Can a smartphone actually help you disconnect from the world?
A few weeks ago I joined the 21st century (I’ve never been an early technology adopter when it comes to non-cycling tech) and got a smartphone (HTC Incredible/ Android). Of course, the first thing I did was to see in which ways it could help me with my cycling. There are the usual range of apps — GPS run and ride trackers, workout journals, and calorie counters for example – aimed at the athletic user, but here I want to mention one family of apps that don’t readily spring to mind when thinking about smartphones: meditation aids.
Smartphones and Sports Psychology
September 4th, 2010Virginia State Track Championships
August 24th, 2010I’ll be racing the Virginia State Track Championships for the first time next Saturday. The event is run as a 3 event omnium -a sprint time trial, an endurance time trial, and a points race (in my case a 1k tt, a 3k pursuit, and the mass start points race), and for the past few weeks, I’ve been training for those specific events.
First, let me say that those short time trials are among the most painful moments I’ve spent on a bike, despite their being over in a few minutes. What I find interesting, though, is that despite their short length, pacing plays as vital a role in them as any longer tt. For the 3k perhaps that’s not that surprising, but for the 1k, an effort that lasts, at most, 90″, I thought conventional wisdom said to jump hard and hang on for dear life, but for me at least, that doesn’t work as witnessed by the first graph below.
Racing with your coach
August 20th, 2010I‘ve written before about the value of a coach having a coach him or herself (here), but I want to expand on that a bit today by thinking about the advantages (and potential disadvantages) about being able to race with your coach.
Last Tuesday, my coach (Gary Hoffman) and I drove down to the weekly Bryan Park training crit in Richmond, VA. Since I moved up to the “A” category (Pro, 1,2,3), this has always been a tough race for me. In fact, for a long time I considered just finishing with the bunch as a strong result. Because this is a training race, I often race it “stupid” and jump after early breaks, try to bridge up to breaks made, and generally burn my entire matchbook by midway through the race. This week the goal was simple – don’t get dropped and if at all possible mix it up in the sprint.
Wooden Bridges TT Analysis
May 20th, 2010
As many areas do, we here in Central VA have training tt that we do once a month (big shout out to Eric and Alice Fletcher who make it happen). The challenge in this area is to find a course that has any sustained flats. The best place has a fairly steady false flat on the way out and a correspondingly slight down hill on the way back. Here’s quick Google earth shot of the course.
Racing Stupid
April 21st, 2010The past two weekends I’ve done two crits and in both I’ve focused on "racing stupid." To race stupid means to do lots of work, to get into every break you can, and chase down any you can’t. It means burning every match you’ve got, lighting it up early and often. Unfortunately, for me at least, it also means a fairly anonymous finish, having nothing left to contest the finale.
However, the point of this post is not to make excuses for poor performance, but to give a quick visual showing how one can tell if tactics not training might be a problem — in other words, are you racing stupid and not knowing it? Below you see the cadence distribution from the Cat 3 race I did last Saturday. Notice how little time was spent coasting (less than 4%, less than 2 minutes out of the 45 or so the race lasted). If you see this same pattern in your race files (be sure to look at the race alone, not any warm up or cool down), you need to start thinking about how you can conserve energy better during the race.
For a more substantial discussion, see Allen and Coggan’s book Training and Racing with a Power Meter.
Liquigas gets it right
March 12th, 2010Just a quick follow up to yesterday’s post when I questioned Liquigas’s tactics — well, today they got it perfectly right. In the closing kilometers there was a small group off the front with 2 LG riders in it, meaning that the rest of the team didn’t have to chase to bring it back. That group was caught with ~2k to go and then the rest of the team launched the train with 3 guys left to get Bennati to the sprint. Petacchi was second, Greipel 3rd, Farrar 4th — of course there was a crash @ ~3k to go that seems to have taken out most of Petacchi’s train and I’m not sure who else (Boonen was no where as far as I could see), but still, a perfectly executed lead out is a thing of beauty — the LG riders were celebrating with 50m still to go. Go have a look for yourself at www.universalsports.com/cycling
Sprint Tactics in Stage 2 of Tirreno-Adriatico 2010
March 11th, 2010
I just watched the end of the second stage of Tirreno-Adriatico, won by Tom Boonen. What struck me was the work done by the Liquigas team. They were the only team to have a real train organized, leading it out from at least 3k out, and yet their guy, Bennati, only managed third. But guess who was attached to Bennati’s wheel the whole time — Boonen. So my question is whether or not pro-teams employ a "sweeper" on their train; that is a guy who sticks to the sprinter’s wheel and prevents another rider from essentially getting a lead out from the team’s effort. It seems a fairly basic tactic, if one only rarely executed well at the amateur level. Perhaps it’s considered amateurish and that’s why we don’t see it more often in the pro-ranks? or is it because the pro-level leadouts are so long and intense that they need every rider doing his turn on the front?
I don’t think this stage was a case of Liquigas getting it wrong leading it from too far out and exhausting the lead out men — they still had two guys with in the last kilometer, but Boonen starts his sprint before Bennati and Bennati never comes close to coming around.
Have a look a the stage here or if that link is no longer live at universalsports.com and let me know what you think.
to lift or not to lift
February 17th, 2010
To lift or not to lift is a question that has, well, exercised physiologists, cyclists, and coaches for quite some time. Two recent papers have just come out (one a study, and the other a review article) with opposing conclusions as to whether or not lifting weights will benefit cyclists, and the appearance of these two articles combined with a continuing interest of mine prompted me to return to this long-neglected blog.
Let me begin with an apparent contradiction: I personally lift and suggest that some of the athletes I coach lift regularly, but not because lifting will benefit directly their cycling performance. There are very few situations in which pure strength (such as the effort needed to squat 2x your body weight) factors in cycling. Some common instances would be steep, technical climbs off-road in which you are moving at a slow speed, track sprinting, and BMX starts. (Interestingly enough, apparently some of the highest wattages ever recorded at the national level come from BMX riders training for the Olympics, but those numbers are from a dead stop and not after several hours of racing). So, then why lift? There are several reasons both physiological and psychological; I will cover them in what I see as decreasing order of importance below.
Dealing with a bad race
June 30th, 2009Reston Town Center Grand Prix, Cat 4. I had my worst race result of the season today — a voluntary DNF. The first few laps were a crash fest and though I avoided all the crashes, I missed the key break, even though one of the riders I knew I should have been watching was in it. After the break got away, the group continued to hammer, but the with all the big teams represented, there was little chance it was coming back. I suffered at the back, moving up a few spots here and there but never getting near the front. With 12 laps to go, I pulled the plug.
Mainly mental Race Report 6-13 and 6-20
June 22nd, 2009The past two weeks have seen my races follow a familiar pattern — ride well for the first 9/10ths of the race and then fail to execute in the last lap when it really counts.
6/13 Amphibious Assault Crit
The Amphibious Assault Crit is a unique venue — we literally race around around parked hovercraft used by the Navy to, well, assault things amphibiously (see video here ). And because it’s on the landing apron, the course is pancake flat and relatively smooth — a crit racer’s dream. The course is extremely wide and not all that technical, although the organizers did throw in a nice chicane on the backside just to keep things interesting. The final corner was a good 500 meters from the line. My race went accordingly to plan — I marked Dominic Meier who has been just tearing up the VCA Cat 4 Bar. I lost a sprint for an early prime by less than a wheel (to Dominic of course) and then we settled in. The course nearly guaranteed a field sprint, despite the heavy rain falling at the race start. On the last lap, I was 3rd wheel, but as the rider leading out tired coming out of the last corner, we got swarmed, and in that instance I hesitated and my shot at the podium was over. I still managed to worm my way out and unleash a decent sprint, passing several guys, but only managed 8th.
