40 Goals

SpinScaM

2011-11-27T22:35:00.003Z

At last...

Oh, I was mashing.. nothing new there then. And yes the x-axis needs to be adjusted -- and prettified obviously!

And now this is as pretty as I can be bothered for this, for now, never was a big fan of the rainbow colors in CompCS:

And now fully integrated and with 'smooth' transition / animation as the values rise and fall. In reality, the 'smooth' animation is a result of the need to keep rolling averages since the raw data jumps about a fair bit .. which makes me wonder about it's accuracy (but then I am no robot on the bike either).

Winter is coming...

2011-10-22T22:05:00.005+01:00

So its time to dust down the realtime code and get it ready for the Turbo season. Got some time off work and spending it having fun and the odd bit of coding...

Just starting back on video and want to add better feedback and aesthetics... its all fun.

And now the code is in v3, we have video selection and playback/pause etc alongside a performance plot during the workout. And oh joy, lots of 'video codecs are missing' problems will no doubt arise from our intrepid user community!

I'm gonna have to drop a few bucks on some more Sufferfest videos!

The development builds should be up in the next couple of days, we added nicer controls:

I just got a copy of the Tacx RLV for Milan San Remo. Looking to add support for their file format (.pgmf) so we can ride all the Tacx content.

Tacx themselves have a generic program for riding their RLVs on non-Tacx trainers .. so I'm pretty sure they'll be ok about this :)

For the eagle eyed...

/* you are not expected to understand this */

2011-10-13T07:18:00.000+01:00

AB DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Rest in peace, sir.

Lots of code

2011-10-12T21:16:00.000+01:00

For shits and giggles I thought I'd look at how the code has grown in Golden Cheetah. The chart below plots lines of code by version.

Now, some say v3 is all bloat. Some say otherwise...

More to the point it helps to explain why haven't I ridden my bike seriously in the last 6 months. Code less, ride more.

RIP

2011-10-06T08:30:00.002+01:00

Bing!

2011-07-31T15:19:00.002+01:00

After adjusting the map display in GoldenCheetah to support the new v3 google maps API I went a step further and added support for Microsoft Bing maps. I think the Bing maps are better, but better keep quiet since I don't want Google to get all upset with me :)

Obligatory screenie:

Kazam!

2011-05-27T23:59:00.006+01:00

UPDATE 2: Done and committed to version 3 source. I also cleaned up the look-and-feel, still a way to go but starting to look nice'ish. We will get there...

UPDATE: Taking my cue from Microsoft, started making the ride list a little more like the email list in Outlook, or Apple Mail for that matter. Starting to look quite nice, but still a way to go.

Outlookesque Ride List from mark liversedge on Vimeo.

Got screencasting working on Linux using Kazam. Wicked. Here is a video of v3 on Linux with the Ride List now using a Ride Navigator ... customise the columns, sort, group etc. Kinda cool, but whoa there are a few bugs to fix :)

Kazam rocks.

Ride Navigator Ride List Demo from mark liversedge on Vimeo.

GUI update

2011-05-15T22:33:00.000+01:00

Spent lots of time at Christmas moving to a more configurable UI and after a few bug fixes have now applied it to the core UI of GoldenCheetah.

I think it is starting to get there, but there is still a way to go...

Power Dissed

2011-05-02T19:32:00.001+01:00

Plot distribution charts (histogram) across a date range is almost the last item on the GC 'wishlist' ... after a few false starts we have got there.

Need to work on zoning - want to be able to see contributions broken down when zones change in a period (e.g. plot last 12 months, but your zones changed 3 times during that period).

Looking at my recent and historic data tells me I took it soft in 2009 -- not enough high-intensity. Slacker.

Hyper Critical

2011-04-24T12:30:00.000+01:00

Worked up Critical Power (mean-max) plots for data other than Power in Golden Cheetah. So, can now plot critical heartrate, speed, torque, cadence for any given time period. Not sure of the utility of it tho ... it has helped me find lots of bad data in my ride files, but beyond that I'm not sure.

Obligatory screen shot.

Virtual Reality Cycling ... with Golden Cheetah and Native ANT+

2011-04-03T17:39:00.001+01:00

Ok, so its VERY basic at the moment, but using the excellent Videolan libs and client I can now play video. I've also made the realtime view more configurable, so you can select what dials / instruments you want on screen and move them around and resize them.

The screenshot below is Fightclub from Sufferfest. This makes the training mode useful for those without Computrainers and the excellent Ergvideo stuff.

So, get an ANT+ stick and join in the fun....

And now got it working on Windows too, libvlc is rocking!

Native ANT+ ... almost done

2011-03-05T15:46:00.001Z

Update March 19th - USB1 and USB2 Garmin sticks now supported. Its now time to get that UI looking a little less 1980s and a bit more 2010 ... but with the work on configurable layouts already in the bag it shouldn't be too hard to do.

I've worked up the support for more speed, cadence and power as well as the original HR. Along the way I learned a lot more about the ANT and ANT+ protocols. It was relatively painless, well, except from wasting an hour or so debugging my speed sensor code only to find the wheel magnet had fallen off! (d'oh).

Gonna get to work on making the config a but sexier and testing on Windows and Mac, but the hard yards have been done. Big props to Mark Rages for sharing quarqd.

Oh, the reason Watts and RPM are zero above is because I jumped off the turbo to press the pause button so I could take the screenshot. You will see that cadence (blue) and power (yellow) had been registering... honest :) The speed is high because I have almost no resistance on the turbo to prevent me from working too hard as I tested. My usual guinea pigs (the kids) are now bored of Dad's turbo thing.

Native ANT+ Support

2011-02-20T17:07:00.000Z

Mark Rages from Quarq published the source for quarqd recently as Dynastream released ANT+ to the open source world. This means that we can now add support for realtime streaming of data directly to Golden Cheetah using just a USB stick.

I've been seriously busy at work and have made very slow progress, basically a couple of hours each week on a Sunday morning (the kids are off playing rugby).

I've got HR working and am getting onto my SRMs now to sort power and cadence et al. Give me 2 or 3 weeks and it should be there.

I've also refactored the ANT+ code so it can be used in other open source projects, will provide details when done.

Later.

Dear Diary, What a day its been...

2011-01-16T14:09:00.001Z

Following up from the post last year where I added webcal support (allowing you to view calendar items from remote calendars (e.g. TrainingPeaks.com and Google Calendar). I have now worked on it the other way around -- updating a remote calendar with your local rides.

Here is my October calendar from last year, regimented and orderly (very rare indeed), as displayed in GoldenCheetah (from the ride files I uploaded)

And here is my google calendar in chrome, after I uploaded October's history into it:

So now, I need to add two features; add planned workout in GC and remote calendar sync (it is one-by-one at the moment) and we should get two nifty features; 1. see TSS/IF plan in the metric charts from planned workouts 2. see planned workouts in Google Calendar (and most users connect that to their Android/Blackberry/iPhone).

Google support for attachments is a Labs feature at the mo, so might switch to Hotmail, would be nice to upload/download the actual ride files as attachments. This would make for a neat way to share ride data without having to resort to a separate server or TrainingPeaks... working on that now... :)

Fun times! :)

User Configurable Layouts

2010-12-28T15:21:00.004Z

The Christmas break brings a lot of time, but not to ride since it is so darned cold and icy (of course the turbo is always an option). So instead, I tend to play with GC coding.

I've been rummaging around the plumbing of the GC code for a week to prepare for a more configurable view. I've now got to the point where you can drag and drop charts onto a page and configure them. Looks kinda neat. But its pretty static at the moment - once they're there you can't drag and resize them ... but that will come.

The hard miles have been done, now its all about putting a layer of glitter on the top. I've also been playing with native Mac widgets to make the Mac version, well, more Mac-like.

With a week of coding left, I reckon I can get a v3 framework in place and we can really go to town!

And I've been playing with this for a couple of days now and when working with intervals it is SOOOO much nicer to see all the key ride charts at once, this is not just eye-candy !

And Julian Baumgartner has been providing some wonderful ideas and graphics to make the whole thing a bit more visually appealling and with a few pixmaps we now have a more 'Mac-friendly' look and feel. I love it.

And been working on a more 'free-form' layout, it feels a little like sliding fridge-magnets on a fridge door or putting up trackers etc in a project war room. Either way, its kinda funky...

Stacked Histogram

2010-12-14T19:51:00.000Z

We like all things stacked ;)

Stacked histogram support for showing things like time in zone on a PMC is kinda sassy...

Pastels are us too... hail Crockett and the Miami Vice crew

Wood for the trees... context is everything

2010-12-12T09:08:00.006Z

Been working on a treemap.Unlike most of the other charts in GoldenCheetah this one really is coded from the ground up. Will tart it up and make it more interactive and fancy looking. But the hard yards are done, from here its all refinement.

On the other hand, its telling me that a lot of my rides aren't as well annotated as I thought, a large proportion of them have 'unknown' or rather (not typed in) workout codes.

Later.

And looking at stress by year is quite interesting...

And what did I typically do for each day?

I've been playing with this all morning and some of the analysis is useful, always a good test of a new feature!!

And a splash of color...

Golden Cheetah v2.0 Released

2010-11-30T21:41:00.000Z

After a seemingly endless number of release candidates v2.0 went live tonight.

Yay!

Dear Diary...

2010-11-06T08:00:00.006Z

Started on the diary view to support training planning in Golden Cheetah, so far I've got list, monthly and weekly schedule views, but would like to add a Year view too.

It's kind of working with actual workouts, but its messy. I reckon if I can code up displaying actuals then folding in planned workouts should be a breeze. I'm using the Qxt widget 'QxtScheduleView' for the weekly view (below) ... lets just say the documentation is brief and its a bit 'quirky' ;)

As it happens I previously coded up webcal support to read iCal or other .ICS (files or URLs). For example I can fetch and parse my training schedule from TrainingPeaks.com via a webcal URL using the excellent libical from freeassociation. So adding planned workouts should be quite easy once the view is sorted.

I reckon this should all be sorted by the end of the weekend, so planning mode can start in earnest soon...

And I now have a monthly "calendar" view, although I skipped the Qt calendar widget since it sucks so hard. Wrote my own. Hey, why re-use when you can reinvent?

Just added the ability to configure colors and show planned workouts from a calendar.ics file in the cyclist home directory. This means we can mix actual and planned on the display, so next step is to allow us to edit and create planned workouts... and the fun will really begin :)

Zone Drone

2010-10-30T20:47:00.001+01:00

Just sent a new patch over to the Golden Cheetah list, this time to show time in zone on the histograms. It was relatively trivial to code up. One of those features that is absolutely needed, weird that it's been missing for so long and a piece of cake to write. Makes a change from being a nightmare to code and almost unused by most users (e.g. export to KML).

This should make it into the upcoming OFFICIAL v1.4 release of GoldenCheetah.

Here are some pics.

Obviously the zone names and ranges are user defined in options, I just ran out of imagination for my HR zones!

Just added HR zone shading too. Looks like the OFFICIAL v1.4 release is gonna get a release candidate in the next couple of days. yay!

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-10-25T09:32:00.000+01:00

Weight: 83.1kg (-1.6kg - but a lot to do with empty legs this morning)
Weekly Distance: 184km (-30km)
Peak 1 Min Power: 404
Peak 5 Min Power: 319
Peak 20 Min Power: 247
Peak 60 Min Power: 225
Highlight of this week: Weight loss, yay!
Goal for next week: Make turbo time work

Really consistent this week with eating and flattered by empty legs this morning after a 3 hr ride in the hills (TSS of 255). But all in all, progress being made :)

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-10-18T08:28:00.001+01:00

Weight: 84.7kg (-0.8kg)
Weekly Distance: 217km (+17km)
Peak 1 Min Power: 404
Peak 5 Min Power: 319 (+24)
Peak 20 Min Power: 247 (due a test next week)
Peak 60 Min Power: 225 (that is *so* needing a test now)
Highlight of this week: Power intervals really worked
Goal for next week: Build some weight loss momentum.

Body shape is changing even if weight isn't dropping off any more. Today looks like a hard workout and my legs are aching!

Ok, so my cadence improved :-)

2010-10-11T10:33:00.000+01:00

Think positive man! Last week saw my average cadence improve. Given that was what I was supposed to be achieving I should pat myself on the back and say - Well Done!

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-10-11T10:10:00.002+01:00

Weight: 85.4kg (no change - again!)
Weekly Distance: 200km (+77km)
Peak 5 Min Power: 295
Peak 20 Min Power: 247
Peak 60 Min Power: 225 (NP 245)
Highlight of this week: Um. Not a good week.
Goal for next week: No refined carbs.

On plan this week, the sessions are focusing on cadence rather than power so the intensity isn't there and working on leg speed is a bit 'boring' :-)

Weight loss stalled, not due to lack of exercise, but too much eating. I'm being good and eating 3 good meals a day, but also polishing off chocolate bicuits, bars etc isn't a pro-athlete regimen.

Must try harder.

Here are some charts...

Oh, speaking of charts, Damien Grauser has coded the Heartrate based TRIMP metric for Golden Cheetah. It isn't published yet but I was playing with it over the weekend and updated the performance manager and other charts to plot it. I thought it would be interesting to plot a HR (TRIMP) based PMC against an Power (SKIBA) based PMC to see how they aligned.

Lets just say, I'll be wearing my HR strap on every ride from now on... I think the results bear close examination and potentially provide some new insight between power/hr for tracking performance and fatigue...

And as requested in the comments, here is a comparison of TRIMP vs Coggan metrics, rather than Skiba metrics:

1,000 miles since August

2010-10-06T20:19:00.000+01:00

Only at the end do you understand...

2010-10-06T19:13:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I'm not a Jedi yet. But, the fancy pants 3d plot is quite interesting when looking at cadence drills.

If nothing else, it sure looks cool.

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-10-04T10:20:00.004+01:00

Weight: 85.4kg (no change)
Weekly Distance: 123km (-85km)
Peak 5 Min Power: 295
Peak 20 Min Power: 247
Peak 60 Min Power: 225 (NP 245)
Highlight of this week: Started with coach
Goal for next week: Food intake, stick to plan

Not a great week of riding, the torrential rain kept me inside and although I set up the turbo and even coded up support for the Computrainer/Ergvideo .txt ride format still managed to avoid the dreaded thing. Started my plan with my coach.

All seems a bit too easy, but its all part of the process.
Goal for this week is to stick to the plan and not to get too frisky. I also note that he wants lots of high cadence work - I find that harder than high intensity.

Working with coach via TrainingPeaks.com, which is cool since its testing my GoldenCheetah code. I'm currently working on importing the workout calendar into GC, watch this space!

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-09-27T09:12:00.000+01:00

Weight: 85.4kg (-0.5kg)
Weekly Distance: 208km (+50km)
Peak 5 Min Power: 292
Peak 20 Min Power: 247
Peak 60 Min Power: 225 (NP 245)
Highlight of this week: FTP test
Goal for next week: Food intake

As previously posted, did an FTP test this week. Reckon I could have gone a touch harder. Going to do a MAP test soon anyway and start basing my zones from that, since it isn't so susceptible to poor pacing etc. Its a test to exhaustion.

Weight didn't fall off much this week, this is partly to be expected and partly due to a few blowouts this week :-) Gotta improve on that score as it gets increasingly harder to lose the flab. But, TBH, I'm still in the 20% ballpark so its not THAT difficult.

Almost hit 1,000 miles since getting back in the saddle too...

1FTP

2010-09-22T19:14:00.000+01:00

Everyone's favourite workout, the FTP test. Started in two minds as to whether to do SST or a full on FTP test, the truth is this was pretty much an FTP test but could have gone a smidge harder.

Best hour: AP 225 NP 245

Over a rolling 40km course with 1000ft of climbing.

I'll stick with 235 for now, not so much an estimate as pretty much a fact (I know AP is king, but over that course its hard to do iso power). My peak 20 min is 250w which would also equate to a 235w FTP.

And if anyone tells me to do my FTP tests on the turbo they can go hang :-)

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-09-20T08:16:00.002+01:00

Weight: 85.9kg (-1.1kg)

Weekly Distance: 157km (-23km)

Peak 5 Min Power: 292

Peak 20 Min Power: 247

Peak 60 Min Power: Untested (Estimate at 230 from CP Curve and NP from SST ride)

Highlight of this week: Lungs aching!

Goal for next week: Stick with Quality not Quantity.

I cannot believe I only rode 3 times this week; on Monday a couple of hours in the hills, targetting vo2max, on Thursday threshold and neurmuscular intervals targetting LT and Sunday 3 hours of hills targetting CV again. As a result 5 min power is edging up but other intervals didn't really get tested this week.

Next week is more of the same. CV and LT are serions limiters and JRA aint gonna sort that out.

Later.

Off-topic

2010-09-18T00:47:00.003+01:00

I have missed the old RichardDawkins.net forums. They were closed a while back amidst 'controversy' which ended up really being the good Prof and a couple of helpers utterly misunderstanding t'internet forum culture and activism in general.

Anyway, the reason for the post is I have now found the replacement forum, setup by many of the old members and mods at RDF.net and joined to browse the discussion.

Oh happy day.

Well. Except. My short term memory is pretty rubbish, I think my medium-term (?) memory is worse. Every thread. And I mean every thread has the same structure. I'm talking specifically about the philosophy forum here...

OP: I really wonder about the xxxx of yyyy.
P1: define xxxx
OP: xxxx is obviouslt zzzz, P1 is an idiot.
P2: yeah, but zzzz is aaaaa and your premise is faulty.
OP: ok, so if we accept that xxxx is really aaaaa, I still wonder about it being yyyyy
P3: yyyyy reminds me of this: [image of carrot/map relief/penis shaped like a carrot/map relief/penis]
OP: But what about my point and is xxxxx like yyyy or even aaaa
P1: did you read my post about xxxx?
P4: [spouting a concept from the thread he just read] but this is the qualia problem...
P1: define qualia

And so on, ad nauseum.

It was after maybe the 2nd or 3rd post that I read that I realised....

TIME TO RIDE!

Structure

2010-09-16T21:56:00.003+01:00

Not your usual riding around with no goal session this one :-)

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-09-13T09:48:00.001+01:00

Weight: 87.0kg (-1.2kg)
Weekly Distance: 180km (-100km)
FTP: 220w (+5w)
CTL; 59.4 (+3.6)
Highlight of this week: Hard session at Hillingdon
Goal for next week: More handling drills, esp. hard cornering at speed.

All in all, a great week. took a little more rest as I was feeling a little jaded and joined a prime training session at Hillingdon on Thursday. I rode 'out the back' of the medium group so I could keep out of trouble but work hard. I knew I was fresh and wanted to lay down a hard workout. I was totally elated to see my 30 min power was so much higher.

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-09-06T09:15:00.001+01:00

Weight: 88.2kg (-0.8kg)

Weekly Distance: 280km (+100km)
FTP: 215w (+5w)
CTL; 54.7 (+12.6)
Highlight of this week: Hillingdon laps, after 2yrs of watching lad *I* rode the circuit
Goal for next week: More of the same, keeping a balance, avoid more illness

Did a session at the Hillingdon Circuit this week, mostly tempo with a bit of threshold in a most unstructured way, but threw in some all-out efforts in (which the circuit is good for). Whilst it was pretty boring going round and round in 1mile laps it is clearly a great place to do 3 minute intervals!

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-08-30T10:15:00.000+01:00

Weight: 89.0kg (no change)

Body Fat: 19.0% (no change)
Weekly Distance: 180km (-30km)
FTP: 210w (minimum value, +5w)
CTL; 42.1 (+6.3)
Highlight of this week: Friday Ride hit bests for every interval from 1s to 1h (!)
Goal for next week: back to work, eat well - keep riding

Well, I'm still bitterly disappointed with my numbers. I hit an AP of 210 for an hour on a hearty ride, so 210 is a bare minimum, but even so it is crap. In 2008 after no riding I was happily sitting on 240w. On the bright side my 20min power (which is a good gauge since I tend to do a 20min effort at some point during every tempo or SST ride) is increasing very quickly up from 172w to 235w over the last 3 weeks.

Back to work tomorrow after 2 rain-soaked weeks and overload. On the bright side both of the full-time roles I'll be performing in my 4-day week are based at offices 30 minutes away from Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. So, I will be dropping down there to get some workouts done after work. With the racing calendar completing last week my timing couldn't be better - the circuit is busy over the summer but this week is the first week it is quiet and available to the general public.

Posture

2010-08-23T15:31:00.000+01:00

I have been deliberately working on my posture recently. And after a few rides on the drops I'm starting to find it just as comfortable as on the hoods or upright. Will try and get some pics together, but for now try and imagine me in a similar position to the the big GO below...

It certainly has made me faster! I went out for a windy 40k rolling ride today and set a time that was a full 5 minutes faster than when I started back up in 2008, over the same course and similar conditions (i.e. windy) and my power today was slightly lower than in 08. Did 1:22 against 1:27 two years ago.

I have also found, as a happy by-product, that my cornering is far more controlled and I'm leaning with a lot more confidence too.

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-08-23T07:38:00.000+01:00

Weight: 89.0kg (-0.2kg)

Body Fat: 19.0%
Weekly Distance: 210km (+35km)
FTP: 205w (estimate +10w)
CTL; 33.8 (+14.7)
Highlight of this week: Plenty of lactate burn, riding more on the drops
Goal for next week: Keep the faith in the miserable weather (forecasted)

Got out almost every day this week. Hilly ride on Saturday was probably a ride too-far though, legs were wiped out and had a rest day Sunday but still fatigued today. Its all good. Weight loss looks like it has stalled but in reality I'm coming off a rest day, body shape is definitely changing and the trend is in the right direction anyway.

I got the withings wifi scales integrated into Golden Cheetah, so the PMC below also shows the daily body fat measurments (watch the trend no the fluctuations). It was quite tricky to get this working but means I can now start mucking about with athlete metrics like Weight, RHR, BMI etc and chart them alongside performance metrics extracted from ride data.

Later.

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-08-16T08:51:00.003+01:00

Weight: 89.2kg (-1.5kg)
Weekly Distance: 175km (+119km)
FTP: 195w (estimate +10w)
CTL; 19.1 (+11.6)
Highlight of this week: Regular riding and CV improvement
Goal for next week: Cut out those damned biscuits. Climb some hills.

It has been a pretty good week. Got out a few times to ride this week and enjoyed it too. My HR is more stable, recovers a little faster and most importantly less oxygen debt means I can work my legs and get that lactate burn.

Managed better on the food front but still succumbed to the mighty biscuit in a blip on Saturday. Hey, you can't do everything at once ;-)

Off the scales baby!

2010-08-12T20:43:00.001+01:00

Ok, so I got my withings wifi scales today and got all interneted up. Really cool gadget. They're pretty accurate too, I tested with me holding various weights to see if it calibrated correctly and it was spot on.

But as accurate and cool as they might be, my numbers are all off the scales ... and not in a good weigh (hehe) !

Ride more, code less.

:-)

Weekly Weigh-In

2010-08-08T09:09:00.002+01:00

Weight: 90.7kg
Weekly Distance: 56km
FTP: 185w (estimate)
CTL; +7.5
Highlight of this week: Gave up smoking. (I know, I know...)
Goal for next week: Cut out butter, cheese, biscuits. Drink more water.

Well the only way is up from here. I reckon my FTP is probably in that ballpark, and frankly it doesn't really matter at this point. I'll probably do a test once I'm riding more regularly. Chuffed to have got rid of the evil weed, but stunned to see my weight has gone up by a kilo in one week. So these very public weekly updates are back.

Sorry to bore.

Back in the saddle, again

2010-08-07T17:11:00.004+01:00

Wow. 12 months go by I get fat and my bike is covered in dust. Started riding again, just in time for winter and my blasted Computrainer. Of course, its all good. Getting the motivation to ride back is fantastic.

So I'm taking it relatively easy. Riding when I fancy it and it is convenient. Which means I have only ridden 3 times in the last 2 weeks. But you know what, its fine.

First ride was awful, I went out at a relatively middling pace of 180w, keeping it steady coz I didn't want to blow up. Of course, my FTP of old is loooooong gone and I reckon is hovering around 200w right now (honestly!). I am utterly de-trained and out of shape.

The last two times that I've trained up for July events (Etape/Marmotte) I started by kicking off my training in August and then peaking in April or May only to fall away by the event in July. Either burned out or just bad timing. So I'm in no hurry to 'get a plan'.

Lets say, by Christmas I should be ready to start thinking about possibly writing a plan :-)

Death by spreadsheet monkeys!

2010-07-25T20:59:00.003+01:00

Edit: More updates, now after half-killing myself getting a QAbstractProxy to work, we have show in groups and a column chooser where you drag and drop columns onto the browser. I want to get show in groups to be clever when handling dates to show this week, last week, last month etc Or perhaps show by Season. Oh, and for Relative Intensity / IF I'd like to zone them (which would then remove the need for workout code), so L1, L2, L3 etc would reflect what I did rather than what I wanted to do... anyway, here is a screenshot (that is my Linux desktop, btw).

Ok, so I just saw Toy Story 3 with the kids and 'Death by monkeys' was a line that sums up IT project culture. Anyhoo, I finally got around to starting a project I've been meaning to do for a long time. Namely, a ride browser.

Ultimately, I'd like to use it as a way of sorting / searching and navigating through my ride history. Selectable columns, sort by etc. But for now all I've got is a big spreadsheet view... but it is a start... and lets face it, if you're used to WKO+ its finished already ;-)

Got my mojo back for riding too, so should be posting about (shock horror) bike riding rather than coding over the coming months. I'm currently trying to get a place on the Maratona dles Dolomites next July... if anyone reading can help me with this or has any tips on getting a place then shout, I'd be eternally grateful (another To Story line).

Later.

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

2010-07-10T12:57:00.001+01:00

Zooming in Golden Cheetah is a bit crappy, so after a bit of discussion on the list I knocked up a dirty prototype for a zoom selection 'radar' and some span sliders.

And here is an obligatory video...

Golden Cheetah Plot Zoom Prototype from mark liversedge on Vimeo.

A hole in the head

2010-07-06T19:49:00.001+01:00

Neo Geo

2010-06-15T17:11:00.005+01:00

Google Earth 5.2 has introduced some really cool features for cyclists. I've added an export to Google Earth option for Golden Cheetah and the really, really cool thing here, is you can mix power, cadence and heartrate data with the geo data when exporting.

The libraries related to this are in the process of being updated by the Google developers, as soon as they're ready I'll be adding the option to export power, cadence et al.

Over on the Google Lat Lon Blog they have published an interesting fly-over (which uses the new Tracks feature) - check back later for updates on getting this working with your data from GC !! I'm quite excited about this :-)

And here is a portion of the London to Paris ride from last September with all my ride data available in Google Earth - funnily I can even remember that part of the ride, I was on the front pushing and Andrew was, um, coasting :-) We stopped for a pee just round the corner too...

And of course, I can't leave this alone without the obligatory Marmotte map... Galibier looks even more fearsome now!

Spreadsheet Monkey

2010-05-29T17:04:00.007+01:00

I've been hacking around with data manipulation, fixing spikes and gaps in recordings et al, but came to the conclusion that a full-blown ride data editor is required.

As a start, basic data editing is the order of the day, but before you know it I'll be joining, merging, sorting and enriching. This could become GoldenCheetah Excel 2010 before you know it... bloatware mansions on the case.

And oh, yeah baby, we have anomaly detection out the box. Wiggly-red lines are us here at monkey island....

Golden Cheetah Ride Editor Demo from mark liversedge on Vimeo.

Floyd

2010-05-22T12:34:00.002+01:00

I have never believed any creator-myth, but this sign seems very, very apt.

Analysis Paralysis

2010-04-25T16:56:00.003+01:00

More Graphing stuff, this time a user-definable 2d scatter plot. Above you will see the average effective pedal force vs Power. Col du Glandon at Marmotte is in blue and Alpe d'Huez is in red.

What I'm slightly surprised to find is that the amount of force applied to the pedals is roughly the same when totally knackered (AdH) versus when I was still fresh (Glandon) ... albeit I was suffering from the off.

Anyhoo, I'm working on a replay button (the time slider at the bottom) so you can watch how these things change over the course of the ride. This seems particularly interesting when looking at power/heartrate over a long ride (long enough for the 'lag' between CV response and effort to be nullified).

Hey ho.

Soapy goodness...

2010-04-11T10:48:00.004+01:00

Web-services are us at Liversedge mansions, see attached screenshot. In my day job I spend lots of time bigging-up SOA and web-services. Its a bit of a let-down to realise they're just http posts with a bit of XML :-)

I'm talking with the guys over at TrainingPeaks about pushing this into Golden Cheetah. Kinda cool, since I have all my old ride data there and would like to keep using their service...

How to lose weight...

2010-03-08T00:34:00.002Z

Now I can mix metrics and my own metadata on the charts I can see that my weightloss last season tracked training intensity pretty closely, and that total work doesn't correlate at all.

Of course, there are lots of other factors at play, but it makes for an interesting chart, and that's all that matters, eh? ;-)

Metadata Schmetadata...

2010-03-07T18:44:00.005Z

I've been working on configurable data entry for recording additional information about my rides within Golden Cheetah.

The screenshots above show the data entry on the main window followed by the configuration screen.

It seems absurd to have a forms designed built into a cycling app, what next? an email editor? But, in reality, the basic config will be used by most users and then the geeks amongst us can start recording anything and everything we like.

And hey, I spent 6 months cleaning up my MP3 tags to include composer, artist, sleeve notes, images etc. I can now do the same to my ride files. Yay!

And yes, I am slightly OCD about this stuff ;-)

Golden Cheetah is stacked!

2010-03-01T22:58:00.004Z

Damien Grauser, one of the developers on the Golden Cheetah project who brought us the superb intervals code has done it again. This time, he has delivered a feature that I *really* miss from WKO+.

Stacked graphs allow you to examine really long rides in segments and makes the 'stochastic' view of power data much, much easier to review and examine. I kneel down in awe at Damien's super slick take on this. Wow.

Non WKO-neophytes might not be too bothered, but for me, this is an absolute killer feature and I cannot wait for v1.4 of GC to get released with this in it.

KILLER.

Marmotte Map

2010-02-23T17:32:00.003Z

Greg Lonnon has added support to Golden Cheetah for overlaying rides on Google Maps. Major Kudos.

He's working on using color etc to highlight different metrics over the ride. The above is my feeble power output color coded. Fortunately there is no legend yet so you can't see how pathetic I was :-)

Mamotte in 3D

2010-02-22T14:38:00.000Z

Pining...

2010-02-12T20:43:00.001Z

Funny how this video makes me both pine to get back into form but also makes me baulk at the sheer pain...

Nice video tho.

Grin

2010-02-10T17:52:00.003Z

I rock! :-)

Epiphany

2010-02-02T21:31:00.006Z

Update: A Windows installer for Golden Cheetah with Long term metrics support compiled in is available here.

Well. Last year's Marmotte was a total disaster. 9 months later I'm beginning to accept that it was a result of a number of things.

1. My training dipped dramatically through June due to work pressures

2. I just didn't do enough (read any) L4 work

3. I'm not actually that great a cyclist

The chart above is from some development I've been doing on plotting performance over time for Golden Cheetah. Kind of a back burner activity when I get some spare time. In it, you will see, that over all my training I spent almost no sustained efforts in L4 and camped at the top end of L3 for most of the time.

You will also see that my performance plateaued from Feb onwards.

So, more intensity required.

Update: Here is my peak powers overlaid with time in zone for L3 and L4, you will also see the zones change as my FTP improves. Its kind of a pretty chart but the message is simple: not enough sustained L4 efforts during training!

3D Plotting of Power Data

2009-12-25T22:00:00.003Z

Well, it has become a bit of an obsession over the last 3 or 4 days, but the video above shows a new tool I've developed for visualising cycling power data in 3d. Well actually, its 3.5D because you can also use colour to visualise different data.

Aw, and I forgot to show the grid, surface and arrows (normals) plot. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome but there are still a few bits of polish needed - gridlines would help enormously and a colour legend!

Wrong job

2009-11-26T11:02:00.002Z

Inspired by thisisindexed.com (my new favourite website)...

It Lives! Code now in Golden Cheetah

2009-11-23T18:31:00.002Z

Woohoo, Sean has announced the code has been accepted and pushed to the Golden Cheetah repository.

So, in 2 months we went from the impossible to the possible and its done.

Wow.

Patch pushed to Golden Cheetah

2009-11-16T15:11:00.006Z

A 270k (!) patch to include this stuff in the Golden Cheetah codebase has been pushed across to Sean. Hopefully this will get released to the world soon. Really excited about it. In the meantime, here is a screenshot of it running on Linux. I wasn't pedalling at the time :-)

Computrainer on a Mac. Done.

2009-11-08T19:26:00.000Z

Ride across America (and the Atlantic Ocean)

2009-11-01T21:51:00.006Z

Wow. There is now a team of folks in the Golden Cheetah community developing some really cool and exciting new features. Justin in Montreal is getting ANT+ devices working so you can turn that tired old turbos or set of rollers into a Computrainer, I'm still mucking about with the Computrainer support and a few other odds and sods, and Steve in Seattle has the coup de grace, by adding a streaming server and support.

The video below is our first proof of concept with streaming workouts via a specially built server. In it you will see Steve's Mac, running Golden Cheetah but reading telemetry from his server. I'm in Cranleigh riding my socks off on my Computrainer and sending my data over the Atlantic and across to the West Coast of America.

As you can imagine, its all very exciting and we're already thinking of next steps, group rides, racing and who knows what else we can imagine. The killer here though is there is a lot of very, very clever folks working on this, including the project leader Sean in NYC, and two Gregs who between them have addded .3dp support to Golden Cheetah and are helping to test the code and provide veteran power training insight.

Watch the Golden Cheetah Google Group for more news, this is gonna be HUGE!

ANT+ Support!

2009-10-28T09:37:00.004Z

Yep, we can now stream from any ANT+ device so Cinqos, SRM, Powertap and just about any of the new devices coming to market. Justin has done some awesome work as you'll see in the video below.

Latest Video of Computrainer on a Mac

2009-10-22T21:59:00.000+01:00

Computrainer Update

2009-10-04T13:54:00.010+01:00

Edit: Breaking news 20th October - I now have it coded into Golden Cheetah. The gui is a basic set of LCD numbers (rather like the display on a Garmin 705 in fact). Next steps are to add saving data to disk and a real-time scrolling graph!

To explain the video I start Golden Cheetah, show some of the features then start a realtime session, get on my bike, ride stop and then get back to my PC and stop the session. The 5 numbers are power, cadence, heartate, speed and load. I start with a load of 100w and then you will see it go up to 200w or so and then back down again. I am controlling this using the +/- keys on the unit.

Edit: Breaking news 11th October - I now have outbound control and inbound telemetry working . I can sit on my turbo and set load up and down with the +/- keys and watch watts cadence et al. Its all very ghetto, with just a console mode, but I can now set about turning it into something pretty with graphs etc.

For those of you that are interested I have opened up a sourceforge project to host my documentation and a sample utility to implement the key features. I've put the first draft of my documentation there for now, over the coming weeks I'll drop some code in there too.

Obviously my longer term goal is to put a real-time mode into Golden Cheetah. I'm making pretty good progress towards my goal of having something usable by 2010... Even if I have been tempted to take it apart in an attempt to 'understand it better' :-)

The above was taken in an attempt to work out what chips it uses to try and understand some of the bizarre memory structures.

And this little lad helped me along the way. Bless him, he is more than happy to sit and churn over the gears to help his old man. I'm sure that'll change over the next few years - so I'd better enjoy it whilst I can!

I can now read telemetry and set load on my CT. I haven't sorted out spin-scan or LTA etc. But frankly they're gimmicks. Still reckon that I'll get the Computrainer working on my Macbook before 2010.

I needed help generating load whilst I fiddled with my software ... above is a picture of my guineau pig in action.

Thanks Oli!

Ultremo carnage

2009-09-26T12:02:00.004+01:00

Promised to upload some photos of the split and bulging Ultremos. Note these are two separate splits on the same tyre. From normal riding on French roads.

'nuff said, eh?

Computrainer on my Macbook

2009-09-20T16:14:00.005+01:00

Its gonna take me a while but I'm onto it. I need to; 1. decode the Computrainer's serial protocol (see image above). 2. Write CompCS for the Mac.

Simples.

I reckon by 2010 I should have something worth downloading.

UPDATE 8th NOVEMBER. Its done.

3d critical power history prototype

2009-09-01T18:17:00.007+01:00

I've been having fun getting back into coding and one of the things I've always wanted is a visualisation of my critical power profile as it changes over time.

The visualisation above is a working prototype and (hopefully) will find its way into the excellent Golden Cheetah software. I've made some small contributions recently and am fizzing with ideas and energy.

No more wishing WKO did certain things ... just write them yourself and hey presto!!

I'll update further but as you can imagine with a bit of sumamrisation (the above is ALL rides) and a few other tricks I have planned it could become a good tool for visualising training and outcome ... more later!

Edit: I've now integrated into my local GoldenCheetah codebase... time to start 'polishing' and making it usable rather than a hacked up prototype!

Exporting WKO files to CSV

2009-08-10T13:03:00.004+01:00

Phew.

I've spent *far too long* decoding the WKO+ binary file format. I'm still not there yet. But close enough that all my WKO files (wow, I have so many) can be exported to CSV and played with in MS access and MS excel.

It was freakin' difficult.

Put it another way, I had to give up decoding via hexdump and hexcmp tools in the end and wrote a tool of my own to compare and examine in binary (!?). But anyways, now all my data is as free as a bird and I'm already creating lots of pointless analysis to explain why I'm so crap! :-)

If you're at all interested the project is hosted over at sourceforge and you can download the convert, it's source code and a document that describes the WKO binary file format. You will also find an older project of mine that converts binary data files from my beloved HAC4 into Polar harm format too.

I can get back to concentrate on riding my bike now!

Edit: Oh, and today I just had my code to support WKO import into Golden Cheetah committed to the repository. Oh and Raceday now supports WKO import too.

Cool.

Shimano quick-link. EPIC FAIL.

2009-08-03T13:02:00.003+01:00

Nice one Shimano. The quick-link doesn't last as long as the rest of the chain basically. Mine slips and clicks so badly I'm off to buy a new chain.

Needless to say, it won't be a 7900 with quicklink (but then Shimano have quietly withdrawn them from sale anyway).

Pah!

Contador Wins!

2009-07-27T09:14:00.005+01:00

Image Copyright PATRICK HERTZOG/AFP/Getty Images

La Marmotte 2009

2009-07-06T20:39:00.005+01:00

It took me 11:09. I may have finished La Marmotte but in return La Marmotte finished me. I won’t be entering another epic european mountainous sportive in this lifetime.

Preamble

I stayed at Chalet Namika above the main town of Alpe d’Huez. Hosted by Wayne and Ambra I had a thoroughly fantastic stay. The weather was fantastic and the views were breathtaking. It seemed like only yesterday that I was panting my way up the Alpe on my 40th, but here I was again to take part in Europe’s hardest sportive, La Marmotte.

When it came to the carbo loading these guys rocked, the food was fantastic and I couldn’t have gotten a better base for the event. Sam and I are alerady talking about returning with the kids to ski in the new year.

There were a few guys staying at the Chalet, all of whom were Marmotteers. Some clearly experienced and fit and others less so. I fell into the less so category.

Indeed, a couple of trips down to the village of Huez at switchback 7 had my NP of 260 with a first attempt BPM of 145 and a second attempt at 165, for the same power output. Dunno why. I suspect that I was not adjusting well to the high altitude.

The Day

The big day arrived and I was awake at 5am, with about 6 hours of sleep under my belt. One of my fellow competitors bike didn’t arrive until 11pm the previous night due to British Airways issues. Not the best of starts to the day.

Full of nerves and itching to start I descended down to Bourg d’Oisans at 5:50 and made it to the 400-2000 pen by about 6:30. Imagine my surprise when I saw Quentin only 3 yards in front of me! It was the last I did see of him as he raced round in gold medal time.

At just after 7am we got started and finally the day began proper.The ride to the foot of the Glandon was respectful and good natured with plenty of chances to grab a wheel and make good progress. A milion miles away from the hectic dashI had been warned of. Before blinking we were at the foot of the first climb.

Glandon

Well, I knew all about the Glandon from the cyclefilm reccie DVD, and sure enough half way up you descend and then hit a 10% section before it becomes more restrained and eases up until the summit.

I was shocked to find that I couldn’t generate any power from the off. Ordinarily I would easily kick out 260w at tempo yet already, with 5000m of climbing yet to come and stillrelatively fresh I struggled to get over 200w. I was very, very worried.

Not since I started cycling have so many people overtaken me up a climb. I was even overtaken by fat old blokes. This was going to be a hard and loooong day at the office. I tried to tap out an even tempo and stay out of the red zone.

Glandon to Telegraph

Whilst the Glandon descent is indeed very very technical, and some of the other riders go down at break-neck speed it wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined and managed to hold my own. Got a little blase from time to time but soon got real. Hit a couple of pot-holes at the very bottom of the descent which knocked my chain off but other than that it was largely uneventful.

The drag to the Telegraph was annoyingly lengthy. Fortunately I caught onto the back of a group of 5 riders, one of whom was wearing a Beyond Mountain Bikes jersey (my local bike shop in Cranleigh) small world? Anyway, before long the group had enlarged as more and more mini-pelotons merged until I was rocking along in a group of about 50 riders.

Oddly, my power at this stage was better, I could easily kick out 250w+ and occasionally kicked out 500w as little gaps and accelerations called for it.

Telegraph

What a nice climb. With my power still woefully low, I tapped up the Telegraph at a very steady 200w pace. It was really hot and the cars were beginning to get annoying, they were clearly frustrated with so many cyclists in the way …

I got to the summit and took a breather. Filling my bottles took an age with 2 or 3 very slow taps and 20 or so riders all desperate for water.

I descended to the base of the Galibier and the misery kicked in.

Galibier

Starting at some 1,400m above sea level it then rises to 2,600m over the next 18 kilometers. It starts out relatively gently but with my power output struggling to hit 180w I was crawling along.

I knew that with 8km to go it doubles back and the climb starts for proper with plenty of 10% sections. Yet with about 9.5km to go I had to stop and take a break by the side of the road. My heart was pounding out my chest and my breathing was very very difficult. I’d been in the saddle for about 5hrs and 45 minutes and I was absolutely exhausted.

For the next hour and a half I struggled to the summit taking the occasional break by the side of the road to recover or catch a quick photo. For the first time in my life I experienced cramp. I didn’t realise what all the fuss was about. I do now. Could this day get any worse?

On a couple of occasions I almost fainted and was most unsteady on my feet. I had no choice but to carry on, walking the remaining 70km would have taken too long and thunderstorms were crackling overhead reminding me to push on and get onto the descent before the heavens opened.

The last 2km of the Galibier were awesome. You can see the 6 fearsome switchbacks as you approach but since its the last push over the top it is quite a feeling to get to the top and start descending again, even if your power is barely above 150w.

I caught my breath filled up with water and started down hill. I was sure to make it to the foot of Alpe d’Huez now.

Galibier descent

Wow! What a descent, it just keeps on coming and is a total blast. Even though I was completely exhausted I still enjoyed it. The top level is a bit bumpy and the winds keep you in check, but once you get out of the high mountains its smooth and relatively straight forward.

Before I knew it I was at the roundabout at the bottom of Alpe d’Huez. I stopped for a breather phoned my wife and gulped down two bottles of cold fresh water. Bliss. The water station was an oasis of calm in a stormy day.

Alpe d’Huez

Sheer utter agony. It took me 2hrs and 20 minutes to ascent, with 50 minutes of sitting by the side of the road. I could manage 170w maximum and was a spent force. I have never, ever been so miserable on a bicycle!!!

I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say if there was a flat piece of road or some shade, I stopped there. I just wanted the misery to end.

I sent at tweet from switchback 7 saying I’d probably finish in an hour … I was actually joking, but it did indeed take me an hour to climb the last 6km or so. Miserable. I took the photo above to post onto twitpic but never got round to it for some reason :-)

Arrivee

As I turned up switchback 1 the heavens duly opened and I got drenched, for once it was pretty pleasant. My core temperature got back to normal and I felt a little stronger. But not much :-)

As I crossed the line there was no moment of euphoria like at Etape in 2007. Just relief that the suffering and misery was over. I would happily of sobbed but the french audience and my English reserve kept that stiff upper lip.

I even forgot to stop my bike computer, but it was 11:09 when I remembered. Like I said at the outset, I may have finished La Marmotte but it sure as hell finished me.

25 kilometers to go ...

2009-06-28T20:10:00.005+01:00

When you ascend the Col du Telegraph there's still another 25 kilometers before the top of the Col du Galibier ...

25 kilos to go

Well they're building a flamme-rouge outside Alpe D'Huez I've got 25 kilos to go

And the whole town's waitin' just to hear me yell I've got 24 kilos to go

Well they gave me some beans for my last meal I've got 23 kilos to go

But nobody asked me how I feel I've got 22 kilos to go

Well I went past a duffer and his whole dern bunch with 21 kilos to go

And I sent for the mayor but he's out to lunch I've got 20 more kilos to go

Then the sheriff said boy I gonna watch you die got 19 kilos to go

So I laughed in his face and I spit in his eye got 18 kilos to go

Now hear comes the preacher for to save my soul with 13 kilos to go

And he's talking bout' bonkin' but I'm so cold I've 12 more kilos to go

Now they're detecting' the chip and it chills my spine 11 more kilos to go

And my gears and my chain aw they work just fine got 10 more kilos to go

Well I'm waitin' on the descent that'll set me free with 9 more kilos to go

But this is for real so forget about me got 8 more kilos to go

With my feet on the pedals and my bum out the saddle I got 5 more kilos to go

Won't somebody come and push me through with 4 more kilos to go

I can see the mountains I can see the skies with 3 more kilos to go

And it's to dern pretty for a man that don't wanna bonk 2 more kilos to go

I can see the buzzards I can hear the crows 1 more minute to go

And now I'm cresting and here I go-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!

With apologies to Johnny Cash

Pacing and Nutrition

2009-06-22T19:51:00.018+01:00

I never cease to be amazed at how really simple questions can become almost impossible to answer when it comes to exercise physiology.

I'm just an IT spod who has a passion for training and riding my bike. But, having bonked really badly on Etape 07 (or possibly underestimated the effect of altitude) I am determined to get it right for La Marmotte this year.

The chart above is intended to show the percentage of fuel that is derived from muscle glycogen versus fatty acids (etc) at differing exercise intensities. Basically, at higher intensities the energy derived from glycogen becomes greater and will need to be replaced on the go. By contrast, the energy derived from fatty acids will not.

Tipping Points and Sailing Close to the wind

Based upon the assumption that (a) I will carbo load before La Marmotte and will have approximately 1000 cals worth of glycogen sitting in my legs and (b) I will take on 400cals of glycogen per hour then the following table tells me how many hours I can go for at each intensity before I run out of glycogen

IF < .80 - glycogen levels will rise over the ride at this intensity
IF .85 - glycogen levels will just be maintained at this intensity
IF 0.93 - glycogen levels will be depleted after 3 hrs at this intensity
IF 1.00 - glyogen levels will be depleted after 1.5 hrs

However, the ride is comprised of, effectively, 3 ascents and 2 descents, roughly;

0.5 hrs Roll from Start to Glandon
1.5 hrs Glandon Ascent
1.0 hrs Glandon Descent and Roll to Telegraph
2.5 hrs Telegraph and Galibier Ascent
1.0 hrs Galibier descent and roll to Alpe D'Huez
1.5 hrs Alpe D'Huez Ascent

Which means that there is ample time between each ascent to take on fuel whilst burning very little if one sits in a group (solids on descent since riding one handed and drinking on high-speed technical descents is well beyond me).

Which means in theory the above table could be used as a pacing guide for the day. It is the maximum pace I could sustain assuming I religiously take-on my 400 cals every hour. And the small matter of having the legs to sustain those intensities on the day (threshold for an hour and a half up AdH and sweetspot for 2.5 hours being impossible, of course).

Suffice to say this is an optimum, sailing close to the wind plan. I'll be looking to put the brakes on if I start to approach anywhere near these numbers especially up the Telegraph/Galibier. The numbers are about looking at nutrition more than pacing.

The truth is, I shall be looking to enjoy the day and get round in one piece, so the chances of me pushing myself that hard is debatable. But a rush of blood and the adrenalin can do very strange things ....

Data and Research sources for Table 1

I freely admit that the last 4 columns are not as robust as they could be -- they are inidicative rather than prescriptive, so here is how I formulated the table. Since intensity is generally based upon %age of vo2max in the literature I have mapped this to %age of MaxHR using Brianmac's useful web-page (because I do not measure Vo2max). For each HR I have mapped to typical NP values for my own rides with this average HR (so whilst the power column is only really useful to me with my FTP of 290 you can make your own by applying the intensity factor instead, my MAXHR is 183 btw). The percentage breakdown for glycogen etc is based upon lots of web based research and some liberties (invalid assumtions about the mix of type 1, 2a and 2b muscle fibers - aka slowtwitch and fasttwitch) but largely comes from the following (apologies for the shoddy citations):

Determination of the exercise intensity that elicits maximal fat oxidation. J Acton et al.
Effect of Exercise Intensity on Fat Utilization in Males and Females. J Kang et al.
Regulation of endogenous fat and carbohydrate metabolism in relation to exercise intensity and duration. Romijn et al
Sport Nutrition Asker E. Jeukendrupand and Michael Gleeson
Ex Phiz 101. Web seminar. A Coggan

PMC for May

2009-05-30T09:13:00.003+01:00

I've managed to stabilise at a CTL and ATL of 95. Feeling strong. Had a taper for the fred Whitton which gave me a dip and them pretty much rode every day. Instead of taking a full rest day I rode noodly rides with my wife Sam. Very civilised and legs feel better for it.

Shredding to 77kg by July 5th

2009-05-25T19:02:00.010+01:00

OK, so I'm still 81kg and probably in the 20% bodyfat range and shredding is something bodybuilders will do before a big event to get down to 2% but I'm calling it shredding :-)

No more refined sugar products or 'treats' till I start La Marmotte. Ideally I'd like to be at 75kg for the event but lets face it anywhere around 77kg would be fantastic.

If only I didn't like biscuits and chocolate quite so much ....................... its just for 6 weeks.... its just for 6 weeks .... its just for 6 weeks ....... if I tell myself that enough maybe it'll help me get past those cravings.

Saturday 23rd May - 81.9 kg

Well during the week I watched 10 things you need to know about losing weight. And I put some of it into practice; I didn't have anything between meals (ok, I had a fruesli bar on Friday afternoon because I was really hungry), I had more protein than usual for breakfast (couple of poached eggs and toast), but having soup for lunch was the clincher. I ate a hearty bowl every day with plenty of buttered bread but had no cravings during the afternoon. none. no cravings. Oh, and we're going to buy some smaller plates today for the whole family.

So as a result, when I weighed myself this morning ....

Saturday 30th May - 81.0 kg

And after a relatively well behaved week, with a bit of a blow-out on Wednesday this weeks tally is .... (although I'm possibly a little glycogen depleted after hard riding yesterday)

Saturday 6th June - 79.9 kg

Couple of blow outs this week and back up, they say 3,500 cals to a pound - as "bad" as I have been I aint eaten 7,700 extra calories, BUT, I did have a real blow-out on Tuesday and felt quite ill from over-eating. Wonder if the results of that are more serious to weight gain than a steady flow of calories. hey ho. I'm not really that concerned about weight, otherwise I'd have skipped the M&S chocolate roll last night ;-)

Saturday 13th June 80.9 kg

Google Earth a tool for cyclists!

2009-05-18T12:09:00.004+01:00

So, right now it is raining. hard. But the weather forecast says sunny intervals. Mmmm.

If I fire up google earth and hone in onto Cranleigh then select radar and cloud I am greeted with the image above. The HIRAD radar data gets refreshed every twenty minutes or so.

Now the wind is coming at 22mph from the SSW according to metcheck and the bbc weather sites. So that band of rain from east anglia to hayling island is moving fast to the northeast.

From that, my dear Watson I can conclude that we have one more heavy shower to endure and then we should have a rain free afternoon.

LETS SEE IF I'M RIGHT SHALL WE?

edit: Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. The radar is only over land masses. Once the first lot of heavy cloud cover had passed another one appeared and then another. Kind of makes the radar useless if you are near the coast.

Rites of Passage

2009-05-18T10:54:00.003+01:00

I've been riding on the road seriously for a few years now. When I got my first road bike in 2003 I wasn't very clued up. I rode it and enjoyed it, but didn't really know too much about bikes, cycling history and culture and training.

I realised recently that I've been through quite a rite of passage from newbie to well, experienced cyclist. Ok, so I can't tell you much about campagnolo bottom brackets but I can (and have) maintained or repaired or replaced every part of my dura ace equipped bike.

There are a few behaviours I have picked up along the way that are widely viewed as roadie-neurosies. Not because I knew about them and wanted to fit it, more that they developed independently over time, here are a few;

No saddle bag. I carry everything in my middle back pocket that would be in my saddle bag. This is to keep my bike light and manoueverable, especially when out the saddle.
Mega-Clean drivechain. My chain, chainrings and casette are indeed cleaner than my fridge. But squeaky chains are SO annoying when you're on a long ride. Not to mention having a chain snap on me for poor maintenance. it takes two ticks to do before every ride. Btw, I use a mix of pedro dry and finish line wet lube at this time of year. Finish line has a habit of going black so I wipe it down often.
Multi-Layered Kit. When you noodle around or pump out junk miles you don't get that uncomfortable on the bike. Now I spend a lot of my time at a higher intensity I hate being too hot or too cold. Arm warmers, gilets, capes, knee warmers, tights, gloves, skull cap etc etc. I think more about this before a ride than the route and workout goals.
Weather Obsessed. At any given day or night I can tell you exactly what the weather forecast is for the next 48 hours. And I don't mind the wind now I have a power meter. Light rain is ok with my fantastic assos cape and shoe covers. But heavy rain - that's a deal breaker.
Driver Hating Road Bore. I have had so many bad experiences. On the whole most drivers (after all, I am one too) are considerate. Its just a small minority of petrol-heads, busy mums and OAPs that pay scant regard to the safety of other road users. Of course, I can now tell you which roads to target and which to avoid at any time of week, or even time of day!

Anyway, must dash, should be brighter from 12 and I need to go clean my chain and decide which shorts to wear and wether I need my spring or winter base layer.

Do my legs need shaving again?

Reflection Point

2009-05-13T11:45:00.005+01:00

The chart above is what I call my poppy field. The yellow bars (or stalks) represent the average and normalised powers for each workout whilst the red and gray dots represent the average heart rate and intensity factors for each workout.

As you can see my intensity factor has tailed off slightly along with my heart rate, that really reflects the gradual increase in volume. I'm still not convinced that daily workouts are the best way forward. I have a feeling that increased intensity and more frequent rest days are a much better way to organise your training. But then I keep thinking about TITS and would rather not risk 'innovating'. BTW, TITS means time in the saddle :-)

The distributution chart below shows, in absolute terms, the amount of time I have spent this season in each zone. I'm quite pleased with the mix, especially the AC and VM. This really reflects the fact that I live in a hilly area more than anything else. I have not included time spent freewheeling for obvious reasons.

PMC for April

2009-05-01T13:19:00.004+01:00

Well, aside from the Crash in the middle of the month its been a good month. Plenty of hard efforts and the Majorca trip was great. I did an FTP test a couple of weeks after the crash and wasn't back to full fitness but still held an FTP of 285w. I reckon I'm higher now and will do a test after the Fred Whitton Challenge which is next weekend. My all-time best 5,20 and 60 minute powers in 2007 came a week after the FWC. Only 9 weeks to La Marmotte, gulp.

Anatomy of a Crash (Part Two - The Injuries)

2009-04-13T13:14:00.007+01:00

What a fine figure of a man. So this was taken about 5 miuntes ago, today on Monday. Its a mirror reflection, so that is my right leg not my left leg. As you can see things don't look too bad. A lot of bruising on my upper thigh, my ankle is still swollen but a lot of range in movement means I'm off out on my bike when I finish this post.

Last Tuesday, the day of the crash, I looked around the internet to try and get some feeling for how serious my injuries were and how long I'd be off the bike. I didn't really find anything useful. Most of the pages were about sports induced injuries rather than from falling off a bike and largely they put the fear of god into me. Talk of 6 weeks here and season ending there made me quite miserable.

So, here is a brief breakdown of the last six days and how I've gone from feeling really low and assuming La Marmotte was written off to today, 6 days later, where I'm wondering how hard I should go in the hills this afternoon!

The motto for the week: Don't stand if you can sit and don't sit if you can lie down!

Tuesday Night (Day Zero)

Visually - Grazing and cuts very visible, very very swollen but no bruising.

Physically - My right leg had zero range of movement or strength. I walked by swinging my right leg round. Under compression I was fine, but I could not lift my knee at all. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't do it. I ached like hell and had the strength of a kitten.

Mentally - Mixed bag, happy I wasn't dead but miserable that I had been so stupid. The internet sites I visited made me feel like I had a serious hip-flexor strain and was gonna be out for weeks.

Wednesday (Day One)

Visually - Little change, ankle slightly less swollen.

Physically - Very, very sore. No change in the range of movement, unable to walk or raise my knee. Tuning over in bed is a major military operation and getting up after being seated is hellish.

Mentally - Resigned to a lay-off from the bike, but more positive that I had a lucky escape. Could have been so much worse - like whoever got airlifted off Sa Calobra that day. Noticed a few other casualties around the hotel who must had had similar experience. Didn't feel quite so foolish.

Thursday (Day Two)

Visually - Bruises have arrived and swelling is reduced.

Physically - Ouch. It really hurts now but I have limited range of movement, walking is slightly easier. Manage 30 mins easy spinning [with no resistance] on a gym bike without pain. Walking still very difficult but 100% improvement on day before. Getting up after being seated still nasty, but passes after a few seconds.

Mentally - Up-beat, seems like its not so bad after all. And I've only had 2 enforced rest days.

Friday (Day Three)

Visually - Bruising is fierce and scabs have appeared on exposed areas. No visible swelling.

Physically - Pretty good range of movement. I can lift my knee, but it is very painful to do so. I can feel pain where my hip flexors meet the hip and there is some yellow bruising there, on my inner thigh. Turning in bed is not a problem. Getting up after being seated still a bit achey.

Mentally - Chipper. I'm gonna be ok. Hell, I'll even take a rest day, cause I can catch up on training over the weekend. My CTL is now 94, which is pretty darned high anyway this far out from my main event.

Saturday (Day Four)

Visually - No change

Physically - Excellent range of movement, no soreness or aching just the odd twinge every now and again which catches my breath. From feeling tender to feeling ok'ish. Manage a 40k ride and whilst I have no topend power and out the saddle is difficult and at times painful I still manage lower tempo power.

Mentally - Normal - can't believe I've had such a good result.

Sunday (Day Five)

Visually - No change

Physically - Almost back to normal, still painful on the grazing on the outside of my thigh, which is now almost 100% covered in one mother of all bruises. Can walk with ease and twinges still come and go but they are dull aches rather than sharp or piercing. Ride out with Samantha and out the saddle efforts are fine. Still difficult getting up after being seated for a while but wears off once I've stretched out a bit.

Mentally - Positive. Watching Paris-Roubaix and understanding the pain of those crashes!

If you've had a nasty fall like this and feel that its the end of the world, just check this post and see how quickly you will recover. The human body is an amazing thing!

Anatomy of a Crash (Part One - The Crash)

2009-04-11T11:12:00.004+01:00

I crashed on Tuesday. I hurt myself quite badly. My rear derrailleur is knackered, the hanger is bent out of shape, my bar tape is ripped and my right brake lever is scuffed. My elbow, upper-hip/thigh and ankle are severely scraped and, now, heavily bruised.

So, what the hell happenned?

One of the great things about all the gadgetry I have is the ability to review and analyse the data afterwards and I must admit it has been fascinating. As fortune would have it, I descended this point at very high speed on Sunday, in glorious sunshine. So I have data to compare with my crash data.

On Sunday I approached this bend at 47km/h and went round, freewheeling (and leaning hard) and as I went round my speed dropped to 39km/h without me applying the brakes. I can tell you now that I was right on it because the guy trying to keep up with me behind was (as I later discovered) a german domestic pro who, in his words, thought I had 'good speed!!' (with a thumbs up gesture).

On Tuesday, the day of the crash, I approached to bend at 35km/h and went round, freewheeling (and leaning moderately). As I was over the apex and looking down the road I heard a scraping noise followed by my rear wheel disappearing under me. I went down hard. As my head smacked against the tarmac and bounced up again I was very, very grateful of my helmet. I will never ride without one again. I have no doubt that it saved me from a severe injury.

I clearly had too much speed going into the corner FOR THE CONDITIONS. It had rained quite hard previously and whilst the roads were largely dry this particular corner was in the shade and the water from higher up 'streamed' across the road on its way down the mountain. I have learned a very valuable lesson here! If its damp, descend SLOWLY.

One slightly interesting piece of data was the fact that during the 1 minute after going down and standing by the side of the road checking my bike and feeling shocked and sore my heart rate rose from 128 bpm to 138bpm very rapidly and then recovered almost as soon as I got back on the bike. I guess that was caused by the shock adrenalin.

After freewheeling for a while I started to pedal and eventually started to go hard since it started to rain quite heavily. At this point I was putting out 320w for nearly 5 minutes and felt no pain. That must be adrenalin. At the time I thought I'd bust my SRM powermeter. I've checked it out since and it seems to be fine.

I've been off the bike for 3 days now and am starting to feel pretty good. I had a lucky escape. In the second part I'm going to explain the 'injuries' I sustained and the recovery 'process'. This is largely because I found so little info on this via Google. The recovery process has been very interesting indeed.

Majorca here I come ...

2009-04-02T09:55:00.006+01:00

Looking forward to testing my legs with some beautiful mountainous climbs, Col de Soller a mini Alpe d'Huez and Col de Calobra known as The Snake but the trip to Cap de Formentor (above) will be more a test of my fear of heights ... gulp.

London to Paris

2009-04-02T09:17:00.003+01:00

Me and the missus are signed up for the BHF London 2 Paris ride in September. Should be fun riding with 'er indoors. Its a 3 day thing with a total of 280 miles. Its relatively flat and from what I gather relatively slow too. It should keep me on the straight and narrow post La Marmotte too.

Should be a blast!

PMC for March

2009-03-30T13:59:00.004+01:00

Building over March from 85 to 95 CTL which came largely from a slight increase in frequency, volume and intensity. still only doing between 8-12 hrs per week. April kicks off with a week in Majorca which should give me a boost - both mentally and physically.

Its been a great 8 months with a few issues to deal with but largely a positive experience and have developed a great level of fitness to build upon in the next 3 months leading up to La Marmotte.

Now is the time to put the foot on the gas and not get complacent, who knows what can be achieved ...

Thanks Ergvideo!

2009-03-29T17:00:00.002+01:00

Over 1,000 miles this season on the Computrainer.

(That's a whole lot of sweating)

CTL Target

2009-03-23T20:32:00.003Z

It would seem that a CTL >100 is widely viewed as a target for peaking. Given my sustainable ramp rate, the fact that I'm already at 95 CTL, I am planning on an increase in volume through April, May and June AND I'm off to Majorca for 7 days of quality training I think a 120 target for Marmotte is LOW! :-)

Heck, I even took an extra rest day today and CTL is still 93.

Woohoo!

2009-03-16T10:54:00.003Z

Is that the first shoot of spring? Is my anaerobic capacity coming out to blossom? :-)

Mean Maximal All-time vs This Season

2009-03-13T09:16:00.003Z

Anaerobic Capacity is a mixed bag this season compared to all time, whilst most of the other zones are all as good as if not better than ever. This seasons training regime is definitely working better than any training I've ever done before.

PS: The dotted line is this season

FTP Target - >310 <320

2009-03-09T15:05:00.004Z

Tested today at 285w (NP ~290, AP 280). Looking at linear and log trend looks like a stretch of 320w for Marmotte and a possible of 310w.

Mad. Mad. Mad.

Only time will tell, but my new approach of higher intensity training and no L2 seems to be paying off in terms of FTP. Given I also set a fast time for the ToSH with no long rides suggests that L2 is highly over-rated.

Big Milestone Today

2009-03-09T13:51:00.003Z

Nuff Said.

Did an eyeballs out FTP test on a majorly breezy day. The wind helped to neutralize the terrain and made it hard work in every direction. The only dips in power were unavoidable due to turns, lights or steep descents.

FTP Test results of NP 292 and AP 281.

PMC For February

2009-03-01T15:37:00.003Z

Wow is it that time already? Well a good month with build starting over the last couple of weeks. I've taken a few impromptu rest days for fun and work. Trying to keep a balance and make sure I don't burn out. Indeed, the ride today was going to be a 4 hr stint in the hills, but after 3 hrs I was cold and wanted to go home, so I did. I know that tomorrow I'll be itching to get out for a couple of hours anyway and this way I'll be less fatigued. At least thats the theory!

I checked my FTP and its still 275. CTL now at 95 but I suspect I'll maintain it at abut that over the month and not go higher. Funny - a workout of an hour or less feels really short these days and almost not worth getting dressed up for :-)

Tour of the Surrey Hills Route

2009-02-26T19:47:00.003Z

As a Google Earth (KML) or a Garmin Training Centre (TCX) file can be downloaded here.

Please note: this is NOT the official route since (a) I start half way round in Cranleigh and do the first half AFTER the second half and (b) I skip the staples lane climb, which is a habit I should break!

Lent Food Diary

2009-02-25T12:11:00.047Z

Not religious, except about weight loss. So I'm giving up Chocolate, Sweets, Biscuits and Cake for Lent, which runs from today 'Ash Wednesday' through to Good Friday. That's 40 days and 40 nights of hell!

So to keep a tab on it all I'm keeping a food diary right here on this blog entry. Should make for a scintilating read (not!). No comments on how crap my diet is. I know I should eat more fruit and veg. I know caffeine is bad for me. I know that I should vary my diet more.

:-)

Ash Wednesday 25th February
8am Cup of Filter Coffee, 1 sugar
8am Round of Toast and Butter
8am Bran Flakes, Natural yoghurt, berry compote, skimmed milk
9am Tea, 2 sugars
10am Starbucks Coffee, 2 sweeteners
1pm Sandwich: Bacon, Avacodo and Chicken on Farmhouse Granary
1pm Can of San Pellegrino Fizzy Orange
3pm Cup of tea, 2 sugars
4pm cup of tea, 2 sugars

8pm DISASTER! dropped pesto and pasta on floor - v. small portion consumed

8pm couple of jacob's crackers with a bit of cheese

9pm Wild Berry Fruesli bar

Thursday 26th February

8am Coffee, 2 sweeteners

8am 2 slices of wholemeal toast with flora and 2 scrambled eggs

11am Wild Berry Fruesli Bar

2pm Cheese, Ham & Mustard toastie, Salad.

2pm Lime cordial & soda water

4pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

6pm Pint blackcurrant hi-juice and still water

6.30pm 2 beef sausages, new potatoes, sprouting purple broccoli and gravy

Friday 27th February

7-9am No breakfast - tut-tut (Early commute deliberately on an empty stomach)

10.30am Coffee Latte, 2 sweeteners

11.00am 2 Glasses of water

12pm Baked potato with beans and chicken (clean)

12pm Diet coke "citrus zest"

12pm Small Coppice Pear

3pm Coffee Latte, 2 sweeteners

3pm 2 Glasses water

5.30pm Pint of blackcurrant hi-juice and water

5.30pm 100g SIS Rego

5.30pm Wild berry fruesli bar

6pm Chicken breast with verde pesto pasta

7.15pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

Saturday 28th February

9am Round of wholemeal toast with lemon Curd

9am Coffee, 2 sweeteners

11am Large Coppice Pear

1.30pm Post-ride Fruesli Bar

1.30pm 2 cumpets with dairylea

1.30pm Can of Pepsi Max

1.30pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

1.45pm Ham Sandwich

3pm Small bottle of fizzy cranberry and raspberry flavoured water

4.45pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

4.45pm Another Fruesli Bar

6pm Jacket, Apple & Beef Burger with baked beans

6pm Raspberry yoghurt

7pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

Sunday 1st March

10am Porridge with Honey

10am Coffee, 2 sweeteners

11am-2pm 100g PSP22, 1 Fruesli Bar

3pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

3pm Ham and Cheese on Wholemeal Sandwich

4pm Can Pepsi Max

5pm Pint Blackcurrant hi-juice and water

6pm Roast Chicken, Pots, Runner Beans and Cauliflower with Gravy

6pm Raspberry Yoghurt

6pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

8pm Raspberry and Echinacea Tea

8pm 3 jacobs crackers with mature cheddar

9pm Can Pepsi Max

Monday 2nd March

8am Coffee, 2 sweeteners

8am 2 Rounds wholemeal toast and lemon curd

11am Echinacea and Raspberry Tea

11am 2 crumpets with dairylea

Midday Pre-ride Steak and Chips! (yum yum)

Midday Lime cordial and Soda

4pm Can Pepsi Max

6pm Pint blackcurrant hi-juice and water

6pm Another Can of Pepsi Max

6pm Home-made Macaroni Cheese

6pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

6pm Fruesli Bar

6pm Phew!

Tuesday 3rd March

7.15am Porridge with Honey

7.15am Coffee, 2 sweeteners

7.15am Pint of Water

11am Large Gala Apple

11am Can of San Pellegrino Sparkling Orange

11am V. V. V. Hungry but waiting for lunch!!

11:50 Chicken Bacon and Sweetcorn Salad on Farmhouse White

12:00 Blackcurranty-Apply Yoghurty Cheesecakey thing

3pm Raspberry, Ginseng and Vanilla Tea

4pm Raspberry, Ginseng and Vanilla Tea

6pm Small bag salted peanuts ... I know, I know

7pm Steak and Chips

7pm Lime Cordial and Soda

Wednesday 4th March

8am Bran Flakes, Berry Compote, Natural Yoghurt and Skimmed Milk

8am Round of Brown Toast with butter

8am 2 small cups of filter coffee, 3 sugars

9.30am Cup of tea, UHT milk (blech) and 1 sugar

Midday Bacon, Avacado and Chicken on Farmhouse White

Midday Can Fizzy orange

Midday Large Braeburn Apple

4pm Cup of tea, UHT milk (blech) and 1 sugar

11pm Post workout "meal" long story, late workout (7-9pm) and got back late

11pm Tesco Scottish Raspberry Yoghurt

11pm Fruesli Bar

11pm Pepsi Max Bottle

Thursday 5th March

8am Bran Flakes, Natural Yoghurt, Berry Compote, Skimmed Milk

8am Round of Brown Toast, Butter

8am 2 Small cups filter coffee, 3 sugars

8am Bacon and Scrambled Eggs

9am Raspberry, Ginseng and Vanilla Tea

10.30am Breakfast Tea, UHT Milk, 1 sugar

1pm "Sausage" hotpot soup (vegetable soup in reality)

1pm Buttered roll

1pm Can of San Pellegrino Sparkling Orange

1pm Large Braeburn Apple

4pm Wild Berry Fruesli Bar

7.30pm Sausages, Mash, Cauliflower Cheese and Brocolli (yum yum)

7.30pm Blackcurrant cheesecake (yeah I know the base is biscuit)

7.30pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

Friday 6th March

8am Toast Lemon Curd

8am Coffee, 2 sweeteners

10am 2 crumpets, dairylea

10am Coffee, 2 sweeteners

Midday Gammon, Eggs and Chips

Midday 2 pints Lime cordial and soda

3pm Fruesli Bar

5.30pm Spaghetti Bolognese

5.30pm Raspberry Yoghurt

5.30pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

Saturday 7th March

9am Tentative 40k ride - calf ok! yay!

1pm St James Royal Champagne Cocktail

2pm Quaglino's ... nice!

2pm Fois Gras, Figs, Campagne toast

2pm Seared Bream fillet, chirozo, coco beans, carrots and green beans

2pm Sticky toffee pudding and vanilla ice cream

2pm Glass red wine

5pm Kir royal

9pm Popcorn, Ice Cream and Watchmen (rubbish btw)

12pm Baileys with crushed ice

Sunday 8th March

7.30am Coffee, 2 sweeteners

7.30am 2 rashers Bacon, Scrambled eggs, 2 Hash browns, Beans, Pork Sausage

11.30 Cafe Nero Coffee

Midday Haagen Das Ice cream sundae

3pm Fruesli Bar

3pm Cheese and Biscuits

5pm Baked spud, cheeseburger and beans

5pm Coffee, 2 sweeteners

Got bored updating this entry, sorry. Started eating shiv again anyway! :-)

Tour of the Surrey Hills

2009-02-22T18:40:00.003Z

I had some residual fatigue from the double commute I did on Friday but managed pretty well. It was a little windy but in gusts rather than a constant breeze. I nearly came a cropper with side winds, glad I didn't have deep section wheels.

The ride was a milestone for me, a route I've ridden extensively in the past and very demanding with plenty of steep climbs from 10% through to 18% and 21%. I was worried I would fatigue since the majority of my riding has been in the 2hr ballpark, but I was absolutely fine.

A ride time of 4:15 is up there with some 0f my better times, 4hr being my PB. So I've drawn a line in the sand. And more importantly I'm not scared of the ride anymore and so will be incorporating it into my weekend long ride from now on.

Roll on the spring!

Four more milestones

2009-02-22T18:21:00.004Z

Good weekend for some new milestones :-

First (windy) Tour of the Surrey Hills of the season 4:15 NP239 AP205
Hit 3064 miles for the season, 887 of which were on the turbo
Build Phase has started in my periodosed plans
CTL hits 90 (temporarily) as a result of todays hard effort

FTP is 275w and looking suspiciously in need of another test :-)

Apple Suck

2009-02-19T13:02:00.009Z

I despair. If its not bad enough that Apple wanted my credit card details within 20 seconds of me installing itunes, that the ipod is not user maintainable, that they believe in closed proprietary and downright monopolistic practices ... my second, replacement for a broken, ipod has now gone fubar within 7 days.

Update: see dopisp for a way of using Windows Media Player with an Ipod and uninstall itunes forever.

Ipods are supposed to be a portable music player -- why do they break if you don't treat them like a fucking faberge egg?

I've come to the conclusion that the typical Apple iWhore only fits one profile and that ain't me, typically they;

iMagpie - Cannot see beyond shiny
iMage not Substance - aspire to a consumerist ideal or lifestyle
Low iQ - have too much disposable income -or- a lower than average intelligence
iDoWhatYouLetMe - don't object to having their behaviours controlled by an organisation

Lastly, I'd guess a large number of them also are;

iClueless - Have no idea why being described by the above list is so terribly wrong.

Fuck Jobs. I'm off to buy a Zune ;-)

Oh - and please explain why an Apple leather case for an Ipod classic is £68 when a superior quality and versatile Ted Baker version is £28 ? Can you shout RIP-OFF !!

And this guy knows where I'm coming from ...

FTP Target - >290 and <320

2009-02-07T20:25:00.004Z

Since getting back on the bike in August I've been tracking my FTP in wko+. Mostly by using a full bore 40k ride as my benchmark, a ride I call the "Billingshurst Loop". When I started in August it took me 1:27, my latest best is 1:15. I use the NP for this ride because it is a little lumpy (which is unavoidable where I live). The results tend to stack up very, very well with 20min turbo tests as well.

Whilst my target for FTP is basically "as high as I can get it" I still like to set targets and track progress towards them. Hence the graph. The linear and curved trend lines are based upon the data collected. I tend to believe that future progress will not be as dramatic as past progress so believe the end FTP of 290 is a reasonable target. However, the linear target of 320 is not impossible.

I'd be delighted with anything approaching 300w, and unlike in 2007, this time I know EXACTLY how many watts I do day to day. In 2007 I hit an FTP of 294w for an outdoor 40k test in April and then plateaued - so lets just see.

PMC for January

2009-01-31T09:43:00.005Z

Big time recovery from a nasty dose of flu after christmas and managed to sustain a CTL of about 80. My progress is a bit hampered by a lack of hilly outdoor riding for a variety of reasons, but largely work or weather. Happy with CTL but IF is dropping off as frequency is increasing in workouts. Not at all sure this is a good approach at all.

You'll notice the 4 on 1 off went to 3 on 1 off. I like to get plenty of rest! Empty legs make for a junk workout anyway. To be fair, mostly it was enforced by life rather than me slacking :-)