40 Goals

So the integral computation for W'bal was expensive. I tried to optimise from a domain and  programming perspective, where Dave Waterworth, a mathematician found a much more elegant and fast reformulation. This means W'bal can EASILY be computed as you ride. To explain the math here are his words; I posted a comment on you Blog post on optimising the Wbal model. I've done some more thinking and I defn think it can be done without visiting the previous samples as the Skiba formula can be decomposed further, i.e.  From your blog I believe the integral part of the equation is: Basically this takes a weighted sum of preceding W'exp samples where the weight decays at a rate determined by tau, older samples are weighted less than newer ones. We can approximate as a sum provided tau is large compared to Ts (the sample rate): Basic properties of exponential functions ...

So, the implementation of W'bal in GoldenCheetah has been a bit of a challenge. The Science I wanted to explain what we've done and how it works in this blog post, but realised that first I need to explain the science behind W'bal, W' and CP. W' and CP How hard can you go, in watts, for half an hour is going to be very different to how hard you can go for say, 20 seconds. And then thinking about how hard you can go for a very long time will be different again. But when it comes to reviewing and tracking changes in your performance and planning future workouts you quickly realise how useful it is to have a good understanding of your own limits. In 1965 two scientists Monod and Scherrer presented a ‘Critical Power Model’ where the Critical Power of a muscle is defined as ‘the maximum rate of work that it can keep up for a very long time without fatigue’. They also proposed an ‘energy store’ (later to be termed W’, pronounced double-ewe-prime) that represente...

A new release candidate should come out shortly .. a year on and GoldenCheetah is now a fairly good platform for Cycling Analysis. I've recorded a video to show the main stuff .. What's New in GoldenCheetah Version 3.1 from mark liversedge on Vimeo . .. just need to find the motivation to actually ride my bike !

Damien Grauser has knocked together an explanation of his extended CP model as a series of diagrams... I am in awe. No doubt there will be more later...

And my 9 yr old made us this to celebrate. Bless his cotton socks!

UPDATE 11 Jun 2013: After 2 months of release candidates and bug fixing we finally released yesterday! Am gonna take a couple of weeks of from all this and play golf. Its been 3 years almost. I forked my own version of GoldenCheetah and added a crap load of stuff before merging that with the main code on January 2nd 2010. Now here we are in March 2013 and finally, finally we're gonna release it. Just need to get release candidates out and then the mammoth task of creating/updating documentation for the hundreds of new features and fixes. And this is it, running on Linux: And on a Mac: And just for completeness, on Windows (In this case Windows 8) :

On and off, on and off This time last year I was giving up smoking. On and off for the previous 10 years I had stopped and started in a fairly regular way. Gave up for 2 years, started again for a year. And on and on. So I'm an ex-smoker of 12 months and this time things are different. The reason I gave up is because my kids caught me smoking. They burst into tears. I haven't ever felt so shitty and guilty. Additionally, I started to get heart palpitations and felt quite dreadful. Giving up smoking and they have gone away. I still cannot bear the thought of ever starting again. I've had cravings recently, but they soon pass. Cycling is the same though But I don't know if it is a personality trait or the two are linked, but my cycling, rowing, running or whatever sport I was 'into' each year has also always been cyclical. A year of determined training followed by a year of slobbery. I rowed for Weybridge in 2003 and was as fit as I have ever been, I r...

Had it coming. Driven. Exceptional. Steely. One in a million. But also, cheat, liar, bully, fraud, doper and dealer. Still have fantastic memories watching him race in the Tour, but they all sour when you find out what kind of a man he is and how much of it all was a lie. Cycling has moved on, bye-bye LA.

So I thought I would wait a few days before posting my reflections. In that time I have returned to eating carbs, but in moderation. No longer drink caffeine and don't take sugar.  I have regained nearly ALL the weight I "lost". I assume this is a mixture of fat fain, but is largely glycogen and water since the weight gain is so unbelievably rapid (literally in 2 days or so). I've had a couple of blowouts for my birthday; afternoon tea at the Savoy and a Haagen Daas ice cream yesterday for my birthday. I have been good otherwise. I won't be doing Atkins again, but here is an attempt to give a balanced review: Postives Negatives Breaking my caffeine and sugar addiction was akin to giving up smoking I supercharged my weight loss losing 4kg in 3 weeks. 88.7 to 84.7kg. More alert, slept better and needed less, more positive outlook and self esteem No hunger pangs, cravings for food largely disappeared Eating...

I am going to spend a month (or perhaps longer, or shorter) on the Atkins diet whilst continuing to ride my bike as an experiment to a) shift some stubborn fat and b) measure the impact of a low carb diet on cycling performance. I will be keeping a diary here of my diet, exercise, performance and of course, my weight and any thoughts or reflections on the experience. A few declarations; - I am not training for anything so my riding is purely for fun, and at an intensity 'I feel like doing' - I will be doing circuits and weights during this period, I am not doing cycling alone - My fitness levels are low compared to my best, so I would expect it to improve over time - I have been getting back into shape for 2 months proper. - I gave up smoking (this time for the rest of my life) in January, so may see performance increases through better lung health over time I no longer own a working HR strap, I gave up on HR, grudgingly, last year and have never missed it. You use p...

Back to earth with a bump Since the beginning of April I have been trying to get back into shape. I started with some unfocused riding, just riding for 40k "easy" tended to hurt. I am terribly out of shape. More importantly being yet another fat middle aged man on a fancy carbon bike with a power meter is frankly embarrassing. I am quietly ashamed at what I have become. I don't want to ride for fear of my old riding partners seeing this big, fat wobbly 93kg 6ft tall man struggling to maintain 190w on the flat. Worse, towards the end of every ride I experience all manner of aches and pains in my upper and lower back, my triceps and even my calves. It is depressing. Back in 2007 I weighed 73kg and could  ride the 110km Tour of the Surrey Hills in under 4.5 hrs. Now I couldn't face the first climb. But I comfort myself with the fact that I am actually doing something about it. Buying new clothes with a larger waistline is not an option. In fact, Andrea Morelli w...