40 Goals

Etape 2007 Forecast Whilst I'm busily number crunching and working out power to weight etc I thought I might as well forecast my Etape finish time ;-) On my bike, obviously. Based upon an average power output of 180w over the entire ride, no wind, no stopping, no adrenalin, no further weightloss nor performance improvements over a fairly simplified route profile I have calculated a total ride time of 9:12:21. Making an average speed of 21.3km/h. Here is the breakdown, if you're interested: Obviously, "small" things like heat fatigue, wind and delays at the feed stations will push to total time way above this. I think a target of 9.5 hours is reasonable , with some canny drafting, good nutritional strategy and obviosusly some performance improvements I think I can hit that. Can you tell that I'm couped up with no bike in a hotel on weekday evenings? ;-) Nothing to do except L4 killer sessions on a gym bike and watching TV. I really must look into buying a cheapo t...

Normative Power Data I've been hankering after this for a while and finally got it from the friendly guys over at the cycling plus forums . The table helps to grade your power output per kilogram of weight either as peak power over a given period or as Functional Threshold Power . Anyway, here's the table, snaffled up from here . The chart below summarises a poll from the cyclingforums.com users, most of whom are obviously keen cyclists, albeit amateurs. There is an obvious sweetspot at 300w/75kg that correlates with the table above. I think this is a reasonable FTP target to aim for.

250 watts at 155 BPM I followed the same protocol as yesterday, warmed up with 20 minutes at fat bump and then did 20 minutes at 250 watts (yesterday I did 30 minutes of 200 watts). I saw lots of cardiac drift but the average was 155. I suspect that 250 is a real limit since as I was finishing the 20 minutes my heart rate was climbing faster and heading off to 160. I know I said I'd do 220 but heck that was too easy. Tomorrow I'll take a crack at 15 minutes at 300 watts, hopefully I'll make it under my miserably low max heartrate of 181. Then I can look forward to doing this all again in Jan then Feb then March then ... you get the picture ...

200 Watts at 138 BPM Over this week I'm going to do 30 minute tests at different wattages to measure heart rate to power output. Today I sustained 200 watts for 30 minutes at an average heart rate of 138. My cadence varied from 88 to 95 as I lost concentration. Interestingly the higher cadence also brought the higher heart rate. When I focussed on pedalling efficiency or 'circles' my heart rate went down. Tomorrow I'll increase by 10% to 220 to and see what my heart rate does. I'm still putting in the miles at my 'fat bump' of 136 too, so this is just a side-show. These tests are just to baseline my heartrate to power output so I can track progress over the course of my programme. It was triggered by this which intrigued me, especially the idea that from 200w at peak heart rate over the course of 6 months you could progreess to being able to knock out 300w plus and stay aerobic (!) - if I could do that, well ... Anyone got a cheap set of SRM cranks ? ;-)

On a scale of one to ten where ten is Lance and two is a couch potato, I scored 4. So last week I had a fitness test with Cyclefit and the results were relatively encouraging, for a 39 yr old, 6' 1" male ... Weight: 85.5kg, 21.4% body fat. Well actually this is from my dodgy tanita scales. 85.5kg is pretty reliable, the 21.4% seems a little flattering. I enjoy Marks and Spencers wine gums, Dunking biscuits and Crunchy Crisps Selection a little too much - they are gonna have to go. Heart Rate Min: 47 Max: 181. I was most disappointed with the max heart rate, having taken all that time and effort during the test to get an accurate measurement (ie. terrible nausea with screaming lactate pain) it was most disappointing to find out my maximum is exactly 220-my age!!!!! Maximum Power Output: 4w/kg. I also found my max power output is woefully low at 343 watts, my watts per kg is 4.0. I need to seriously work on this. We reckoned anything above 5 would be good. Fortunately, I can im...