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Millar on "Racing for the sake of racing"

There's an excellent interview of David Millar by Bill Strickland over on one of the Bicycling Mag blogs called "For the sake of racing." Strickland notes that the root of the word "amateur" is the same as the root word for love, and the two of them riff about how some pro cyclists still love the sport like amateurs. Says Millar:

I think I could go around and get quite a solid list of guys who love cycling in that pure way. Michael Barry, Flecha, Phillipe Gilbert — these are guys who are absolute fans of the sport and love it. Bike pervs. But we don’t talk about it much because maybe we think people don’t care, or it makes us a bit geeky compared to the sort of cool pros, or maybe we’re just never asked about it.

He talks also about how the style of racing has changed in the almost-sorta-kinda post-dope era. Guys can take chances again, since there isn't a whole squad of artificially inhuman guys in the pack waiting to squelch every move. We've seen that in our races - where a guy is stronger than the rest and can go early and make a move work. Millar says the same is true in the pro races now, yet most of the pros don't realize it, and racing is still largely formulaic based on tactics developed when everyone was on dope. It's an interesting insight, and it sounds like he's optimistic that racing will become genuinely exciting again.

He also makes a poignant comparison between this year's Flanders and the local amateur crit. He had buried himself most of the day when Farrar came up to him and said only "I've got 100 meters in me." Millar put him in position and Farrar crushed the field sprint to finish 5th:

He stuck to my wheel the last 2k or K and half, and he did it. Then sitting there together after the finish line, it may as well have been a junior race. Or a club race, an amateur club race. We had a real moment, sitting there. We’d just done Flanders and ripped Flanders to pieces at the end, but we were like club teammates who had just helped each other at the weekly race. It’s the same sensations! We were just fucking fucked gibbering, but it could have been at the local crit race, you’d still have the same thing.

I've never liked Millar - found his whole redemption shtick pretty glib. But the guy loves racing his bike. This interview made me a fan. Worth a look, for sure.

Power File 4.18.10: Carl Dolan Cat 3/4

I didn't work nearly as hard on Sunday at Carl Dolan as I did on Saturday at RGS Title Chantilly. It wasn't for lack of intention, but 124 other racers and a pesky yellow line made it hard for me to administer the hurt each time I wanted to. I ended up doing 266 watts NP for the race - 70 watts fewer than the day before.

As always, the team walked away with some new learning. We had a different strategy going into this one, and I was pleased with the way we worked together. We're very well attuned to each others' strengths and moves now. Unfortunately the bulging field and narrow course for this one made it hard to really be of use to each other. It was hard to move around the field with out being an overly aggressive asshat, and we have a pretty strict no-asshat policy on GamJams/Pre-Reg.com p/b Cutaway Clothing.

I also came away with some valuable individual lessons:

1. Mad Alchemy coffee flavored embrocation stains right through white panels on lycra bibs. Probably the coffee in it.
2. Pee first, embrocate second. Not the other way around. Trust me on this.

Race stats:
58:11 minutes
211 avg watts / 266 watts NP
Average speed: 25.8 mph
Maximum speed: 45.3 mph
Average wind speed: 15.8 mph

Power File 4.17.10: RGS Title Chantilly Crit, Cat 3 Race

45:48 minutes
25.6 mph average speed
299.9 avg watts
326 watts NP
Wind speed:
    15.4 mph minimum
    23.8 mph average
    42.7 mph maximum

As ever, the power graph for the race is inscrutable. 39 jumps above 600 watts, which is average. But my higher than normal average power came largely from longer sustained efforts on the front. Look at the HR (magenta) to see where I put in the work. It would have been a pretty easy race to sit in and wait for the sprint, but that's not really how we roll. We had a different plan. Turns out we weren't able to pull it off, but we learned a little more about working together. I'd rather come out of every race a little smarter about racing as a team but with meager results, than to do what each of us has always done individually and put more guys in the top 5. If we learn how to race as a team, we don't have to rely on the individual stars to win. If we get it right, the program creates winners out of whoever is in it.

Jorge from Artemis won, which is great. Big Jorge fan. I raced with him at Artemis for a couple years and it's gratifying to see an ex-teammate grab some glory. Andrew Bridges got a dozen more Cat 3 Cup points with his 2nd. Get that man some Pants.

Power File 4.15.10: Double-clutch sprints

In my mind, there are two kinds of workouts: Engine workouts, and Leg workouts. The engine work is LT and VO2 max stuff - the kind of work you can do back-to-back, or follow with just about any kind of workout you like. The Leg stuff is the anaerobic and neuromuscular work that leaves me fried the next day. Yesterday I did some of these - a double-clutch sprint workout. I've done almost no work at the very high end, but now that we're fully in crit season it seems about time.

I used to do my sprint work a little differently. I'd do 3 sets of 3, each starting at different speeds (17mph, 20mph, 23mph) and then jumping as hard as I could from there, for about 15 seconds. They were great for learning at what cadence I have the most accelerating power (about 120rpms) and at what cadence I'd spin out. This has helped me fine tune my sprint gear selections. I used to start in much too big a gear, never getting to the 120 rpms that kicks in the turbos.

Yesterday though I did them a little differently, with a little more specificity. I broke the sprints into three parts: Jump, follow, sprint. The first Jump is the acceleration you make to get on a wheel as it goes by before the leadout. I do these seated, ramping up to about 27mph - 30mph. Then I Follow by maintaining that speed for 5-15 seconds. Then the actual Sprint begins, where I get out of the saddle and go as hard as I can for another 15 seconds or so. The graph above shows the whole workout, and you can see the double-spikes in most (for a couple there were cars blocking my path so I couldn't do the Sprint part). Below you see a close-up of one of the efforts, with the first jump at about 1100 watts, hanging onto 500 watts for a stretch, and then the sprint at a 1000 watt spike. (The drop in power and cadence I can't explain - I think it's a data hiccup.)

You see the effort more clearly in the white/blue section, which is speed. From 15:25 - 15:30 I jump from 20 to 28mph, and I hang out there until 15:38. Then I begin my sprint, ramping up the speed again (despite what looks like 0 power and 0 cadence - maybe my powermeter maxes out at 1999 watts...)

The peak power for this workout is well below what I used to see when I would start from slower speeds and do the first (fresh) jump with everything I had, out of the saddle. It's very different to sprint from 27mph than it is from 23mph. And according to my workout file, I'm not as good at sprinting from 27mph, even though that's what I end up doing on game day. So I expect I'll do more of this workout in the future.

Power File 4.11.10: Tysons Corner Cat 3 Race

Technically it's not a power file since I took the power graph out of it - it looks too much like an EKG to be of any use. But if you look at the box on the top left of the image you can see the overall power data: NP of 296 for 1:03, for a TSS of 101.9 for the race. I gave it about all I had. Or rather, I gave it 1.9% more than I had. I mentioned previously that one of my intensity measures is how many times I jumped above 600 watts. Vint Hill was 33 times. Tysons was 61.

The bottom with the burnt orange is elevation. That's the course profile at Tysons. Magenta is HR, rising and falling along with the elevation, except for a couple of spots where I was in a break and drilling it on the downhill. 

The top graph is the interesting one. It's wheel speed relative to perceived wind speed. It shows you where I was drafting and where I was in the wind. If the blue is above the white line, I'm in the wind. If it's below, I'm in a draft. If you look at the heartrate aberrations - like at 11.5 miles, 14 miles, 20 miles and 22 miles - you'll see in the corresponding blue/white graph that they're explained by wind. If I'm in the wind, HR goes up. Duh, of course, but it's interesting to see it graphically.

Power File 4.7.10: PFPI

These are what Carmichael calls PFPI: Peak and Fade Power Intervals. I call them IPUF: Intense Pain Until Failure. The idea is that you jump hard as if you're trying to get a gap, and then hold on for two minutes as hard as you can go.

I did well with the "Peak" part of the interval, and I rock at the "Fade". But the "power" part of the Power Interval was a little wanting.

Power File 4.4.10: Team Ride

Half-team ride, anyway. Judd, Dave, Nate, Gus and myself followed the route of the route of the 10am for a fairly spirited 42-miler. 40 miles is just about right for me - any further and I'm conserving too much energy. Today I was able to go pretty hard whenever I needed or chose to. Usually it was "needed to," though I did stretch my legs on purpose at the Democracy sprint (which in typical fashion I did while remaining seated - I'm the laziest sprinter you've ever seen.) 

Some measure intensity by NP or TSS. I like to count the number of times I jump above 600 watts. This ride had 22. The Vint Hill race a couple weeks ago had 33. Last Sunday's 8:30am Bicycle Place ride had 39.

Tale of the tape:
Time: 2:13
NP: 265 Watts
TSS: 172.7

Power File 4.2.10: Hill on Wheels

3x each up Mountain Gate, Brickyard and Angler's hills. I intended to add 3x up Great Falls as well but there was construction on it. So I decided instead to TT back along Oaklyn, which I was able to do at about 90% of FTP for a minute and a half. Then I was done.