1500 calorie fruit cake ban!

Lesley's shoulder turned out to be okay! I ate another complete fruit cake in a matter of minutes yesterday and so have decided due to each cake being 1500 calories I'm definitely giving them up. My Achilles tendon is still playing up so running and even walking are currently off the menu. Cycling is not a problem though and it has warmed up a bit again. It's normal at this time of year to have waves of cold weather start coming though. It's usually around the 12th of November that the temperature plunges in a more permanent way - though occasionally tee shirt weather can return and endure well into January. I'm seeing people all around me coming down with bugs and so far I've escaped. Normally October is time for the first wave of winter colds and a that usually means a big sudden drop in fitness.

Interesting to see myself in the photo below. After raising my saddle by 5cm I was persuaded that if anything I'd erred in the direction of cycling too much "toes down" - but in the photo my foot is almost horizontal mid stoke! Just shows how video/photo or coaching feedback is needed to overcome the limitations of proprioceptive feedback. This image is in the valley between Chambery and Albertville - looking to the North side.

Cold Weather Training

Woke up this morning to find the temperature outside at -2°C. Luckily our workout time was delayed until Midday giving the sun an opportunity to rise and warm the air up a bit. I'd decided to cycle to the rendezvous at Aigleblanche - about 30 minutes by bike but mostly downhill - potentially freezing downhill.

Lesley still managing a smile after falling and badly hurting her collar bone

Overshoes, thick socks, wind-proof under helmet hat covering the ears, fleecy gloves, wind proofed leggings and three long sleeved layers on top with a wind-proofed  front. Surprisingly it worked. Only the exposed areas of the face were nipped by the cold. It helps being fresh and full of energy in the morning.

I was worried about the Achilles tendinitis that made even walking difficult a couple of days ago - but to my amazement there was absolutely no sign of it when cycling - even when pushing as hard as possible. Cross training is the answer to many problems in sport!  

I think today that I realised that any worries about a boring route are really due to being tired. If you are fresh then it's never boring - and I was fresh having spent several days resting and fuelling up by gobbling entire fruit cakes. Our route would be in the valley from close to Moutiers all the way to Albertville and then almost to Chambery - following the hilly North side of the valley on the way out. In total - including the ride to the rendezvous it was around 125km. The start was fairly relaxed but Lesley made a great effort and held on well to the group when the pace picked up. This route is great for small climbs which you can attack as if doing interval training. Having just finished David Millar's new book and realising the pain that elite riders live with I gave myself permission to hurt and not worry about it. Aside from a little pain in the upper right quads there was no real discomfort other than the mental strain of sustaining high power output at times. 

When we went through Albertville Richard had noticed that my dérailleur was badly misaligned so when we stopped at traffic lights he got of his bike, reached down and bent it back! I would never have dared to try that for fear of damaging the bike (snapping the carbon frame!) but he seemed to know that it is the replaceable aluminium lug that bends and is the source of the problem.  This of course knocked my gear selection off badly but cable adjuster knob at the front end of the frame had enough range to correct it.  The hills on the side of the scenic valley between Albertville and Chambery were excellent for pushing hard - because they are relatively short. This still accumulates to almost 1000m of climbing during the day despite most of the route being flat. Chris wanted to stop to take a photo of the vineyards (photo above) and unfortunately Lesley clipped his rear wheel as she looked across to the vineyards when Chris was slowing. Our photo stop became an accident scene and trun around point. We headed off to the nearest village for a warm up stop and hot drinks - meanwhile it was becoming clear that Lesley wasn't really fit for the long ride back  - at least 2 hours of pushing very hard.

Vineyards and snowy mountain tops

Our solution was for Lesley to jump on a train at the local station and get off within a few kilometres of the start point where her car was parked. Taxi fares were just stupidly expensive at 100 euros - while the train was only 8 euros. Richard had continued alone to his final destination in Chambery and we said goodbye to Lesley at the train station. The ride back to Albertville is very hard because it consists of very long straight flats on South side of the valley. We shared the lead and drafting to keep up a good speed and it was only after Albertville on the final leg that we both started to show signs of tiredness. Heading back up the valley towards Aigueblanche it is a gentle climb with a few undulations and although we were going strongly there were no really hard attacks like there had been earlier on. We were in the shade now with the sun dipping down behind the mountains so it didn't take long for the cold to start to creep up on us. 4hrs 35minutes on the bike were starting to wear me down now. Reaching Aigueblanche and the car park we were both surprised and concerned that Lesley's car was still there and no sign of her. She didn't have her telephone either - or any extra money! We had left her at the train station over 2 hours earlier and she should have been here by now. About five minutes after our arrival and just as we were formulating a rescue plan she appeared on her bike through the car park entrance - the train had been slow and a bit of an adventure in it's own right by all accounts. We hadn't expected to beat public transport on bikes over that distance though I did mention the possibility of it to Chris as we set off from the station. 

I'm anxious to hear how Lesley's shoulder progresses and hopefully it's only a bruise that will recover quickly. The workout was otherwise excellent and I think it's a route that will be visited quite a lot this winter.

2011 Road Race Season Summary

Running Focuses

What was learned on today's 10k run? Well I opened up the pace a bit, running the 10k in 44'55" but the interesting thing was that I didn't feel like I had to run fast to do this. Running at his pace (4'30" km) would have felt like a real "power" effort with the old way of running. All I had to do here was look for better placing of everything and more relaxation. The speed is natural. This makes it clear that it's possible to go an awful lot faster.

Stride Focus

Most of the focus was on preventing the legs and feet from coming ahead and making the feet land below me. To lengthen the stride all the effort went into lengthening the reach behind and in using the pelvis and twist in the middle of the spine for that. Another focus was to lift the heels high to make the recovery leg into a shorter "pendulum" to swing forwards - but then to avoid swinging it too far forwards. The increase in speed when this is done right is amazing. All in all I was looking for more speed through efficiency improvements without significantly greater power output. The pace maintained here was very sustainable and at no point were the limits pushed. Avoiding recovering the leg too far forwards means there is much less workload on the psoas muscles and this is improved again by lifting the heel higher and making the recovery leg effectively much shorter.

Lean Focus

At one point today I realised that ChiRunning author Danny Dreyer is correct in stating that the runner has to lean forwards slightly from the ankles. The lean forwards explained by Dreyer is supposedly to place the centre of mass further ahead - but what he doesn't mention is that it also allows a further reach of the leg behind. Imagine pushing a car and trying to keep your body upright while getting purchase with your feet. Now imagine leaning forwards and pushing. The legs extend much further behind the centre of mass. There's also something about this angle that helps the pelvis swing backwards - it's not exactly swinging in the horizontal plane.

Arm Swing Focus

Dreyer also claims that when running uphill the arms should come much further forwards. This seems to be inaccurate. Yes, the arms come further forwards but due to the "angle of dangle" of the arms from the shoulders due to the body leaning more forwards for going uphill.

My only snag now is a slight Achilles tendinitis starting up on the left foot. I'm hoping that it will die down soon but won't take any chances and will rest it if necessary instead of turning it into something chronic.

Gear Ratios (Shimano DuraAce 7900 11-28)

Working out Gear ratios

Here is Sheldon Brown's excellent new gear ratio system, which takes crank length into account. This system is independent of units, being expressed as a pure ratio. This ratio would be calculated as follows: divide the wheel radius by the crank length; this will yield a single radius ratio applicable to all of the gears of a given bike. A road bike with 170 mm cranks: (The usual generic diameter value for road wheels is 680 mm, so the radius would be 340 mm.)

340 mm / 170 mm = 2.0. (The radius ratio)

Applying the ratio to a gears is done as follows: 2.0 X 53 / 19 = 5.58

This number is a pure ratio, the units cancel out. Call this a "gain ratio".  What it means is that for every inch, or kilometer, or furlong the pedal travels in its orbit around the bottom bracket, the bicycle will travel 5.58 inches, or kilometers, or furlongs.

The "%" figure indicates the change between individual sprockets and between chainwheels.

The following link provides an online calculator www.sheldonbrown.com/gears/

	50	47.1 %	34
11	8.9		6.1
9.1 %
12	8.2		5.6
8.3 %
13	7.6		5.1
7.7 %
14	7.0		4.8
7.1 %
15	6.5		4.5
13.3 %
17	5.8		3.9
11.8 %
19	5.2		3.5
10.5 %
21	4.7		3.2
14.3 %
24	4.1		2.8
16.7 %
28	3.5		2.4

Using the Ratios
Using the above table and playing with the information on a sheet of paper it becomes apparent how ridiculously inefficient and complex even "compact" (50T/34T) double chainwheel system is. It's amazing that engineers cannot design something better and that we currently pay a small fortune for this rubbish. The problems here are that the 4th gear is duplicated and several ratios are incredibly close so that they are almost duplications too. Only the bottom 5 gears on the small chaniwheel and the top five gears on the big chainwheel are linear. The 10 gears in between flit around between chainwheels and sprockets in a way that would be impossible to achieve in practice - rendering linear gear changing out of the question. Eliminating the impossible flitting around with consideration of the duplication (or almost) of ratios - and avoiding inefficient stretching of the chain diagonally - the best solution appears to be to use sprockets 1(28T) to 7(14T) with the 34T chainwheel and then drop to 4(19T) to 10(11T) for the 50T chainwheel. This gives a linear progression throughout.

The 4th gear on 34T is the same as the 1st gear on 50T so that's why the big chainwheel felt good for climbing yesterday as this is a good ratio for climbing. 2nd gear on the 50T is between the 5th and 6th gears on the 34T. This gear is interesting because the gap between 5th and 6th is too great when climbing but this ratio with the 50T is different enough that it's worth looking for. Outside of this exception it's best to stick to the simple rule at the start of this paragraph. It gets even more complex if we try to "number" the gears from 1 to 20 because the 4th gear is duplicated and so is also the 5th gear. It seems better to refer to gears as 1 to 10 relating to the sprockets and then note the corresponding chainwheel.

Gearing Up

Still not feeling great but the weather was great so I just had to go for a workout. I'd basically be doing a "figure of eight" loop with the centre point at the start so I could bail out half way through if things were going wrong. This was the first workout of the autumn where a warm jacket would be needed for the whole ride despite blue skies and sunshine. The sun is lower in the sky each day now and the days are noticeably shorter. It's weird how the whole process of "change of season" just accelerates at this time of year. It's like the sun is in free fall. 

This wasn't going to be a hill climbing frenzy but surprisingly my legs and energy level turned out to be fine when I got going so it was still going to be interesting. The workout was to be over a distance of 45km and right from the first kilometre when the split time was 9 seconds ahead it looked like the battle was on. I decided to try to aim for 3 minutes ahead by 28km - the start of the climb up towards Les Arcs.

It's time however to change the workouts and focus on different things. The racing season is completely over and perhaps it's time to be a bit more creative with the training. For starters I decided to stay on the big chainwheel for the whole workout. This choice would either gain a lot of time or completely flatten me - but either way it would be a great "power" workout. The first proper climb was at kilometre 7 and surprisingly it was quite easy with the big chainwheel - but it was relatively short. Time was still being gained. By the end of the climbing section it was around 01'25" ahead and on target. Eventually, reaching the Les Arcs climb it was 4 minutes ahead and looking good. The trouble with gaining time is that you burn out and lose it all at the end - especially with a bit of a headwind on the return leg. For now though it was the daunting start of the climb up to Les Arcs just ahead. The climb up to the turn off on this route is only 3km but it's steep and after pushing hard - mostly uphill - for an hour already I wasn't sure that it would work in the big chainwheel at all. It was a bit worrying. The time gains so far had mostly come from powering through the small hills and accelerations in the big chainwheel - using all the core muscles. It's scary applying so much power because you wonder if your back is going to explode. The coordination of pulling the hip back on the push and recovering the other hip forward on the pull makes the abdomen/psoas area really strong and seriously protects the back. Attacking the climb was a real surprise. The first steep section dropped down to 13kph but felt good. I lost about 20 seconds but then realised that I could change up a gear - ramping up the speed to about 18kph and rapidly recovering the lost time. I'll need to work out what those gears are doing because I'd never have guessed that I could climb in 12th gear! The chain runs at a bit of a serious angle between the sprocket and chainwheel when you do this - which is neither efficient nor good for the chain. There's some crossover with gearing when changing from the big to the little chainwheel but now I realise that I don't know my gears very well. I seldom use the small chainwheel with the small sprockets or the large chainwheel with the large sprockets.

Keeping the power up and working consciously with the core muscles to the end of the workout I ended up gaining almost 8 minutes in total - so despite the headwind and tiredness there was no drop off towards the end. What began as a shaky session turned into a great workout and now I have to think about gears for a while.

Mont Blanc viewed from Italy

Felt a bit off today - so went for a drive over the Italian border for a hot chocolate and took some photos of Mont Blanc, Courmayeur/Aosta Valley and then the Tarantaise valley when returning home.

Running on Blisters

Took the risk of running on blisters but it turned out to be no problem. The blisters had had two days to settle down and it seems that this sort of blister on the foot recovers very quickly compared to blisters from burns on the hands or arms. Perhaps nature has a way of fixing feet quickly so that we don't get held up too much.

Preparation

First of all I sprayed some artificial skin over the soles of the feet - but that later appeared to be a complete waste of time as it rubs off very easily. I used proper running socks which have good padding over the balls of the feet where the blisters are. It would have been easy to bail out and use conventional running shoes for more cushioning but I decided to go for the Merrell Trail Gloves and continue with the barefoot technique. 

The Run Fun

Amazingly there was no discomfort at all when the run started. I'd felt very tired from the cycling the day before and a 16km (transportation) bike ride earlier in the day had revealed a low energy level. Straight away on the run I felt unexpectedly great. Thoughts of running a slow few kilometres around the block and straight back home evaporated immediately and it turned into a proper 10 workout. 

Right from the start I was very careful to change my stride and stop reaching ahead. The trouble is that I'm not aware of over reaching so for me it feels like I'm stopping my feet from going where they should go. I have to make a real effort to stop the stride right under the body - and to do that it almost feels like the feet are landing behind the body. I'm used to making this sort of kinaesthetic change in skiing and know how far off proprioception signals can be. After about 3km I started to feel one of the blisters - a small one under the right foot. This was perfect because it told me that I was still over reaching on the stride and actually I'd lost concentration a bit. It was difficult to reign it back in and make the foot land further back - there is such a strong pull to do what you are used to and feels "normal". The change worked and within half a kilometre the foot was painless again. This also confirmed that the over reaching was the source of the blister problem.

Keeping the feet from landing ahead was even more difficult when I decided to step up the pace a bit. Despite tiredness I wanted to average around 12kph so this meant both keeping a fast cadence and trying to extend the reach of the stride behind. Letting the leg go behind further means letting the pelvis go back further too. It was interesting to work on the same coordination as in cycling - where the recovery of one leg (extended behind in this case) is coordinated with the extension of the other leg - all going though the core muscles. The key is that the pelvis motion is from behind then back to being square with the body - it never swings ahead. You can feel the whole core working as a solid unit and the twist in the spine taking place right up at the lower ribs. I'm looking forward to working on sprinting with this in the future! When describing this in cycling I mentioned before that it feel like everything is being pulled in towards the centre. This fits for one aspect of running mentioned in Gordon Pirie's book - that one foot should land almost in line with the other (in front) so that a single track is left instead of two separate ones. The pulling "inwards" with the psoas and adductors does have the effect of making this happen. This placing of the foot also causes it to land slightly on the outside of the ball and then pronate inwards - exactly as Pirie describes in his work "Runing fast and Injury Free". 

Only in the final kilometre did I start to feel the blisters complaining a bit - but that was a heck of a lot better than expected. The final time of 49:27 for the 10k was fine and a good base to build on. When I can manage this 4 or 5 times in a week without any physical reactions then I'll step up the distance and speed progressively.

Circles

Earlier in the day when cycling I'd noticed that all the body parts were working in coordinated circles - or arcs (probably spirals). The forefoot follows the pedal in a circle. The ankle makes a small circle with constant flexion and extension, the knee makes some sort of circle and the hip moves back and forth making an arc as the spine twists. I could see the same sort of image in running with the feet following the arc of a wheel in the air behind the body. The knee swinging like the arc of a pendulum and the hip, following the knee caused the pelvis to rotate in an arc - back and forward. The arms and shoulders doing the opposite, both providing a counterbalance and more power.

Racing Through The Fog

Reading the excellent autobiography of David Millar. It's so well written that you have to make yourself stop reading so that it isn't finished too quickly.

What I've found to be amazing is the account of the reality of the difficulty of recovering from training. Despite Millar being only 20 at the time and at an elite level, his doubts and tiredness levels reflect exactly the same basic problems that are encountered by someone taking up the sport at age 50.

I'll never forget the 2001 Alpe d'Huez stage of the TdF when Lance Armstrong feigned poor form all day and then blew everyone away at the finish. It's shocking to read what was simultaneously happening to David Millar and how on that day not only did he have to abandon the race but a Cofidis team manager exploited his complete breakdown to turn him into a doper. The insidious way that it happened makes for classic reading as you can feel the shift of mindset yourself. Very scary!

Cross Training

Back on the Bike again and another good workout. I was a bit apprehensive with the blisters on the feet still being a bit lively but they had no effect on the cycling. That's the great thing about cross training. I resisted the temptation to puncture and drain the blisters because the liquid seemed to be getting absorbed very quickly. That was a good move because today (day after this workout) they have completely drained naturally and the thick skin remains intact for protection. I'll be running on them again in a day or two - but not totally barefoot for a while! The idea will be to try to take the timing lessons from the long barefoot session and apply them to running with minimalist shoes - and also to think about the inefficiencies that produced the friction that caused the blisters. The blisters were worth it because it proved to me that I can run with no heel strike and have absolutely no calf pain either during or after the run - even over 10k and with some speed work.

Training Effects
The circuit around Granier is always very revealing with the short 520m (1700ft) climb at the start. This year - my second proper season of racing - has been a period of self discovery concerning the effects of training. Unlike David Millar I'll thankfully never have the pressure to recover from training that requires the use of drugs. I refuse even to take painkillers for that purpose though they would certainly assist sleeping and initial recovery after particularly hard workouts or races. The only thing I concede in this respect is to drinking lots of coffee. This year I pushed much harder in training in terms of distance covered and time in the saddle - but to no apparent benefit. All of the workouts were in the mountains and the longest sessions stretching to over 10 hours. Granier was often the first or second short workout afterwards or sometimes used as a short workout prior to a race. The variation in performance on this climb became more and more informative as the season progressed. It has fluctuated across a range from 38 minutes to 31 minutes. The slowest times didn't reflect the poorest form - they reflected lack of recovery - and sometimes this would be a full week after a hard workout - there would still be no basic energy available. I wouldn't even be aware of it until realising that on the climb there was just no way of going any faster. My PEL (perceived effort level) would feel pretty much the same each time - so it shows that subjective monitoring of training is not very effective. It took me a long time to realise that lack of recovery was constantly affecting me and had affected me all summer. With October here and a big decline in long tiring workouts, giving much more recovery time and a focus on shorter more explosive workouts, my times have generally dramatically improved. With a cold (no warm up) and slow start yesterday I recorded 31 minutes with an average heart rate of 159 which is excellent for this climb. Attempting a PB of just under 30 minutes would require an average heart rate of around 169 and a flying start with the muscles properly warmed up.

Other than becoming aware of the how slowly the body recovers from long endurance work I'm not sure what other lessons are to be learned here - it's all a bit foggy. Will the body adapt to long endurance high speed efforts over a period of years, or is it a waste of effort to do long training sessions? Repetitive strain injuries from the long workouts taught me that there was something wrong with my technique and so I eventually worked that one out. I can probably marginally improve on my personal best times from last year - but only just and perhaps those improvements are due to technique. I'm really not sure if the long workouts bring any real benefits. You don't lose any weight with them either because you end up eating more to compensate. One thing I have noticed is that with so much long endurance work I've never once been able to get my heart rate up to its maximum all season - reaching around 10bpm short of the maximum at best. The only real advantage seems to be psychological - in that everything else seems like a short workout now.

8km Barefoot and Blistered

The d.o.m.s. from running are steadily reducing and the recovery period is dropping. This time, going for another 10k run I wanted to experiment to see if running properly barefoot most of the way would help to fine tune technique a bit and reduce the stress on the calf muscles.  The sensible approach would be to only do two or three kilometres barefoot because the feet aren't used to it - but that wouldn't help to find out if it could save the calves from stress. I decided to see how far I could get and just stop and put shoes on if the feet became too uncomfortable. In the end I ran 8km barefoot and by the end it was impossible to tell what was going on with the feet. I could feel blisters swelling up but then they acted like nice pads to land on and I was able to run the last kilometre in under 4 minutes (15kph). The interesting part was that the calf muscles didn't hurt at all. The blisters on the forefoot prevented me from putting too much pressure on them - so that less stress went onto the calves. The timing of the landing of the parts of the foot  - front to back is so fine - hundredth's of a second - that you really need to be completely barefoot to feel it. I had no problem accelerating near the end even with sore skin because the legs felt great. At the start of the run I even thought that after the seriously hard bike ride yesterday and subsequent difficulty in sleeping there would be no energy for running - but everything pulled through.

Rather than see the blisters as I problem I recognise immediately that they represent a learning opportunity. I'm most probably doing something wrong. There must be friction against the ground to cause the blistering. This will not show up as a problem with minimalist shoes - but barefoot I can't get away with it. I'm either pushing-off or over-striding - or both. I think that it's mainly an over-striding issue because I could feel a slight rasping with the landing on slightly rougher tarmac. Once this has healed I'll try again but really make sure not to over-stride.

The blisters are going to hurt for a few days but nothing serious here. It might take some time to toughen the feet up - but it felt great being barefoot and the acceleration was amazing when I decided to ramp it up a bit. The whole technique is falling into place and it's the first time for two years that I've been able to both ride the bike at my peak level and also run without significant underlying injury. This bodes well for the autumn and winter ahead - though I don't think I'll be going barefoot in snow. Might cool the blisters though!