Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Hunter Allen's Race Report: First race in 8 years!

2011 Roanoke Twilight Criterium Roanoke, Virginia

Masters Race- very tactical. Pat Raines was strongest for sure. But I couldn't get him to work with me when we attacked on 5th lap, we could have easily ridden away from the field. Won first preme on 2nd lap easily. Lots of easy and then hard.. Was really an easy race, but no way I was going to drop Raines by myself. Missed opportunity to get the top two places when we were away.. Oh well.  With 1.5 laps  to go, I was 5th wheel, Jordan slid out in right hander and took out Steve Hetherington, Pat and then I came  to full stop in 53:14 at bottom of hill.  Chased last lap and half, but couldn't catch the first 7 dudes.  Dang it!  8th place

Cat 3 4  Race. Got the a great start and was 3rd wheel and then attacked on first lap and just went solo for like 15 laps..  Got two premes and race entry for the July 3-4th races in Roanoke!  Much easier and safer off the front! Finally Someone came up to me and he said, "love your book".  too funny! We worked for like 6 laps and then three guys came up and then they rang a bell for preme and one dude took off and I couldn't go  and another guy went with him and that was first and second. We then had 5 of us up there. Very hard to work on this course. I was pretty tired by that point and wasn't contributing to upping the pace, just rolling through.  Then got a gnarly diaphragm cramp-left side, so that hurt, but dealt. Sat on with 4 laps to go, but I was pretty gassed. On last lap, I moved to 4th in line and then just held to the line. Didn't have enough room to catch 5th place. 
Good race though and lots of fun, especially I was basically off the front the entire race. Not a bad comeback.   6th place

Really great to see so many old friends. Frank Haranzo, Ruth, Terry Ashby, Steve Hetherington, Wes Wilmer, James Schafer, Matt Butterman, Brian Marshall, Nick.  Bike racing hasn't changed in 20 years. Same  old stuff.  Great to have kids and Kate cheering for me as well. Great for the boys to see me race and do well also.  

Felt fine in the race. Super comfortable through turns and at speed. No worries. lacking the snap though. especially in the 3/4 race, but some of that was just fatigue from being off the front the entire race. Was great to be solo off the front for so many laps and look back and see the entire field single file and chasing and not gaining an inch.  Just like old times. 

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Carbohydrates and Glycogen For The Endurance Athlete

Peaks Coaching Group Anne Guzman Nutrition


As endurance athletes it is imperative that we pay attention to our body’s nutritional needs.  One of the biggest mistakes we make is to undermine our training efforts by not fueling the body properly to get the gains from the hard work we do in training. Why spend so much time and effort working so diligently to hit all of your wattages and heart rates and then not show up on the line PROPERLY FUELED to allow your body to perform its best? Training AND Nutrition create the best performances when properly followed on a consistent basis.

Carbohydrates are an important fuel during exercise. Carbohydrate rich foods include, grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes and rice which are mostly starches and fiber and are often referred to as complex carbohydrates. Fruits and vegetables are also carbohydrates. Sugar is also a carbohydrate which is consumed too often in the Western world. Sugar is what is referred to as a simple carbohydrate. Complex and simple are referring to the number of monosaccharides in a carbohydrate. One monosaccharide is the basic unit of a carbohydrate. An example of this would be glucose, fructose and galactose. A Starch is a Polysaccharide which is 3 to 9 monosaccharides combined.

As athletes carbohydrates are our largest and most efficient source of fuel. Unfortunately for us, unlike fat, we have a limited storage capacity for carbohydrates.  The stored form of carbohydrates is called GLYCOGEN. Glycogen is the limiting fuel for exercise. It is needed to fuel muscles, supply glucose to the brain and burn fat.

Glycogen is most quickly depleted with higher intensity exercise such as VO2 intervals or long hard efforts. You can completely deplete your glycogen stores in a hard 90 minute effort.  Glycogen can fuel up to 2 hours of moderate to intense exercise. When it comes to this type of exercise the rule of thumb is “eat early and often.” Don’t wait until you start to feel depleted and tired to start fueling your body.

In order for endurance athletes to perform optimally, we need to be sure we have adequate stores of glycogen available for training and recovery from training sessions and races. Without proper amounts of carbohydrates in the diet we will face glycogen depletion. You may have encountered the symptoms of glycogen depletion during training which can include;
  • Heavy legs
  • Loss of focus
  • Normal training seems harder than usual
  • Dizziness, sluggishness
  • Overall fatigue
  • You just have to stop your session altogether because you just feel “empty”
  • Irritable, exhausted
  • Inability to be explosive as you seem to only have one pace left
Symptoms can come on over several days of consecutive training with inadequate nutrition, or can come on during one intense or long exercise session with inadequate nutrition. How can you stay on top of your carbohydrate needs to be sure you have adequate glycogen available for proper training day after day? Here are some things that may help you. If you train with a power meter you will know how many calories you burn in a training session. By applying the following information you will quickly be able to tell when you have depleted your glycogen stores.

Muscle glycogen in the body is approximately 350g or between 1,400-1,800 calories. Liver glycogen is approximately 80-100g, around 320-400 calories. Therefore the body can store up to approximately 2200 calories in glycogen and as low as 1700. Typically this will vary depending on your size.

Knowing this, you can look at your power meter and know that if you burn 2000 calories on a good weekend training ride, you have likely depleted your glycogen stores, IF you started with your body fully fueled from the previous day’s training. If you started with a half empty tank, you could be feeling the symptoms of glycogen depletion half way through your ride unless you started eating early and often. THIS IS WHAT WE CALL BONKING!!!!

This knowledge can serve you very well.  If you start to realize the caloric expenditure for training rides you can be sure to fuel while you are riding to stay on top of your daily caloric needs and glycogen needs. Remember, the longer you train the LESS TIME you have to eat your calories off the bike.  Playing catch up can get very difficult off the bike when you are riding for 3-4 hour rides and burning over 2000 calories. Start eating while you’re training to be sure to meet your caloric needs. Also this will stop you from arriving home so hungry after a ride that you end up over eating. Often when we allow ourselves to get this hungry we will eat anything that comes into eye sight!! Not an intelligent idea!

Research indicates that you can fill your glycogen stores back up with 24 hours of rest and proper nutrition. Ideally before an event you would give yourself 48hours of rest and proper nutrition and try to super compensate, possibly getting a few more hundred calories of glycogen storage.

So what can you do to keep the stores topped up?

For starters it is important that your daily caloric intake is made up of 60% carbohydrates, 15% -20% protein and 20-25% fats.  Build a nutrition plan based on this premises. Carbohydrates are the main fuel source for endurance athletes.  On top of this there are some basic principles you can follow leading up to a race or good training session.

For every hour that you allow for digestion pre event, consume just under ½ gram carbohydrates per pound or 1g/kg. 

Example: 4hrs before would be 2g carbohydrates per lb or 4g/kg
130lb (2g)=260g carbohydrates   
260g = 1 bagel with peanut butter, smoothie (2cups rice milk, 1 banana, 1/2cup dry oats, 1cup   orange juice, 1 cup frozen strawberries)

Monday, April 18, 2011

Triathletes...A Power Meter for the Pool?

“Like a Power Meter for the Pool?  Will new swim training devices have a similar impact on swim training as Power Meters did on Cycling?”
By Coach Karen Mackin

When I first found out about two new downloadable performance monitors by Finis (Swimsense) and Swimovate (Poolmate Pro), I immediately thought wow!  Finally, I can see swim workouts like cycling workouts, track peak swim paces, and monitor performance as easily as I do for cycling!  I started wondering if these devices would do for swimming, what Power meters did for cycling.  On the one hand, skeptics bring up the fact that pool swimming is so consistent (going back and forth over the same exact course, and with a big Pace Clock at one end of the pool, they ask, what more do you need?   Well, for those who are “lap counting challenged”, the distance display on the watch certainly helps.   However, I feel that the real power behind them is two fold 1) simply having a detailed record of your true pace, times, stroke counts, distances, for all of your workouts and 2) post workout analysis by yourself and/or your coach.

Unfortunately, software lags hardware in this case, and while the watches collect a ton of very valuable information, currently software is playing catch up.    Training Peaks is in the process of integrating this data into their web based software, but as of this writing I am still waiting.  So, most of the analysis potential has yet to be tapped.   Currently, both company’s offer some rudimentary charts and graphs.  However, the flexibility to create your own graphs and charts can only be done by exporting to CSV (which both have) and utilizing spreadsheet charts (or some clever programming of your own).

Even without the advanced software, the raw data that these watches provide can be very useful. Since most swimmers do not have their own personal swim coaches on deck recording times and stroke counts, the only way to get the kind of detailed information needed to help in the following areas would be to use one of these watches.

Pacing:
  • How well do you pace your intervals?  Do you start out really fast and slow down, or always build your intervals.   When does your pace begin to drop or speed up?   Is it right at the end or early on?  Do you start out too fast? 
    • Sometimes a peak at the pace clock in the middle of a long hard interval is difficult or impossible and often not easy to remember the details even if you could take a peak. Perceived exertion can be very deceiving with the answers to these questions, HR data won’t provide the answer, only detailed lap splits can answer this.  So, unless your coach is on deck for all your workouts taking splits, you won’t get this kind of detailed information without a watch that provides durations for every 25!    Nailing your pacing on longer intervals can go a long way to improving the effectiveness of your workout.
Efficiency:
  • Are you improving your efficiency (getting more distance per stroke) over time, from one workout to the next, from last month to this month?   How consistent is your stroke rate or distance per stroke?   Does it improve or decline by swimming faster?  Is it the same at the beginning of your workout as it is at the end? 
    • Sure, you can spend sections of your workout focusing on this and counting and timing, but what happens when you are not focusing on it?   And, are you going to remember all the counts and times from one workout to the next without the detailed downloaded data?

Coach/Athlete communication:
  • Does your coach know exactly what you did in your swim workout?  
    • Sharing the details from your download with your coach is probably one of the best ways to enable your coach to stay on top of your swim times and paces, allowing him/her to better fine tune your swim training.

And when the software develops more fully, this list of benefits will grow as well.   I can see the day when I track peak swim interval times on a handy quick view chart and have accurate swim TSS scores to allow me to use the performance manager for season planning and monitoring.