Plateau?

Just read the "Lance Armstrong Performance Plan" book. If you're interested, it does give some insights into his training and the Carmichael training method. EG, he states he does his long endurance rides at 124-128 bpm, and that his max HR is 204.

Has he plateau'd? We'll see in July as he goes for #6, right?

Sounds like you're doing great base training now. I'm jealous that you can put out that kind of power at less than 60% of max HR....that's riding about 19-20 mph on level, right?

Seems to me you could now take a rest/easy week, then start up with adding a harder workout one or two days a week for the next 7 or 8 weeks. Either hills, or just a higher speed/power to raise your HR into the 130-140 zone and keep it there. One of your longer weekend sessions would be idea for this, IMO.

Then in March/April, you could add some LT or higher intervals one day a week to prepare you to start the season. If you're going to be sprinting, of course you'd want to do some of that max power work as well, but maybe just the last month before the racing starts.

I'm sure you'll get lots of different advice here. Mine's "old school", from coaching young speedskaters at the club level in the 90's. We did training crit series on the bike in summer just to keep active. Good luck.

dhk -

Thanks for the advice. The average speed I normally achieve in a workout is between 20 and 21mph.

In regards to Lance; has he actually got fast or strong (i.e. produced more power) year on year?

When does one know, however, when they have pretty much climbed to the top of their personal 'fitness ladder'?

Thanks.
Tom

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by tomUK
dhk -

Thanks for the advice. The average speed I normally achieve in a workout is between 20 and 21mph.

In regards to Lance; has he actually got fast or strong (i.e. produced more power) year on year?

When does one know, however, when they have pretty much climbed to the top of their personal 'fitness ladder'?

Thanks.
Tom

my feeling is that it's highly unlikely for most people to reach their limit. with the correct training you'll keep on improving and/or slow down the rate of decline (if you're an old athlete who has been training continuously since a young age).

That said, i'm not sure of the purpose of your current training it looks somewhat to easy for you.

ric

Ric -

I'm trying to follow the Cyclist's Training Bibles regime; starting out at 6.5 hours per week in the prep period and toping out at 13.5 hours in the final build period.

Friel suggests in the book that the prep period should be 90% endurance based work 39%-60% (Max power, I think). I'm doing 6.5 hours at 46% max power currently.

Should the base period not be easy?

What is my goal? Ideally I want to be ready to race in the L'etape du tour '04 and achieve a fairly decent time. Maybe finish in the top 300.

Tom.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by tomUK
Ric -

I'm trying to follow the Cyclist's Training Bibles regime; starting out at 6.5 hours per week in the prep period and toping out at 13.5 hours in the final build period.

Friel suggests in the book that the prep period should be 90% endurance based work 39%-60% (Max power, I think). I'm doing 6.5 hours at 46% max power currently.

Should the base period not be easy?

What is my goal? Ideally I want to be ready to race in the L'etape du tour '04 and achieve a fairly decent time. Maybe finish in the top 300.

Tom.

whilst, i'm not certain what the requirements are to finish top 300 (e.g. if you said i want to be a div 1 pro, or a cat 3 i'd know better what the requirements are), however, i'm sure that this is a high level (but how high i'm not certain).

That said, i don't believe in going 'artificially' easy for long periods of time. sure, there's probably a reason to have some easy (prep) periods at the end of the last racing season (e.g. i had a few easy weeks after i got married in september, two easy weeks after i got back from honeymoon). since then though i've been doing what i call heavy tempo work (about 90% of TT power) on a regular basis (about 90mins a week) and lots of what i call core endurance training (zone 2 work), which would be around 205 to 267 W (for you) for up to 4ish hours.

My fitness needs to be at it's highest in July too (but i'll also be racing from March onwards)

ric

In terms of fitness alone and in a world of perfect training stats predict that an endurance athlete will reach their peak potential between the ages of 27 and 33

In the real world anything can happen but miracles become less frequent as you get older.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by ricstern
whilst, i'm not certain what the requirements are to finish top 300 (e.g. if you said i want to be a div 1 pro, or a cat 3 i'd know better what the requirements are), however, i'm sure that this is a high level (but how high i'm not certain).
ric

300th or 7h13m is about 15% in time diff behind 2003 winner Herbreteau. I think Herbreteau is an FFC elite 2(ex-pro, about 30y) and I think in 2003 is 44th in best french amateurs, in 2002 I think he was about equal to Andrew Jackson in FFC. Known UK riders in 2003 etape around 300 are Gary Coltman(257), Mark Plowright(269) at 7h11m,Neil Bradburn 7h13m(302). Lindsay Crawford won over 60category with 7h8 (227). This year's course looks about same as last year's ie times being compressed from leader because of echelon rider.

I'd have thought sustaining 410W for a minute puts this well within Tom's range unless he's 100kg.

Michuel -

Thanks for the reply. You seem well informed.

As a side issue does anyone know roughly what power is needed to be sustained on average to complete this years course in 7hrs?
http://www.letapedutour.com/2004/images/profil10.gif

Also, what do the rides do for food stops and deal with such issues as punctures? Do they take own pumps and repair kits and deal with then on their own?

Cheers,
Tom.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Michuel
300th or 7h13m is about 15% in time diff behind 2003 winner Herbreteau. I think Herbreteau is an FFC elite 2(ex-pro, about 30y) and I think in 2003 is 44th in best french amateurs, in 2002 I think he was about equal to Andrew Jackson in FFC. Known UK riders in 2003 etape around 300 are Gary Coltman(257), Mark Plowright(269) at 7h11m,Neil Bradburn 7h13m(302). Lindsay Crawford won over 60category with 7h8 (227). This year's course looks about same as last year's ie times being compressed from leader because of echelon rider.

I'd have thought sustaining 410W for a minute puts this well within Tom's range unless he's 100kg.

I'm not sure how good some of those UK riders are... That said, sustaining 410 W for one minute isn't overly hard -- i'd imagine that most males who race at any level could do that. on the other hand if the 410 W is the final minute of a incremental maximal aerobic power test to exhaustion then 410 W is a pretty decent figure, depending of course on the mass and height of the rider.

To illustrate, my best ever MAP was 409 W, at a mass of 67 kg. This fitness allowed me to be a 2nd cat RRer and to hang in, in 1st cat races (i'd have been chewed up and spat out of the back in a Premier Calendar when someone would have put a sustained hard effort).

Thus to be up there with FFC elite 2's etc you're going to need at least another 10% if not a lot more (assuming equal masses).

On the other hand if the course was flattish (which it isn't) and you're good at drafting, then you can get by with a whole lot less power (<100 W average for the leading group in a TdF stage)

Ric

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by tomUK
Michuel -

As a side issue does anyone know roughly what power is needed to be sustained on average to complete this years course in 7hrs?
http://www.letapedutour.com/2004/images/profil10.gif

Also, what do the rides do for food stops and deal with such issues as punctures? Do they take own pumps and repair kits and deal with then on their own?

Hi Ric, Tom

Ric, yes I must have been overwhelmed by Tom's 410W and assumed it was at end of ramp test. Frighteningly I notice you have commented elsewhere that Kingcycle underrestimates by 8%-12% which is a sizeable amount for those of us tested with Kingcycles.

Gary Coltman is a recently retired (I think) UK pro with lots of placings, Mark Plowright is a hill-climber and consistent etape rider finishing 21% behind Jim Henderson up Bwlch (near Ruthin) with 8m10s v 6m45s (~42nd) in NHC 2002. About 20min before 300th posn was William Bell (27y) best UK finisher 6h54m (104th) who as reported in Cycling in his first road season took 3 consecutive wins and is a 2nd cat. I know a 56m30s 85kgm TTer who I estimate from his performance in Marmote would have finished with 7h20m.

A rider I rode next to a year ago doing a British Cycling performance test recorded 380W for 3 mins on SRMs at about 67kg (not a ramp test) to the cheers of all the girls. In the Etape he said he was on line for 7h15m but blew up on the last hill with 3-5km to finish and retired.

Tom, I've seen power plots of a rider who finished about 220th in 2002 Etape (146km, 3300m climbing) but they're not immediately at hand. Like Ric I've seen TdF estimates for stage avg wattages of 192W flat, 234W semi-mountains, 246W mountainous stages (with std devs of around 40) which contrast with the shelter of a bunch (which most seem to use on flat, ie it's only a few who work). But maybe you can get some idea with using analytic cycling website (web address is quoted on other threads) or http://www.awsoft ... where you enter weight, vertical meters climbed etc to work out watts. Dependant on how much info you want you can get a lot out of this approach. Optimally you should be able to estimate what your climbing speed is.

About the Etape as such I think the agreed estimates for metres climbed is about 3000m. I worked out a minimum of 2320m ascents, 1820m descents. One estimated 3500m climbing. Interestingly there should be 560m less descending than in 2003 because of relative heights of start finish towns (check this figure which should be quite easy). From memory I believe real climbing start at 123km. Much of climbing is on 5% slopes.

Like anywhere you've got to help yourself with punctures - carry spare(s), have new good tyres. If you're really in bad trouble a following service vehicle will help. Food stops are shown on the map (I don't know if they're shown at this moment) and they'll probably be every 80km usually at top of major climbs. Many riders ride for the experience and stopping at food stops is part of that but if you're aiming for 300th you should aim to minimise such stops (within your own feeding plans). The first 100-300 can take food/drinks handed up but after that there are too many riders and long queues. But you may have to work your way through 6000 other riders to reach 300th. I'd be pleased to give you other information if you have questions.