I thought the following was interesting. Nothing like banging out some 4 hour rides, ascending watts at 325… http://www.andrewstarykowicz.com/2013/12/watts.html
250w at 115bpm. Wish my base work looked like that.
Thanks for sharing. Interesting how he says he doesn’t feel that race pace rides for than 50% of race duration are effective. It seems counter intuitive to the whole race simulation and specificity argument. Then again if he is putting in shorter much harder intervals with lots of base maybe that works for him (Obviously does).
Thanks for sharing. Interesting how he says he doesn’t feel that race pace rides for than 50% of race duration are effective. It seems counter intuitive to the whole race simulation and specificity argument. Then again if he is putting in shorter much harder intervals with lots of base maybe that works for him (Obviously does).
For what it is worth, I follow a similar philosophy. I know some guys do the full 4/4.5 hour 112 mile TT but I would rather break it up into 5x30 with 10 minutes recovery. I have never felt I have lost anything by doing it that way.
I’m a little new to this, but it seems that the longer rides are more critical when your need to develop a nutrition plan and need to build you mental strength for such rides. But otherwise, just like in running, it’s probably more effective to focus on just building overall fitness that achieves the same goal while creating less overall muscle fatigue… thereby allowing greater overall training load. If you can get the same overall traning load with a little less specifity, but reduce fatigue and more important, reduce risk of injury… then you have a winning combination.
Pile it on!
250W poking around in zone 1 @ 115 bpm… that’s sick. That’s near the top of zone 3 for a solid AG’r.
Now if he could just put less of the power into the pavement and his outsoles, and into generating wind drag when running.
Thanks Thomas, I am taking a different approach this off-season of doing lots and lots of tempo on the trainer in the form of 2x20s then on the weekend doing a 3hr easy ride outdoors in the freezing cold. Not t ypical “base building” but not so hard that i dont recover to do it again the next day.
Yeah if you race multiple times per year for years, the need to get race practice in is much less.
I was playing around with trying to reverse engineer what his FTP is, and I’m thinking 400
which might be what this graph is indicating, but the “race pace” zone above “threshold” is odd =) what software is that? power agent?
I’m a little new to this, but it seems that the longer rides are more critical when your need to develop a nutrition plan and need to build you mental strength for such rides.
But once you’ve done it… you’ve done it. There’s really no need to ride long or test your nutrition strategy every week.
I’ve done five IMs and this year was the first time I actually rode more than 100 miles in a training ride (and I did it twice). That was because the climbing at Whistler scared the shit out of me. 
10 weeks later I did IMFL. Granted, I had just finished IMCan so I was in great shape but the longest ride I did in the 10 weeks leading up to IMFL was 3:30.
Thanks for that.
Although I am looking at that and thinking that those numbers seem a little high. Some of those intervals - 3 minute intervals at what appears to be around 475-500w. There are plenty of tour de france cyclists that would be proud of those numbers. Now I know he isn’t a light guy, quoted weight seems to be around 187lbs, but still, those numbers seem pretty dam good!
(not questioning the validity of the athlete, just the accuracy of his PM)
is he using stages PM?
.
I’m a little new to this, but it seems that the longer rides are more critical when your need to develop a nutrition plan and need to build you mental strength for such rides.
But once you’ve done it… you’ve done it. There’s really no need to ride long or test your nutrition strategy every week.
I’ve done five IMs and this year was the first time I actually rode more than 100 miles in a training ride (and I did it twice). That was because the climbing at Whistler scared the shit out of me.
10 weeks later I did IMFL. Granted, I had just finished IMCan so I was in great shape but the longest ride I did in the 10 weeks leading up to IMFL was 3:30.
Absolutely. I think my plan has race simulation bricks weekly in my build phases, but I figure I’ll do them instead every other week and instead do long rides with maybe alternating 30 minutes tempo and 30 minutes in zone 2. On the long rides I’ve done so far, the precision of my nutrition hasn’t seemed critical. I think what’s critical I’ve found, is having a good pre-race nutrition plan. When I’ve done stupid things in the last 60 minutes before race start is when I’ve had issues.
Thanks for that.
Although I am looking at that and thinking that those numbers seem a little high. Some of those intervals - 3 minute intervals at what appears to be around 475-500w. There are plenty of tour de france cyclists that would be proud of those numbers. Now I know he isn’t a light guy, quoted weight seems to be around 187lbs, but still, those numbers seem pretty dam good!
(not questioning the validity of the athlete, just the accuracy of his PM)
If he arguably the best cyclist in the sport, why wouldn’t his numbers rival some of the best TDF cyclists? TDF cyclists are probably optimizing themselves for power to weight as mcuh as anything and giving up some peal power. They alsot only train on the bike. He has the advantage of a higher training load with the additon of swimming and running. You can only bike so much. Maybe cyclsits would benefit form spending a little time in the pool. I know they’d be terrified of “bulking up” their upper body. But the 1lb of muscle they might gain could boost their overall aerobic capcity and recovery rates a little offsetting it.
Thomas, very smart of you, and the best way to go. That’s why you race so well at such a high level……smart training!
For what it is worth, I follow a similar philosophy. I know some guys do the full 4/4.5 hour 112 mile TT but I would rather break it up into 5x30 with 10 minutes recovery. I have never felt I have lost anything by doing it that way.
It is PowerAgent. I think Race Pace in that is 90-105% of FTP, but I’m not 100% sure–that would put his FTP well above 400 though!
250W poking around in zone 1 @ 115 bpm… that’s sick. That’s near the top of zone 3 for a solid AG’r.
Dude, I have had my FTP stuck at 240 for over a year, how do you think I feel.
I know that this guy must work is backside off , no doubt, but his parents must have blessed him with some awesome DNA!
As a reference point the 5 minute power of a pro tour rider is going to be around 7 w/kg at the low end which would put most 6 foot pro tour domestiques around 539 watts for 5 minute power. A skinny climber with less anaerobic talent might be only 500, big guys like Fabian might be more like 600+
Starky may certainly have the talent to be a pro tour cyclist if he focused on it, but he isn’t rivaling them at this time I don’t think.
Pro cyclists bike as many hours as triathlete’s train. I do not believe there is any general aerobic advantage for the triathlete.
Thanks for that.
Although I am looking at that and thinking that those numbers seem a little high. Some of those intervals - 3 minute intervals at what appears to be around 475-500w. There are plenty of tour de france cyclists that would be proud of those numbers. Now I know he isn’t a light guy, quoted weight seems to be around 187lbs, but still, those numbers seem pretty dam good!
(not questioning the validity of the athlete, just the accuracy of his PM)
If he arguably the best cyclist in the sport, why wouldn’t his numbers rival some of the best TDF cyclists? TDF cyclists are probably optimizing themselves for power to weight as mcuh as anything and giving up some peal power. They alsot only train on the bike. He has the advantage of a higher training load with the additon of swimming and running. You can only bike so much. Maybe cyclsits would benefit form spending a little time in the pool. I know they’d be terrified of “bulking up” their upper body. But the 1lb of muscle they might gain could boost their overall aerobic capcity and recovery rates a little offsetting it.
Very true.
I don’t think it is massively over, I was just surprised that he was up in the echelons of 450-500 for those intervals.
Also in a comparison to say Luke Mckensie he is clearly not too great on the aeroness side of things. If he indeed can hold 325odd watts for 4 hours then in Kona he should have been putting out at least that, you would expect. I know he is a little larger but someone like Luke almost matched him on the bike for about 280w.
One this Starky could do with doing is getting rid of that Orbea, a very nice thank you for all the support and moving over to a trek SC/P5 as tunnel testing (and Andy Coggan will agree with this) those 2 bikes are way above the Orbea and at the speeds he is going he would be best served to think more about his aerodynamics than his output. As his marathon really shows.
250W poking around in zone 1 @ 115 bpm… that’s sick. That’s near the top of zone 3 for a solid AG’r.
Dude, I have had my FTP stuck at 240 for over a year, how do you think I feel.
I know that this guy must work is backside off , no doubt, but his parents must have blessed him with some awesome DNA!
Not perfect parents. They shold have let the poor kid run around barefoot more when he was little then he’d have a 2:45 run to match his bike.
He was throwing up on the bike at Kona so I don’t think we can draw any conclusions about his CdA from relative performance there.
Very true.
I don’t think it is massively over, I was just surprised that he was up in the echelons of 450-500 for those intervals.
Also in a comparison to say Luke Mckensie he is clearly not too great on the aeroness side of things. If he indeed can hold 325odd watts for 4 hours then in Kona he should have been putting out at least that, you would expect. I know he is a little larger but someone like Luke almost matched him on the bike for about 280w.
One this Starky could do with doing is getting rid of that Orbea, a very nice thank you for all the support and moving over to a trek SC/P5 as tunnel testing (and Andy Coggan will agree with this) those 2 bikes are way above the Orbea and at the speeds he is going he would be best served to think more about his aerodynamics than his output. As his marathon really shows.
250W poking around in zone 1 @ 115 bpm… that’s sick. That’s near the top of zone 3 for a solid AG’r.
Not even close to an accurate statement. For reference, the top of my zone 3 is 333w at 72-73kg.