Is he a 1:50 800m runner trying to go to the games for something else? I guess so, as 1:50 has no business being in the games.

I think he is a sub 1:50 runner who expects to be at the trials (don't think he has qualified yet). I suspect everyone who is at the trials dreams of going to the games, although only a few have realistic hope. Most who are there probably hope they run their best at the trials. If that gets them to the games, great. If it doesn't, at least they did their best.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Is there a prize for getting the right prediction? I say he will be slower by between 3-5 seconds of his PR. Purely a guess, based on my very small experience/knowledge of specificity.

Sure, if you are closest, your prize will be you can feel smugger than the rest of us. Of course, if he goes slower he won't make it to the trials. Of course, I am closer to being right than you are then you might want to reexamine your "very small experience/knowledge of specificity". :-)

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

The 'A' standard is 1:46.5; about 9 runners hit that last year. The 'B' standard is 1:48.5; more than 30 have hit that. He'd better be well under 1:50 to even get to the Trials.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

There are only 30 slots so you are right. I suspect he will have to be well under 1:48.5 by June to be there. At the present time they only have one runner listed as having qualified and he is at the 'B' standard.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

I think you failed to put in the "IF" in your third sentence. What's his PR anyways?

No, they have one runner listed as "entered". Many have qualified, but very few have entered the Trials, in the 800m or other events.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

You are correct about the leaving out the IF, a big if at that. :-). I don't know his PR. I was just told he was sub 1:50. I will find out next time I talk to him. He is going to call after he gets his cranks and has a ride or two.

Frank

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Yes, that is correct, my poor choice of word. Of course, more have met the standard. But, only one has signed up, so far.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Frank...what cadence will he train at and with what crank length?....I suppose 10x2 min @120 RPM should be his target PC workout....

Dev

We are sending him adjustable PC's. He currently rides 170's, and 175's. Because of his fixie base I expect him to adapt to the PC's very quickly. If he isn't up to 30 minutes of constant pedaling at a cadence of 90 or so in a week or so I would be surprised, but we won't know until he gets on them.

I then think he can go into maintenance mode regarding his endurance (once or twice a week, 30 minute ride at 90 cadence) and needs to start ramping the cadence up, working on peak cadence and what he can sustain for 2 minutes. Train in intervals like he would on the track. As he gets to the point that he can ride for 2 minutes at his running cadence then I would want him to start increasing the crank length plus I would want him to start working in some higher resistance, high power work.

That was my starting advice. We will adjust things based upon how he adapts and what he perceives his weaknesses to be. I expect to learn as much from him and his coach as they might, possibly, learn from me.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

I might add. I would expect his peak PC cadence to get above 200. And, I would expect him to be able to go for 2 minutes at 150-160 (or more) before the trials. Our marathoner was able to get up to 90 minutes at a cadence of 130 or so, as I remember, withing 6-8 weeks. We will see.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

I find the title of this thread misleading. It should read: "will PC help a "real" runner?"

Also, will we really find out? What were the your conclusions of the previous experiment, with Chris Zieman?

Last, why don't you wait to have results to show, or names you can publish before starting a thread?

I have to say that I am amazed to see PowerCranks still around. I first came across them when Dan Marino did his last RAAM in 85. I was his trainer. I was intrigued by them so used them myself and then used one on one of the bikes I used while coaching runners. I used cycling extensively as an adjunct to traditional run training both at Granada Hills HS (Ian Alsen, only Boy to win Distance Double at Arcadia Invitational. Has stood for 20 years) and Cal State Northridge (Men's WestReg XC Champs, Women's Natl XC Champ, Men's Natl Champ 800M,88-90).

One application stood out. I had a freshman 800M runner who posted a qualifier for Nationals. 4 weeks before Nationals he had an accident while working on the school's stage. He twisted his right ankle in a major way. Had to be in a cast for 3 weeks. He didn't run a step for those three weeks. I had him riding twice a day and pool running 4 days a week. AM rides were cardio. I was primarily looking for blood flow. Afternoon rides were usually pretty intense. He was on 175's. I made sure his rpm's were always high. Rather than taking the standard approach of using HR and pace/RPM's I put emphasis on beginning each interval in big gears at 100+ rpm's for 30 secs to generate lactate then reduced load and looked for 120+ rpm's. I knew he wouldn't be able to do any speed work prior to nationals so was looking for an approach that could leverage/improve the strength he had and racing tactics that did the same. He said that he worked harder for those three weeks than any previous three weeks.

When we got to Div II Nationals we learned that there were not enough qualifiers to require heats so he only had one race to run... finals. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy. As he was a freshman, had been unable to do speed work, but had great strength the only plan that made sense to me was to have him go out at 52 for 400, ask him to punch it through the turn and then hold on for dear life. I figured the others, knowing he was a Freshman would simply let him go as he would appear to be making the big Freshman mistake... going crazy at Nationals. Sounds crazy doesn't it? He went out in 50. I have to admit that for a moment I was thinking exactly what I was hoping his competitors would think... He's going to blow up like a hand grenade. His competitors were positive he was done as they were 35 meters back clumped together checking each other out. Eric punched it through the turn as ordered. By the time he got about 60 meters through the turn a few of his competitors took notice as he had continued to pull away. By the end of the turn panic was starting to set in behind him. Those that were counting on a 200 meter kick were suddenly forced into a 300 meter kick. 4 responded to screaming coaches and took after him. The last 50 meters my guy looked about 6" shorter and appeared to be carrying an invisible refrigerator on his back... but his legs kept turning over at a high rate. It was only his stride length that dropped. He won by 3 meters in a PR of 1:49:09, more than 2 seconds faster than his qualifying time and a new school record. His teammate set the school record for the 1500 in 3:41:23. He also put in about 5-7 hours a week on the bike. Both records still stand.

Sooo, while many seem to have been hammering you on qualifying times etc., the heart of the matter is that cycling, with or without a PowerCrank can definitely help runners improve. There was a UCLA study in the 80's that proved it. It makes sense to me that the PC would be better than no PC but as I only had one PC and 10 bikes on stationary turbos trainers I can't point to any specifics other than eric using my bike with the PC prior to Nationals. I think that if cycling was utilized widely by Running coaches we would be much better off as a nation.

You will probably be interested in this if you haven't already dissected it:

http://vator.tv/...hnology-in-Bicycling

Best of luck to your runner. It's not about "making the team" for 99% of those that compete. It's about the journey one takes during the course of dreaming about "making the team".

1. You can read his blog and reach your own conclusion. I concluded they did, as I think Chis did also. It was difficult to quantify the improvement though because of injury unrelated to the PC's.

2. I think it says more about what I expect to occur that I am willing to put forth my little "experiments" ahead of time rather than just publishing the positive results after the fact. I would give the name here except for the fact that the coach asked that we not. But, since we will be able to someday, I think it is reasonable to let those who are interested know what is happening on the PC front.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

First, we won't find out anything. Second, Frank makes sure there is ALWAYS a PC thread on the front page. I mean c'mon, if you were trying to sell something, wouldn't you take advantage of the free publicity? He essentially gets ad time on the forum without paying for it.

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"Lemond is cycling's version of Rev Jessie Jackson." -johnnyperu 5/18/07
"Just because I suck doesn't mean my bike has to" -rickn 9/2/08

I would be intrigued to know how you ran across PowerCranks in 1985.

Dan Marino did RAAM???

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Your initial proposition seems a little disingenuous, Frank. First you say he's a 1:50 runner, then admit he's a "sub 1:50" runner. If you're expecting a 2-3 second improvement in time, he may already be there, but you'll get to claim victory when he runs sub 1:48 after taper and at the Olympic trials (hell, I'd run a sub 2:00 on adrenaline alone).

It seems to me like you'd be just as well served by saying "Phelps wins 8 gold medals on PowerCranks!" Correlation != causation. If that were true, I could claim that I run better when it's hot, since my times get better as the summer progresses. Let us know who he is, so we can put a slowtwitch sticker on him and claim the sticker made him faster (that would be really funny on an 800m runner, now that I think about it).

In my opinion, we need the name to know exactly what he's run so far. Or expect another debate once you release it. You know Ken can/will find out his times since birth. But the whole premise is flawed. Of course he's going to improve, he's training for the Olympics. But I just don't believe that any one aspect of training can be singled out as being the source of improvement.

Buy a banner ad and be done with it.

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"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us"

He can't already be there if I am expecting an improvement over his current PB, whatever that might be. Whether he achieves it or not and by how much is subject to speculation and the basis of this thread. If he does achieve it then the basis of his improvement will also be subject to speculation but I would hope we will have the opinion of both the runner and the coach in the mix by then also.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Actually, I have people like you to thank for keeping PC threads on the front page.

Thanks for participating. :-)

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Please. If I weren't complaining about it you'd come up with some other BS to spew to bump it anyway.

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"Lemond is cycling's version of Rev Jessie Jackson." -johnnyperu 5/18/07
"Just because I suck doesn't mean my bike has to" -rickn 9/2/08

Frank, he does not need to train for endurance or power. He just needs to do high cadence and does not even have to go nuts with any really crazy high cadence like you are suggesting. If he can get in the 120-130 range with as long a crank length as possible for 2 minute intervals, my view is that he'll optimize the PC effect for his event. His sessions don't need to be much longer than 30 minutes too. And he can do this with "as open a hip angle" as he wants. Also, he can tack on 20-30 min PC rides after his runs on a daily basis.

That's my 2 cents worth.

Dev

You are talking about PowerCAM not Powercranks. PowerCAM was heavily pushed in the mid 80's and had an effect similar to Rotorcranks. This is completely different from Powercranks.

http://www.classicrendezvous.com/USA/PowrCam_main.htm