2 x 20s

Tonight felt like a small breakthrough. This was my second time doing 2 x 20 minute threshold intervals. I survived my first attempt--but barely. This time, though by no means an easy workout, I certainly felt much stronger throughout the 2nd 20 minutes, and was able to keep both my cadence and speed up. Coach Wharton wanted to see me riding between 20-25 mph at a cadence in the 90s, which I was able to maintain through both intervals.

Rain and cold in the forecast--yes, even in southern California. I LOVE that I can still get in a challenging ride and see improvement even when the weather turns ugly. My new bike, however, sits in the living room, gazing longingly out the front window...

Christmas Comes Early

This week Santa made an early stop at my house. Well, he actually made me drive 90 miles to pick up my present: a 2008 Trek Madone 6.9 Pro. I’ve had the itch for a new bike for some time now, and having my Felt on the CompuTrainer makes for a bit of a hassle when the weather turns nice and I want to go outside. A shop in San Diego was “blowing out” the 08 Madone 6.9 Pro, and offering a 12 month no payment/no interest deal that was too much for my weakened willpower to withstand.

So with the hesitant approval of my finance manager I drove south and signed up. Who says there is a credit crunch? It took all of 3 minutes for Trek to approve the transaction. The shop did a very complete bike fit and I was on my way in no time.

Continuing with coach Wharton’s training plan. Lots of intervals... I’ve been trying to figure out how best to get WKO+ charts out of the program to post. XP doesn’t have a nifty window capture utility built in, and my Mac keyboard doesn’t have a print screen key. I’ll dig around for some shareware--there must be something out there that will let me grab the charts.

Finally, the ErgVideo Threshold Test DVD arrived yesterday. I will have a go at it next week and report back. In the meantime, lots of rain in the forecast so the Madone will have to be content looking pretty in my living room while I spin away on the CT until the sun comes out again...

Ken

Week One

My first week of training is done and all the performance files are in the hands of coach Wharton. Despite a couple of technical bumps in getting the CompuTrainer up and running, the ErgVideo software ran flawlessly. The seamless process of receiving the coaching plan, selecting the ride, and doing the workout, is really amazing. And the quality of the workout is pretty intense.

Last night’s ride was a tempo club ride--very much like any home town club ride you might be used to. What a great feeling to be able to get in this kind of workout from the comfort of my home, at night while it is raining outside!

One thing I notice right off the bat is that ErgVideos force you to give it your best. An hour into the ride when the rider in front of me sprinted ahead to catch up to a group up the road, I really didn’t want to follow him. But the power graph at the top of the screen told me I would have to if I wanted to complete the workout! The more I get used to the software, the better I get at reading the upcoming sections of the ride by looking at the graph. A dip to zero watts followed by a sharp rise: stop sign or turn ahead. You can easily see in advance when it will be your turn to pull at the front. After a long stretch at 100% I found that seeing that little dip in power coming down the road kept me motivated to keep pushing just a little more, knowing that a rest was coming...

In terms of the mechanics of the system, there are a few things to make sure you have right. The CompuTrainer connects to a computer using a serial connector. Being a Mac user, I haven’t seen a serial port on my computer--well, ever. The latest Mac I bought even dropped the Firewire 400 in lieu of the faster firewire 800 and USB 2 ports. For most users I suspect that they will be using a serial to USB adapter, and they are not all created equal. ErgVideo has a nice video tutorial that explains which is more reliable.

http://www.ergvideo.com/Support.aspx

I ordered one, updated the drivers, and it worked flawlessly. $19 well spent.

Other than that, it is important to do a proper warm up to get everything calibrated (10 minutes). Just build this into your workout routine--it will keep your rides consistent and accurate. Make sure you have whatever you need while you ride at hand. Water, gels, TV remote, phone, a towel, etc. should be at arms length, because you really don’t want to pause the workout to get up and get something you forgot.

One final point about this entire system. While it provides, in my opinion, an unparalleled quality of workout for an indoor training system, it does require that the user be comfortable with diving into aspects of software that the casual computer user might not normally be required to explore. Be prepared to tinker a bit to get everything running optimally.

I think it is important to keep in mind that the developers of these tools are developing to a relatively small market (compared to say, the market for Halo). The time and effort is being spent in making sure the software gives us the best workout possible, in an easy to use interface. In the case of the CompuTrainer Coaching and MultiRider software, that interface is, um, somewhat aesthetically dated. That said, it is functional, and the ErgVideo Inc. software works in such a way to keep it in the background for the most part.

Now, a day of rest, and then on to Week 2!

Ken

An Introduction

This is the first in a series of cycling training diaries, done in conjunction with The FredCast, using products developed by Racermate Inc., ErgVideo Inc. and Online Bike Coach Richard Wharton.

First, a little introduction:

My name’s Ken. I’m 47 years old, with a wife and two kids (10 and 6), a full-time career in the film industry in Southern California, and have been cycling semi-regularly for the past 3 years. A scary--but ultimately harmless--health scare was the wake up call that I had better take my fitness more serious. I went out and bought a bike that seemed reasonably capable of letting me achieve that purpose, and started riding. A year into cycling and I was hooked.

As I learned more about cycling, I realized that to get better I would need some form of structured training. My efforts at self-training have always been hit and miss. I get into a relatively good level of fitness, and then something or other keeps me off the bike for an extended period of time and I lose much of the ground that I had gained. An employer who trained on a CompuTrainer liked it so much that he was kind enough to buy me one as a company bonus. My wife would have preferred the cash.

After a long cold winter working in Toronto, Canada my CompuTrainer has spent the last 6 months in the shipping container as I enjoyed riding in the sunshine in my hometown of Pasadena, CA. Now that our anemic version of winter is settling in, with chilly mornings, early nightfall and the occasional rain showers, I have resurrected the CT and set my bike up in the bedroom for nightly training sessions.

And I have hatched a plan.

My plan is to work with online bike coach Richard Wharton to help prepare me for a couple of cycling events in 2009, and report my progress to you via the FredCast and this training blog.

The first event is the Solvang Century, which will be my third (and most difficult) Century. And second, climbing Mont Ventoux in southern France in July as part of a trip to see some stages of the Tour de France. Rich’s training tools of choice just happen to be the same tools I have been using on and off for the past year--the CompuTrainer and the ErgVideo library.

It is my belief that there are a lot of people in my situation:

1. Hobby cyclists (ie, not racing competitively)
2. Busy home lives with limited time to ride
3. Looking to improve fitness as efficiently as possible
4. Finding it difficult to justify the expense of one-on-one coaching
5. Willing to spend some money on training plans and cycling technology if they work

Last night I gave the CompuTrainer and ErgVideo software a shakedown ride to work out any technical issues. First issue--make sure all those CompuTrainer cables are tight! The RPM cable came loose and I had to pause the ride to adjust it! User error...

Today, coach Wharton called and we had a nice chat about my goals and his approach. I will start with 4 assigned workouts a week, including a weekly Threshold Test to measure progress. Each week I will send my data off and Coach Wharton will evaluate the progress. We are starting my Threshold at 190 watts (based on my less than stellar 8 mile TT!).

The training plan arrived via e-mail as a very simple file. Opening it revealed the individual workouts, detained line by line. This plan (and the rides it contains) is opened directly within the ErgVideo software.

Clicking on any of the workouts shows the profile and data for the ride.

So with my system checked, and my training plan in hand, everything is in place. I guess the only thing left to do is to get on my bike and ride.

I’m excited to get started!

Ken