Energy systems

Following on from my previous post on using excel sheets to plan your season, comes the composition of which system you wish to train at any given part of the season.

Energy systems for simplicity can be broken down into:
0-10s – Sprinting
11s-3 mins – anaerobic
3 mins – 8 mins – VO2max
8 mins+ – Threshold.

Sprinting
“You’re either born a sprinter, or you’re not” – Bollocks.

Well, not entirely bollocks, but not far off. I convinced myself for years I wasn’t a sprinter on the bike. At the end of a 5k run, I could always come by many with one final kick over the last 30s or so. I couldn’t figure why this didn’t translate onto the bike however. It turns out I am actually a fair sprinter, just a long one. I’m not your typical Robbie McEwen who’ll use his massive 5s power to nip round in the last 50-100 metres. I’m more of a Petacchi, with no explosive kick, but the ability to go long over 300-400 metres showing well above average fatigue resistance, holding it to the line.

Powered by the creatinine phosphate system, this energy system recharges in 3-5 minutes. You can get about 5-10 sprints in, with 5 minutes recovery between each attempt. The residual fatigue from these sessions are so low, that they become a great session to do regularly without impairing other sessions. You can do a set of these and then still go out and do your tempo ride after. The sprints however are best done on fresh legs after an easy day, as you want to be aiming to hit peak power over 5-10s of sprinting. Through doing these, your slow twitch fibres will begin to simulate fast twitch fibres, adding to your sprinting prowess. This process takes months, as shown by my power chart below, adding 100w every 4 weeks or so to both my peak and 5s power, which have doubled over the course of 6 months.

 

Anaerobic
The race-winning energy system, often neglected.

This is what the vast majority of local racers lack in my opinion. They don’t do regular anaerobic intervals. I’ve looked at a few local racers power data, and it’s always a weak spot for them, and it’s usually one of the main reasons why they get dropped – they just can’t handle the surge-recover-surge-recover nature of races. Their heart rate goes sky high, the legs fill with burn of hydrogen ions, and they’re unable to recover sufficiently. In a bunch on the flat, it’s not a problem. In races that are strung out into the wind, or that contains lumpy terrain that is rolling, problems begin to occur. It should be said, that by increasing your FTP (the most trainable system of them all), will also raise your anaerobic threshold higher, so these efforts become easier. There should still be a massive focus on anaerobic ability though.

This year I changed my ideas on training. As a runner, how could I do 800m in 3 minutes if I couldn’t achieve 400m in 1:30? The answer was to do speedwork at the shorter durations, and try to extend that intensity over a bigger duation. For instance; do 200m reps in <40 seconds, 400m reps in <1:25, 600m in <2:15 and finally the target of 800m in <3:00.

I went against the grain of traditional linear periodisation, and started my anaerobic training while the snow was still thawing in February, doing 11 lots of 1 minute repeats up Broomfield hill in Richmond park. You can give ~7 minutes recovery to ensure the anaerobic capacity recharges fully, or you can give 1 minute recovery, deplete your anaerobic capacity, and essentially turn it into an aerobic VO2 workout. Both are fantastic sessions, but you’re training different energy systems. I like to do anaerobic sessions with the focus on repeatability, and then a week or 2 later, try to do a max-all out effort and beat my 1 minute power best. My 1 minute power PB back in March, became my 2 minute power PB in June.

VO2Max
Hills!

In racing terms, this is the hardest effort you can do for 3-8 minutes. That may be a hill climb event, a late flyer off the front, staying with the lead group up a 3-8 minute hill, or initially escaping the bunch before settling into a rhythm to work around threshold in a breakaway.

Often what I find in race winning files is that the last 5 minutes of a race is performed near the top end of my VO2max normalised power. Average power is usually lower as I’m trying to conserve energy before launching a hard anaerobic effort + sprint, but in the bigger picture, it’s massively aerobically powered. Training your VO2max brings short-term gains, as it also helps raise your aerobic ceiling. What does this mean? Your FTP is always a % relative to your VO2max. By raising your VO2max, you pull your threshold up slightly, and increase the room for FTP improvement. VO2max isn’t very trainable however.

In terms of training this, you want to be doing 3-8 minute efforts, with minimal recovery. The longer the recovery, the more anaerobic fuelled the intervals will be. Usually this takes place at a 1:1 ratio, for intance; 5 minutes at VO2, 5 minutes recovery, and you’ll gradually reduce the recover to 0.5, so 5 minutes at VO2, 2.5 minutes recovery. When you begin to plateau, the options (same applies to FTP) are to reduce recovery time, go longer, or go harder.

FTP/Threshold
For racing and time-trialling, the main governing factor of how well you perform in TT’s, or which category you race in, is largely dictated by your functional threshold power (FTP), or alternatively, your ‘threshold’. Roughly your best performance for ~60 minutes.

There’s numerous ways to improve your threshold. You can ‘push’ it up, with lots of sub-threshold work, at endurance, tempo, or sweet spot, or you can ‘pull’ it up, with 4×10 at 105% FTP, 2×20 at or above threshold, or VO2 max intervals. There’s not an awful lot of 20 minute sections of road locally in Surrey, so what I tend to do is head to Box Hill and go hard from the roundabout at the bottom for 10 minutes up towards Cycles Dauphine. There’s enough gradient beyond the cafe to continue to put the power down. It’s a brilliant workout!

To ‘push’ your FTP up, requires a tremendous amount of volume if you ride around lots at endurance pace. A lot of books will refer to this as ‘base’. A mesocycle of training whereby the focus is on aerobic conditioning, and getting miles into your legs in order for you to be able to sustain a greater load of intensity once you enter the next mesocycle of training.

May 3 day: Stage 1

Although my motivation to race has been dwindling since Kirdford 2/3’s, I enjoyed Kitsmead on Thursday, and strangely looked forward to the May 3 day, even though I had committed to doing only the first stage. I spoke to the rest of the Paceline team pre-race, and sussed out who could do what.

The Alfold course is shocking through the twisty sections. I sat in, and after the first prime, saw Albert Ellison’s Botecchia kit in the break, with a Southdown and Wyndymilla rider, and a Twickenham rider (James Bradley) attempting to bridge. With Wyndymilla controlling the front for the first 10 miles and being well represented, I attacked 13.5 miles in. It was a new strategy for me to go so early, but I hoped to get other teams doing chasing as we didn’t have a designated sprinter as such for me to bury myself for. On going, I thought to myself that I could really have used a skinsuit and my deep sections/latex tubes!

We worked well, and after 50 minutes, Albert put in a big dig coming into Alfold. The Wyndymilla began to miss turns after this, and the Southdown guy was doing shorter, slower turns. Our gap went from 1 minute, down to 25 seconds on the final lap of Alfold, and we could see the bunch, with Pat and Stu Spies between us. As they got across, we were now 7, and if truth be told, it took us 20 minutes to organise ourselves. Stu Spies was clearly getting agitated as this, and rightly so!

Onto the Dunsfold circuit, and Albert was also now struggling with Pat & Stu fresh and strong. Any gaps that were opening, I was telling Pat to stop chasing, and would try to put my nose into the wind at every given opportunity to close the gaps. I also told him to attack on the last lap with Stu Spies and the Twickenham guy, as it would be their best chance of staying away from Albert, the Wyndymilla guy, and the Southdowns. With 2 to go, I was feeling okay, like I could finish with the group. We were working really well at this point with a through and off until the back section towards the red phone box when it went tits up again. At this point I decided to do longer pulls and try to empty myself to keep the break away. I did 2 or 3 longer stints on the front through the twisty bits and on the downhill, sat on the back, but was totally spent. With the bunch clearly about 10s behind. We were joined by a rider from Army Cycling Union.

As we came onto the bell lap, I sat up and drifted back to the bunch, being towed by Jamie Lowden. Albert and the Wyndymilla guy also dropped off. I couldn’t even get into the paceline to disrupt the chase, so went through the peloton like a bowling ball, looking for our riders. I found Tom and asked him to get to the front if he could to disrupt the chase, and within 5 minutes, he was on the front through the fastest bit (twisty section), doing a fantastic job of blocking – he really helped Pat’s lead! Fantastic teamwork.

As we came down the descent, I couldn’t keep the pace, and rolled in, passed a crash, and was delighted to hear Pat got 3rd. I was empty. Just short of 2 hours at 270w/292w NP, and 3 hours at 250w, 282w NP.

[u][b]Stat Attack:[/b][/u]
TSS: 245
2588kj

AP: 250w / 282w NP
Avg HR: 172bpm (83%)
Cadence: 98rpm

In the break:
AP: 270w / 292w NP.
Avg HR: 178bpm (86%)
Avg cadence: 100rpm

[u][b]GC:[/b][/u]
1st James Bradley ~2h50m
2nd Army CU + 10s
3rd Pat Wright +20s
4th Stu Spies +30s
Rest of the bunch + 1 minute

Shame I’m a DNS for the last 2 stages and won’t further participate, but I feel like I’ve contributed!

Kingston Wheeler Dunsfold 3rds

Having volunteered or co-organised this event since 2011, this was my first opportunity to race it. I’ve always wanted to take part, so I put a lot of pressure on myself to win it. I woke up feeling very lethargic and achey with a blocked nose 48 hours before the race, which continued to yesterday. Thankfully I was feeling better this morning, but it didn’t stop it from getting me up at 05:55 with a blocked nose!

Longcross felt ridiculously tough last week, and wasn’t that enjoyable. I much prefer the rolling open road, so I welcomed my first road race since August 2013.

With no real obvious finisher in the race for us, Colin, Paul and I had a quick chat about attacking, and I spoke with a couple of Kingston Wheelers. On a narrow course where 1/4 of the left hand side of the course seems to be potholes or ruts, blocking would be able to work effectively.

As soon as the race was deneutralised, attacks were frequent. A lot of riders were moving up on the wrong side of the road and shouting “squeeze in/go left”, which is where all the potholes and ruts were! I found myself at the back of the race with Ed, who I reiterated our gameplan to. I saw Colin stop to fix his bars which had come lose in his stems bar clamp. He did well to chase back on. However, the problem required an allen key, and from what I gather speaking to him after, having fixed it, he wasn’t able to close the gap and get back on, sitting ~1 min down for a couple of laps.

Watching the attacks, groups of 4-8 were going off the front. Assuming these gaps were from tiring chasers, with an hour left, I thought I’d try to get among the action and bridged across into the headwind. Andrew Davies of Kingston Wheelers joined, but the group, which was well represented with many other teams, didn’t work at all well. Soon the bunch were with us again, which was frustrating.

I attacked again under the trees, just before the telephone box, going across to Paul Hone of Addiscombe and taking another rider came with me (I didn’t recognise the kit). The break wasn’t working as smoothly and coherently as I would have liked, and the unknown rider dropped my wheel, and my solo effort began. At this point, Paul Moore was doing a fantastic job blocking (competitors have told me he was a pain in the arse which is great!).

With 20 seconds on the bunch, and after horrendously overshooting the left hand turn at the bottom of the descent, I stayed away for a lap and a half longer before noticing 3 riders bridging about 10 seconds back. I couldn’t see the bunch behind them, and with 2 laps to go, I sat up and drifted back to them before we started working together. It was Andrew Davies of KW, Paul Hone of Addiscombe, and a Dulwich’s Matt Hammond. All committed to the break.

I was feeling tired, and unsure of the others capabilities in a sprint. I had also been out on my own for 25 minutes, so felt my top end was compromised. After the respite of sharing the work woith 3 others, I didn’t want to contest the sprint. I decided to jump hard with ~10 mins left. After seeing I had the gap, I looked back to see Matt Hammond doing a big pull and I felt Andrew may have been able to bridge, which spurred me on further. I was further gambling that they would then start playing games and not want to be on the front chasing.

As I came down the descent, I had about 10-15 seconds on the chasers. After scaling the hill, I was able to ease up and celebrate my return to road racing with a victory, gratis to Paul, who took what looked like a respectable top 15-20 finish. Paceline RT’s first road race, Paceline-RTs first win. Delighted!

Credit to ‘Digi’ Dave Hayward for this.