and then kept a careful watch on my Zones - how much time I spent in various heart rate zones with the theory being that I could control the amounts of work in each Zone, the better to manage my training.

So, in any given week I might be able to say "I've done 6 minutes of Zone 5 (near maximum heart rate) training, and 2 hours of Zone 2 (fairly low level exercise)" and then compare that to other weeks, and perhaps increase or decrease my time in various Zones according to my training needs.

Trouble is I never really got to manipulate my training in this way:

1)  It's quite complicated.  The software you use to record the amounts can produce graphs of what you are doing - but what does it all mean?  And what should you do next?

2)  The numbers could jump around, so you could have 6 mins in Zone 5 one week, and 12 minutes the next - just by accident.

3)  It was a distraction.  You felt like you were managing your training when really you were just recording it, and in the meantime you would be ignoring the signs from your body about what the real effect the training was having.

Eventually, when the HRM chest strap ran out of batteries I didn't bother renewing them, and had my best year on the bike ever.  That was several years ago and I'm still training without an HRM.

Rest Day

Just about all training plans will schedule in one or two rest days per week.  The principle is that you actually improve during the rest day - which is sound.  But many plans have rest days that may not be suitable for the amateur rider:

Monday - this is a classic rest day.  The idea is that you've done loads over the weekend so Monday is a rest day - only it's not for the full-time worker.  They have to get up early and go to work.  I've lost count of the number of Mondays where I've dragged myself to work half-dead from all the weekend training.  The stress of getting the week's work going is compounded by my fatigue and makes for a difficult start to the week.  And then having had my "rest day" it's back to training on Tuesday...

Friday - another classic day to have off.  You may have actually trained during the week so now have a rest before the big weekend push is the thinking.  Again, I'm not so sure - the working week can leave you dead on your feet and so Friday is less of a recovery/rest day and more of a survival day.  Alternatively, it can also be a great day to do something on the bike - may be not much - but a short ride at the end of Friday can clear the working week and set you up for the weekend.

Sunday - now this can be a real rest day in my opinion.  It's possible to sofa-surf all day - you can literally put your feet up (the England Rugby World Cup winning team were made to go to bed in the afternoons to maximise their recovery during training).  You can also do things with family and friends - unwind and be around for people - much better than being absent without leave all weekend getting in huge mileage...

Saturday - if Sunday isn't available then take Saturday off, and do a big ride on Sunday but be aware of how you might feel on Monday...

Here's a different weekly training pattern:

• Sunday - don't train, relax, fully recover
• Monday - get the working week going with energy, and do a training session in the evening - something to look forward to on a Monday night
• Tues/Wed - more training
• Thursday - rest day, you've done 3 days of training so get some rest before you are completely on your knees
• Friday - another "difficult" day but if you have a little time at the end for a quick bike ride that can be a great way to put the working week behind you and prepare you for a big training day on Saturday
• Saturday - big ride, Saturday is often a practical day but if you can sort out the chores then you'l have time to ride. And you can be really ambitious because you know you have a complete day of rest coming up on Sunday

This has worked for me - especially the resting on Sunday because this is much more likely to be a real rest and recuperation day rather than the "fake" rest days like Monday and Friday.

Amateur v. professional cyclist

Of course the professional cycling world has a lot to teach the rest of us who don't ride as much.  But I think there can also be problems in simply taking directly from pros and this is especially true when it comes to training.

What's interesting is how bike manufacturers have already nailed this issue.  The bikes sold to amateurs may well feature all sorts of pro-kit but in some important ways they will be fundamentally different - the gearing will be very different, and the frame geometry/available positions may be much less extreme.

It'll look like a pro-bike but really it's not.

With training programmes I don't think people have been so clever.  These can appear to be essentially professional schedules with a few tweaks to the numbers, and that can cause problems:

1)  Amateurs have all sorts of calls on their time and are much less justified in asking for their training to take precedence.  The tweaked "pro-plan" may have reasonable time demands for the amateur but the frequency and scheduling may make it impossible.

2)  Zone training can require considerable testing and managing; when the amateur cyclist just wants to get out and ride they instead get tangled up in Zones and intervals.  It can also be mis-leading with amateurs not really understanding the Zones or relying too much on them and not listening to their body.

3)  A rigid plan that an amateur follows without really understanding is going to be a problem.  They haven't got a coach to explain what is going on, and because they don't understand it they can't modify it when needed.

4)  Even the pros complain about scheduled training that falls on cold, rainy days.  For the amateur with less time, and more on their mind and plate, having a bike ride when they don't want to go out can easily lead to a plan being abandoned.  Amateurs are supposed to be doing it for fun.

All of this can mean the wonderful "professional plan" may be disappointing and demoralising for the normal cyclist.  We may need something simpler that we can manage because we understand what's going on.

Training Plans

The plans set out in magazines and books can look really good but I wonder how many amateur cyclists ever follow them in practice?

I know I never had.  And I've tried - setting out my own programme of workouts week by week, day by day.

But somehow it all goes wrong very quickly, why's that?

1)  Life gets in the way - the plan calls for a big bike ride every Saturday for the next 3 weeks but the 2nd Saturday has a special family event that you can't get out of so your big ride can't be done.

2)  Monday is a rest day - this is a classic of almost all plans, the thinking is that the amateur cyclist will have trained all weekend so Monday should be off.  But the amateur cyclist is also probably a full-time worker and has to turn up early Monday morning to put in a full day of work - so its not really a rest day.

3)  Make the most of the weekends - this is the corollary of the Monday rest.  Hammer yourself all weekend is the idea but in practice a Saturday or especially a Sunday may be the amateur cyclist's only real day of rest.

4)  Complicated, zone based training sessions - can be quite difficult to manage by yourself during a ride - perhaps you need to get a coach and do it on a track?  Oh, right you're an amateur and don't have all those facilities.

I sometimes suspect that these training programmes are written by coaches of professionals and all they have done is change the quantities to reflect the lower capacity of the typical amateur cyclist.

What they haven't done is take into account how the amateur rider is fundamentally different from the professional.

More on Rest Week

Currently taking the week off bike riding (or any serious exercise) - I do 3 weeks "on" and 1 week "off" - to recover.

What are the alternatives?

1)  Just train all the time - sounds more productive but in reality you can't push yourself all the time, you end up ill or injured.

2)  Don't push so hard - yes, you can keep going week after week but you aren't really stretching yourself and things won't improve like they could/should.

3)  You ride infrequently, never building up fatigue - a safe option, and you may make some progress, but it's not really a training programme that builds significant capacity, more just riding about and "keeping" fit.

Taking a week off is justified if you have trained hard, you'll need the time off if you have done the 3 weeks right.

Rest Week

I always look forward to Rest Week.  My current programme gives me the 4th week in every month off, so I have 3 weeks of expanding my riding then a week when I'll hardly ride at all.

Am I wasting a week?  How can not riding my bike help improve my riding?

Mmm, well, the first thing to say is that I really need the week off.  After 3 weeks of pushing and forcing myself to do as much as I can, to ride when I'm tired, getting on the bike when I'm aching still from the last ride, I really need to stop.

I can push myself harder because I know I've got a rest week coming.

Rest isn't just for the body either - the mind needs a rest from all the striving, all the keeping going, all the ignoring of pain.  It can be wearing to take the strain day after day so mentally I need to take some time out.

And when I come back to training for the next 3 weeks I'll have new enthusiasm, and hopefully will notice additional physical capacity - the rest will give me a mini-peak.

Planning Training

We are often told to plan our training. 

But those neat plans are always impossible to keep going - and can even become a source of disappointment and de-motivation.

Why is that and what sort of plan can actually be effective?

In a series of posts Rideventures puts forward an alternative way of organising your training. 

Read more.



Progression and Recovery #7

Many times we are told that a training plan must include progression.  So if you plan to do 70km one week, you should do 80km the next and then 90 after that.

It sounds good.  But does it work?

I'd say you need to be very careful of these kind of neat progresions.

When you start a plan you may come to it fresh from weeks of inactivity or much lower level   training.  In the first week you are full of beans and easily do all the workouts.  For the second week things aren't so easy - you've already done a weeks training, and then by the 3rd week you are really getting tired.

The third week is done in the context of the 2 preceeding weeks of heavy load.  If you have planned your longest workout for this 3rd week then you are envisaging doing it when you are most tired and at danger of injury.

You may find that just being able to maintain 70km each week is actually progression - because in the 2nd and 3rd weeks you aren't as capable as you were in the first week.

You may even want to explore a negative progression  - do 90km in week 1, 80 in week 2 and 70 for the last.  So do your biggest load when you are fresh, then cut back with regard to your accumulated fatigue.

Some final thoughts on recovery:

• If you work full-time you may want to look at taking one weekend day off.  Planning to use Mondays and/or Fridays as rest days may not be real as work can give its own stress.  Take Sunday off to have a complete rest day.
• Recovery weeks may need to be longer.  Heavy training periods may take longer to properly recover from than the week you have planned  - remember your body has no idea of weeks and just recovers at its own pace.  It might take 10 days.
• Planning recovery.  If you know you have a time coming up when you can't train then perhaps plan in some extra sessions before it - then when you are really tired will coincide with not being able to train - a neat use of what would otherwise be a frustrating training interruption. 

(7 of 7)

More Flexible Targeted Training #6

Often changing around your workout using just one week doesn't give you enough flexibility.

With my previous example I was planning to do 140km per week.  But if one weekend I'm going away for the whole of Friday,Saturday and Sunday with no opportunity to train then there's no way I can compensate within that one week.

If I look at a fortnight I've got a better chance.

Being away for a weekend means I loose 70km but if I put in an extra 35 before I go away, and another after I come back then at least I've got the distance target sorted.

Or, if I can find the time, get the 70km done as a mid-week special.  That may mean putting in place one-off preparations - leave work early, make sure lights are working because the end of the ride will be in darkness and prepare the family for your unusually long evening absence.

Flexibility means you can cope with unavoidable events and you can be imaginative about compensating for them.

It also means you can take advantage of opportunities.  Late starts, days off or Bank Holidays can be capitalised on. (6 of 7)

Lastly, some observations on progression.  (7 of 7)

Flexible Targeted Training #5

Don't go straight to the days and the weeks when planning.  Instead, think about what you want to achieve.

I'll use an example from my current training: I want to improve my 100km performance - I want to be able to reel off 100km with ease. 

What's going to help me do that?  I think doing long training sessions - 70km rides - will help me with this target.  And to help me do those sessions I think a couple of 35km workouts each week will help.

So that's it.  I now have a plan.  I'll do a 70km, and then a couple of 35s each week.

But notice I haven't assigned particular days to these workouts - instead I'm going to look at each week individually and see where I can fit in these workouts.  Family commitments, days off, travel, Bank Holidays can now all be accommodated, or even taken advantage of. 

And I can track my progress simply - I'm looking at a total km of 140km a week - when and how I do it is entirely freeform.

But there's more...  

More Flexible Training #4

So how does Flexible Training deal with injuries?

Lets say you've trained well for 10 days, but then notice a very tiny problem - your knee aches a bit.  With a rigid plan you ignor it - after all the plan is important and you'll never achieve anything if you drop it at the first problem, so you think.

2 workouts later and you can't bend your knee anymore and have to take 2 weeks off!

With a Flexible Training plan the first sign of trouble leads to an immediate re-plan - you drop the next two workouts - but are back at it full on by the weekend.

The rigid plan has led to 2 weeks of missed workouts and a real knock to your confidence.  The Flexible Plan has meant the loss of just two workouts.

And lets face it the injury only came on because you had done too much so resting for 2 sessions is probably entirely appropriate.

Next question - Doesn't Flexible Training just mean you're doing anything you like?  And how do you plan at all?

Next - Flexible Targeted Training (4 of 7)

A Flexible Training Plan #3

I know, it sounds a bit like "anything goes" or not really a plan at all - but that's not so.

Lets look at the earlier example of a rigid plan - the Saturday long rides were 70km then 80km then 90km - so that's 240km in total over a 3 week period.

There are other workouts in this rigid plan so its not possible, and I'm not going to suggest, spreading this 240km out over the whole 3 weeks.

And the "Long Ride" is a cornerstone of a sportive plan - you need to have serious continuous kms in your legs.

A flexible plan would take this 240km target and then see how to fit it into your life.  Lets say one Saturday you have an unavoidable family commitment.  That Saturday you can only imagine doing 40km.  But the other 2 Saturdays are free - so you plan in 2 x 100km rides.

You achieve you 240km target.

That's how you do the equivalent to the rigid plan.

Or rather its not - because the rigid plan wouldn't take into account the short Saturday and you would end up realising too late that you were going to miss an important workout.

(3 of 7)

Lets look a bit more at how this Flexible Training works next.