Twenty eleven - The Year of the Performance Management Chart

I'm not a big fan of any My Year in Numbers posts. Performance Management Charts are mostly interesting to the rider/writer only (and maybe the coach).

I'm not saying I don't nerdily peruse my spreadsheets and graphs like any other gadget-focused - ah, performance-oriented - cyclist. I do... all year round and especially this time of year.

And while I did just that the other day, I became a true believer! A believer in the Performance Management Chart! So why do I think my Performance Management Chart of 2011 would be of any interest to you?

If you, like me, battle health issues, such as autoimmune diseases, that prevent you from training consistently or at the level you would like, but, like me, still want to enjoy riding hard and fast and as best as you can, then you may find this interesting. If you are perfectly healthy, switch to your next favourite blog now... kidding! You may still get one important point: the importance of rest!

Most people use WKO+ with all its useful tools to train smarter, harder, more efficient! I now use it to stay healthy!

How?

By making sure my Performance Management Chart does not look like this ever again!

(Click to enlarge)

This is my 2010 chart and 2010 was a shocker of a year cycling-wise, which is visible in the spiky erratic lines. Long periods of no riding followed by too high intensity training weeks, which lead to my crash and burn in July 2010.

First there was my parent's visit in early 2010. In mid February I tried "catching up" on missed early season kilometers. In April the symptoms of The Great Fatigue returned. It couldn't still be Glandular Fever surely? A doctor visit revealed I had Hashimoto's Thyroiditis (possibly all along) and was restricted to low intensity rides with heart rates below 120bpm.

When I finally got the clear from the Endocrinologist, I went overboard and tried to push my fitness up quickly for the upcoming races. See all these high spikes of the red line in June/July? ATL = Acute Training Load = Fatigue! By the time the Scenic Rim Tour came around, I was fried, physically and emotionally! All too familiar? If you haven't been this stupid then please keep it that way because I didn't recover for the rest of the year, gave up any idea of racing and had moments of wanting to just give up cycling all together. It can happen this quickly!

So what went differently in 2011?

First of all, in 2011 I enjoyed cycling again. I mean, really enjoyed riding my bike(s) - all of them after all the stressing over doing this forth effort on Mt Coot-tha as scheduled or making the 15 training hours on the bike that week and, instead of improving, only getting more and more tired.

Knowing now that I was dealing with a physical problem and not just lack of discipline and talent, I relaxed and rode my bikes. I continued riding with powermeter and heart rate strap, more out of habit and often with Alberto's disapproval, read my graphs, watched my numbers - religiously - and listened to my body, what it was telling me and how that matched the numbers on the screen. Gradually, and especially over the past three months, I noticed the power numbers improving, confirmed by feeling stronger & healthier.

So here are the numbers that keep me riding healthily

This is the technical part and probably only understandable if you are familiar with WKO+. What I learnt is that as soon as my CTL (green line) reaches the mid to high 70ies, I have to be very very careful. Every time I tip into the 80ies, I get really fatigued and my thyroid symptoms flare up, which makes it hard to enjoy riding. I feel strongest, fastest, and keenest to ride when my CTL sits comfortably in the 60ies. Does this make me a Hippie?

The other thing is the weekly load. My body seems to be able to cope with any CTL increases of 5-7 TSS/d per week. This translates into 12 hours or 600-700 TSS per week - the most. I can get away with a little more once but I can not exceed 7TSS/d for two or three weeks in a row. In July 2010 I exceeded 13TSS/d for three consecutive weeks.

Last but not least when my fatigue (ATL - red line) reaches 120-130 TSS/d, I schedule a rest week now.

I'd love to know your figures. Maybe my numbers are actually not that different from someone perfectly healthy? How far do you push your CTL to peak? How high is your ATL before you cancel all rides for the following few days and rest up? How fast can you improve your fitness without getting too tired?

Whatever you figures were in 2011, I wish you a fantastic and consistent 2012! Healthy or not, always get enough rest and ride safe!

All I wanted for Christmas...

... was time to ride my bike(s). I must have been on the "nice girl" list because I was given plenty.

An Urban Fixie Adventure on Christmas Eve

Roma Street - underpath

Bicentennial bikeway underneath Riverside Express Way near Queens St Exit

Brisbane River and Story Bridge

Jolly's Lookout on Christmas Day

Mt Nebo Road at Jolly's lookout turn off

Jolly's lookout - what better destination for Christmas Day

Big North-South loop on Boxing Day

Brisbane's biggest road construction in the past two years - Airport arterial and Nudgee Rd intersection

Mt Coot-tha

Mt Coot-tha view to Brisbane

The temperatures on Christmas day - it even went up to 41.5C!

I hope you had a great Christmas, too, just the way you wanted it to be. What did you get up to?

Christmas Lights Ride

An invite went out on Facebook and Rapha Rendezvous and some other forms of modern and old-fashion communication. The occasion? A Christmas Lights Ride - all bikes welcome! I know the invite said to admire all the Christmas decorated houses in the neighbourhood but - hey - since when do we need an occasion to ride bikes?

A colourful assembly: two Singlespeeds, a Mountainbike, two Fixies and five road bikes.

There is such a pleasure in riding a bike at night. A group of like-minded people roaming the streets. Lights everywhere, laughter and chatter, excitement in the fresh air. It's not just Christmas that made this special!

Along the dark bike path, a little nature strip, we snuck from one estate to the next, the back way, away from cars and peak hour traffic. And between the trees the glimpses of more lights, an ocean of Christmas Lights. People went through great length to decorate their houses. In a cul-de-sac we found the North Pole, too.

Back at the hub, the Bike Hub, and not tired, yet. The company too pleasant to part just yet, just like that. Make it linger! A surprise find, a Thai place just across the road, happy to accommodate the ravenous crowd. Tired at last we pushed the bikes into the house when the rain started.

Today in the office I heard some jealous tones: A Southside Christmas Lights Ride is needed. This was good enough to have two of them, or three - hell, I wish it was Christmas all year round! Merry Christmas everyone!

What to do if you are the weakest rider in a bunch

Sure, most of us have probably been in this situation but I am the authority on this topic.

After I chickened out of many a Sunday ride in the past few months because I allowed lengths or strengths of company to intimidate me, I finally, last Sunday, had enough of "just catching the guys (and gals) of Alberto's team for coffee".

The ride didn't sound quite so scary either, only 100km and rolling hills, so I went along.

It's actually not exactly time and distance that are cause for trepidation. My biggest fear is to be the one who gets dropped and who everybody else has to wait for all the time, or worse even, the one who slows the bunch down!

What do you do if you are the weakest rider in the bunch but still want to be part of the ride?

First of all, don't smash you legs on really steep hills the day before the ride. When I rolled along my usual easy ride route on Saturday afternoon I suddenly felt immensely bored with the same old roads, so I spontaneously took a turn and headed for Winn Road and the back of Clear Mountain, fully knowing the steepness of the hills there. It was a beautiful ride but unnecessary, knowing I was going to do 100km the next day.

Secondly, have the reassurance that you are invited and welcome to that particular ride. Maybe your riding companions are indeed much stronger but on that particular day they are out for a social ride and they don't mind a slower pace nor having to wait for the group to reunite. I, for example, love riding with Alberto's team this time of year. The racing is over for the season, everybody is having a little off-season before serious training starts again, and people seem more relaxed.

Thirdly, know your limits and conserve energy if you can. When we rolled out on Sunday morning, I could feel the left-over heaviness of Saturday's 60km in my legs. Therefore I stayed away from the front and right on one of the many wheels of our two-a-breast bicycle road train. At some stage we must have been 20 or more riders.

And if you do get dropped, don't panic like I did when I popped, coming into Cleveland Point at about kilometer 70. It was Alberto's and Brett's turn at the front and they increased the speed so gradually that I initially didn't even notice being in the red. One moment, Jane and I chatted comfortably, the next minute I rode at race pace and struggled to hold the wheel.

My first reaction was anger and my mind was going through the usual routine: Could I have dug deeper? Could I have ridden smarter? I saw the bunch speeding away and there was nothing I could do. A painful feeling of helplessness. And it didn't make me feel one bit better that I saw a couple more riders splitting off the tail end of the group in the distance.

Only having done this ride once before and not knowing where I was, I didn't want to loose sight of the bunch so I time-trialled after them. I didn't realise it was a dead end road and they would turn around and collect me on the way back to the main road.

Even so the pace slowed down after that, I was toast because I had burnt a few matches. Alberto, Craig, Michael, Adam and others hung around and offered to pace me back to the rest of the group, an invitation I gratefully accepted.

All the panic was for nothing because I didn't need to worry. The rest of the ride was quite uneventful, in fact I recovered quickly and felt stronger and stronger the closer we got back to the city. The coffee tasted double as good.

The 100km ride ended up being 110km with an average speed of 31.8 km/h. Being the weakest rider in a group can also be a real confidence booster once you arrive at the coffee shop.

On other occasions when I'm the weakest rider in the bunch, I ask them NOT to wait for me if I get dropped. That works for me, especially if it's just a small group on familiar riding ground. I'm usually happier re-grouping at the coffee shop than holding everybody up. The best advice I can give for being the weakest rider in the bunch? Learn and enjoy the ride!

HPRW Twilight Series: Women's Handicap - NOW WITH FINAL SPRINT VIDEO

I'm no huge fan of handicap racing despite having fond memories of the Avanti Classic and Soldier's Honour handicaps, which were some of the most painful yet satisfying experiences on the bike.

Wednesday night, HPRW (our cycling club) organised a Women's Handicap. Even though the race was part of the HPRW Twilight Series, it was a rather low key event, which explains my chopping block position. About 20-25 riders showed up, which was impressive, given the mid-week afternoon time slot. I had arranged an early mark from work.

There were lots of newcomers to the sport, a great sign that competitive cycling attracts more women now. The sign-in involved tieing colourful ribbons to our numbers so inexperienced riders and spectators (and probably the commissaires as well) could easier keep track of the unfolding race.

It was five of us in the second last group, which is called chopping block. In bigger handicap races in the past, which were always mixed races, I usually started in the first group Go or second after that. I can't recall ever having started on chopping block or scratch, the fastest and most experienced group of riders in a handicap race. There were only four girls to start after us.

During the race briefing the commissaire announced that the race would be ten laps, a much shorter version of the originally advertised 40 min and two laps length. This annoyed me because I was really keen to get a good 45 min intensity into my legs and I don't think I would have taken time off work if I had known it would be such a short affair. So I hit the front immediately and didn't really stop going hard all race just to make this count.

Our group worked well together. Club mates for many years, Lisa Singleton, Trish Sutton-Davies and Gail Singleton raced like they always do, not afraid to hit the front hard or take long turns into the head-cross wind.

We were highly motivated and not much was said. Half way into the race we had collected all the girls who had started ahead of us. But the catch confused our little routine for a while. Other girls jumped in but didn't roll through or attacked off the front until the four of us managed to get organised and take control again.

The front seemed like a good place to be and I really enjoyed riding as hard as I could. A couple of times it crossed my mind to save energy for the sprint but impatience prevented me from conserving. And there was the possibility to hold off the scratch group and decide the sprint amongst ourselves, a much better option with Angie Papajcsik, Donna Fyfe, Simone Grounds and Linda O'Connor all much better sprinters than I am.

The bell indicated the last 1.2 km and I found myself on the front again. I was mad with myself for always making the same stupid mistake. Scratch was just coming in sight on the other side of the track as we went into the S-bends for the final time. I figured we had enough time for some cat and mouse games and hoped for an inexperienced girl to come through so I soft-pedalled but they proved much more race savvy.

To my great surprise Gail sacrificed herself and took the lead. She went hard and I had to fight to get on her wheel. Able to catch a quick breather, I was excited about the sprint. Lisa went first, coming out of my wheel with about 300 m to go. I got boxed in for a split second and decided to go left for an open path to the line. 200 m to go and there were four girls ahead of me, all to my right. I opened my sprint and loved how the Canyon accelerated. So responsive, so light and stiff, but also a bit bouncy because my rear wheel kept lifting off the ground. I was still accelerating when I crossed the line and wasn't disappointed to have come second, half a wheel behind Lisa.

The shortened race definitely contributed to the outcome of the race, which is a shame. We were getting tired and they were closing in. Terry would have calculated the handicaps based on the 40 minute race length and with another few laps up their sleeve, the scratch girls would have caught us for sure.

But I think everybody had great fun and my main disappointment was that this was the last race for 2011.

There are lots of race action photos from Chris Forster on the HPRW website!

Official Race Results Ladies Handicap (22 riders)
1st Lisa Singleton (HPRW)
2nd Sandra Foerster (HPRW)
3rd Trish Sutton-Davies (HPRW)
4th Kasih Robinson (Lifecycle)
Fastest Time Simone Grounds and Angelina Papajcsik

Rapha Rendezvous

I slept in on Sunday. Saturday was perfectly justifyable. It rained. But Sunday?! Sunday was unforgivable! It was the ride of all rides; a ride I've always wanted to do: Mt Tamborine!

When Alberto left at "way too early" o'Clock, I just told him I would come and find them, meet them somewhere on the road later. How did I do this? Especially on a ride that took the bunch deep South of the river, an area I hardly know? There are many roads that lead to Mt Tamborine, and back.

The previous week, during the Christmas gathering, I watched Nick and Michael all over their iPhones. Surely they weren't just unsocial and playing games? Something was obviously very engaging. Curious as I am I joined them to find out what occupied all their attention. It was a little app called Rapha Rendezvous.

Once I had downloaded it, I understood why it was so interesting.

Sunday morning, a couple of hours after Alberto had left the house, I switched on my phone and there they were! Little red dots on top of Mt Tamborine, obviously having coffee and chatting away at their half-mark rest stop, because they weren't moving and hadn't for the past nine minutes. When they started moving again, I hurried to finish my coffee quickly, jumped into riding gear and rushed out the door.

An hour later, and some confusion over one red dot already sitting in a coffee shop in another Brisbane suburb, I met Alberto and the rest of the tired bunch exactly on that road on which I had seen them travelling, as red dot.

While this is only one way of using this app and probably not the most intented, I could see Alberto's eyes light up when he realised that this app would allow him to track me down on any of my rides... if he had an iPhone. Every loving partner of a cyclist would be grateful for taking the worry out of the sport somewhat. The app is free but unfortunately not available on android (yet?).

This app allows you to create rides, join rides, and check how far behind your friends are on that long climb. You can even search for and join rides in other cities. Theoretically! I have tried and looked up rides in Melbourne, Sydney and Berlin but not one ride was listed in these cities(yet), which is probably just a matter of more people downloading and using the app.

Oh, and once you finished the ride, don't forget to press the button to finish the recording if you don't want your friends to know that you spent the entire rest of the day on the couch!

As for Mt Tamborine - I will have to schedule this ride before the year is over!

Life is a party. Let's celebrate!

The idea? Race hang-over. The drinking went alright but no "sore head racing". It wasn't for lack of trying.

Party number one, two rides

Blue skies in the morning, a nice lead out train to sit on for the better part of 80 km. A turn into the wind. My usual bad timing! Legs spinning easily all the way, no lure of the couch but beers in the afternoon with the cycling crew, and food, wine and Champagne - yes, the one that actually grows in that region.

A shiny white bike. The usual Tuesday climb and this one a race, unofficial, just amongst friends. Pain and suffering and a reward: a new best time. No alcohol involved.

Parties two to four, one ride

A three day work conference, a hotel room on level 20 and a bike. Again wine and beer and way too much food. Bad memories of a chocolate fountain. Local riders in rain jackets and gillets swooshing pass along The Spit. The morning of my sugary hang-over. A chill in the air, drizzle in my face cooling the sore head. Grey low hanging clouds, cotton-wrapped Gold Coast, seemingly hungover itself from recent schoolies maybe. More coffee-drinking riders at Robbie McEwen's Piccolo Cafe. The turn-around point and a tailwind to blow me back to the hotel. A disoriented seagull and a slow reaction time almost resulting in a frontal collision... with the bird.

Party number five, two rides

A few glasses of red, driver duties delegated and headaches the next morning as expected. It pelted down rain. Not unexpected! The race cancelled. Relieved grin, some more sleep, and a long ride after the rain and head had cleared.

How many drinks and rides can you fit into one week?

Lessons in positioning

Another race, another second in a prime and some lessons in how to position correctly in a bunch: Welcome to Lakeside.

First up: It works for some, and race commissaire Jack confirmed that he also knew guys in his younger racing days who could pull an all-nighter, line up hung-over and still race just as sharp, but I'm not one of those people. And I wasn't even hung-over. It's just that the third glass of wine at last night's dinner party and the seven hours sleep didn't help my race performance this morning.

The conversation with Jack took place at the sidelines while the C-Grade battles continued. I didn't pull out just because I was hurting. Had I stayed with the bunch, I would have told myself to suck it up, but after I got spat out the back, the race was over.

Some things about racing I learnt a long time ago but after being away from racing for as long as I have, I needed a reminder. For example how to positioning myself well in a race: If I'm not feeling too well, the worst spot to pick is right at the back. It feels natural to hide there when confidence lacks but I want to be near the front or at least mid-pack in such a situation.

When I realised that I was last wheel, it was already too late. I saw the five or six guys ahead of me all strung out in single file behind the bunch. It would have been wise to pay attention earlier because the moment I thought I better move further up into the bunch, it started unravelling and I could only watch it unfold: one of the guys labouring hard and loosing the wheel, the others visibly struggling, too. It was the second prime lap and we were approaching the hill, the attacks flew off the front and I was a good six bike length behind the chasing bunch. Bad spot! When the rubber band snapped, it was too late for me to close the distance into the head wind. I kept chasing because I thought the speed would ease up after the sprint but I never caught back on.

Earlier in the race, and stupidly contributing to my later DNF, I had sprinted for the first prime. I hadn't meant to do that and only accidentally found myself at the front of the race. Everybody else must have held back over the top of the hill because I certainly hadn't pushed the pace. While I do want to be near the front when the speed is high and I'm in danger of getting dropped, I don't want to be right at the front with still half a lap to go in the sprint. Feeling the way I felt, I free-wheeled down the hill, soft pedalled into the long, long straight, all the while hoping someone would come around me. I didn't want to sprint, and even less I wanted to lead out the other girls - again! How do I always get myself into this spot? Impatience?

Apart from positioning myself badly, not only once but twice, and subsequently not finishing, the race still had everything it needed for a satisfied feeling on my ride home: a few laps in nice company, a sprint, a chase and a few reminders how to race better next week.

But then I might have to really hone in on my "racing with hung-over" skills because next Friday will be our work Christmas function.