Doing something every day.
Wed: Did a good resistance workout with hams and quads - what I really need, plus 16 min on the Stairmaster. Did seated leg curls and leg extensions - light weight, single leg squats, hip flexors, and adductors.
Thurs: I did my usual warmup and bands on the track and I also tried some short hill running on grass, just 4 or 5 steps. Felt fine, then did some high knee running. Felt good. I will likely try to run stadium stairs on Aug 6 when I go to Murfreesboro. Knee felt better than the last time I did this.
Fri: Roark's Cove Rd climb. After the brutal climb I did last time, I wasn't going to try and one up myself this time... but I did. A big season PR - 22:23, 27 sec faster than previous PR and no where near as taxing on the heart, way less than last time, which was ridiculous. Still very hard.
I had read the final climb to La Plagne in stage 19 of the Tour de France (scheduled for Friday 7/25) has a similar grade to that of Roark's Cove Rd., 7.2%, but it goes for 12 miles instead of 2.4. Pros can average 12-15 mph up these grades, compared with my 6.2 mph.
Here's the data:
Max HR - 181
HR over 170 - 13:05
HR over 180 - 1:37
Avg HR - 164
Avg speed - 6.2 mph
Total climb time - 22:23
Strange occurrence on the bike. I had never had a flat tire in the yrs since I bought that bike. I had 3 flats in 2 days. First was because I drove across some grass and gravel. Second was dramatic, I hit the largest pothole on Roark's Cove Rd going down at 25+ mph and it blew both. Stupidly, I don't have a kit but thanks to a crack bike shop in Sewanee, I was back on the rd in 30 min... spent $75 on three new inner tubes and mounting.
USATF Nationals in Huntsville is halfway through. Like my M60 year taken by Covid, my M65 was taken by this injury. I don't like to make 'what if' statements but... if I had been able to train Dec - July, I'm fairly confident I would have done ok at Nationals. The M65 400m National title was won in 62.69. Considering I've never run an outdoor 400m in less than 61.00 in over 100 races, well ...
M60 was won in 57.87. Puts in perspective how fast that '23 race was when I ran 57.59 and only took Bronze ... and also my '21 title in 56.78. Even my '24 indoor SB 58.84 would've taken Silver at this meet in M60. None of these guys are moving up to M65 next yr, they're all age 60-62.
Be curious if any M65 breaks 27 in the 200m. 27.00 was my slowest time in a masters 200m, (last year after running a 100m in brutal 95º AL heat).
Maybe next yr.
Yeah you never know when you will get a flat. Tubeless tires and sealant are wonderful.Patch kit and your own labor it would only cost a few dollars. Your road bike and mine are the same vintage same make I just got the slightly more relaxed geometry model which is also a little less stiff. I upgraded to tubeless wheels with 25 mm rims and 28 mm tires. A little heavier but a lot better ride. It used to be thought that skinnier tires had less rolling resistance but not true. 28 mm have less rolling resistance and a little less air flow resistance due to the shape. You can fill with less pressure (80 to 90 PSI) so the ride is a little nicer. They also will handle pot holes a little better. When it’s time to replace your tire ask your shop’s if your rims will work with 28 mm tires. Rice bikes are a couple of pounds heavier than previous generations due to wheel tire and brake (disc) enhancements, yet the best riders are still climbing faster than ever. Stage 13 TDF was an uphill time trial of 11 km gaining 650 meters where the winners average speed of 17.5 MPH by Tadej Pogačar. 7.5 percent average grade with spots at 16 percent. That will be sustained power output of over 450 watts probably around the peak power you are hitting for a few seconds in sprints. Amazing. He’s 5’9” 146 pounds.
ReplyDeleteSee what I wrote in my edit about the Tour
DeleteIt’s amazing what genetics do. There is a guy at work who used to race and he would regularly win the Bogus Basin hill climb, 16 miles 4000’ of climbing. Not terribly steep but a few mile sections of 7 to 8 percent then 5 percent then repeat 7 to 8. I did 72 minutes 10 years ago which was typical for me in the upper quartile of age graded masters group. He would do 50 to 52 minutes 17 to 18 mph. The sustained power they can generate is super human like. Their mitochondria can operate in fat burning mode to high power levels before needed to kick into glycolysis as well as having super efficient heart and lungs with huge stroke volumes. The average well trained master cyclist starts kicking into glycolysis at around 200 watts which is probably around the power output you are putting out on your fastest climbs. Top cyclists don’t start relying on glycolysis (cellular level mitochondria energy production) to somewhere north of 400 watts and can cruise at 350 watts for a few hours.
DeleteAnd they are typically small people ranging from 145 to 160 pounds. Although there are plenty of larger crit riders (city street loops little to no climbing) that can generate immense power at higher body weight but they can’t climb as well due to weight. Cool thing about cycling though is that wind resistance is everything so you can have mis matched athletes power wise but the weaker riders can hang in there by drafting the faster guys. To an extent.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/_mZzNs2cFs4?si=T4D4q3bDVdrZQJ54
ReplyDeleteBTW a few percent difference in HR at near maximum sustained effort is meaningless and doesn’t mean one ride was more or less stressful than the other. You are obsessed about it for no technical reason. There are multiple parameters that you can’t measure that are contributing to differences in HR. Ejection fraction filling speed contraction force vascular resistance, etcetera each have some normal variation. HR is useful but not really that meaningful. Your HR runs high simply because you have less stroke volume so it beats a little faster. Some days your ejection fraction or one or two of the dozen of other parameters is a little different than other days and since you have a healthy heart HR adjusts and beats faster or slower but the amount of blood pumped is similar. And your electrical system is probably aging slower than average which is a good thing. Gas exchange is a much better metric of the work you are doing but can only capture it in a lab. You would be far better off installing a power meter and tracking that over time. From a health perspective and heart rate you want to watch for electrical abnormalities like irregular heartbeat especially AFIB. But your device won’t register those. Tell your GP that you are experiencing skipping heart beats and have some dizziness and they will put a two week monitor on you. Do a mix of different really hard workouts and if you have a electrical problem it will show up. Also there is no data that says your once or twice or even 3x weekly 23 minute hard effort is heart unhealthy. You can’t extrapolate the studies of the extreme aerobic athletes (ultra marathoners) or TDF riders to what you are doing. Don’t worry about it.
ReplyDeleteMy PVCs went away. Resting hr has dropped a bit. Usually in the 50s, upper 40s overnight. BP normal. Bill M has afib and is likely made worse by alcohol. He was drinking 25-30 beers a week at one point. Now he says he cut to one/day. I may do another lipid panel and A1C soon.
DeleteA1C is useful. Should definitely have it as a baseline.
ReplyDeleteI don’t understand why you don’t pursue tests like Zio monitor. As I explained before the medical guidelines are set to capture most but not all medical issues, a few percent falling through the cracks is considered acceptable but with tragic results for the affected few. This is magnified by insurance companies incentivizing doctors to restrict testing to keep costs down. So to a certain extent it is a competition and it is up to the patient to push for testing that excludes issues as opposed to finding obvious issues. Since they work to some degree in an underhanded way where 5 percent missed diagnoses is deemed acceptable it is morally and ethically ok to present to them a case where the testing would not be excluded. It doesn’t matter that it is not totally accurate. Just tell them you have noticeable skips in HR and are sometimes dizzy and they will put one of those monitors on you. That and a baseline resting ECG is the bare minimum you should have, like knowing your lipid and A1c level. Next level up is echo cardiogram and exercise stress test in no particular order those are nice to have unless you truly are symptomatic.
ReplyDeleteI'm not dizzy. They made my brother wear one of those. I don't want one on me. I'd love to have an echocardiogram
DeleteIt’s just a small patch on your chest. No big deal. The data quality is excellent.
DeleteIf you want an echocardiogram you should definitely want to map out the electrical behavior of the heart over time, encompassing various efforts. They measure two very different things. One is a metric for electrical behavior over time and various stress conditions, the other is structural and functional parameters at a given moment in time. But if one were more important than the other it would be the zio monitor as electrical perturbations can be sneaky deadly.
ReplyDeleteAnd once again you don’t have to be dizzy to have it prescribed you just have to tell them you are.
ReplyDelete