Carb Loading

I have never experimented with carb loading. From what I read, carb loading is mostly a myth and will often do more harm than good. I don't have any general philosophy on the matter, since I've never experimented with it myself. The upside is that it is supposed to work. The downside is that traditional carb loading procedures are brutal and Draconian. The good news is that you don't need to use the classical approach. The bad news is that if you do it wrong, you may just end up feeling fat & bloated by the end of the week.

If your event is less than 90 minutes, don't waste your time. Here are the 2 approaches that I would give some weight to:

One
In the week before your event, structure your exercise volume and carb intake accordingly:

• 7: 90 min (50% carbs)
• 6: 40-60 min (50% carbs)
• 5: 40-60 min (50% carbs)
• 4: 20-45 min (70% carbs)
• 3: 20-45 min (70% carbs)
• 2: 0-30 min (70% carbs)
• 1: Race (70% carbs)

Personally I don't think you should exercise every day leading up to a race. I also don't think you should take the day before off.

Two

• Workout the day before the event
• Moderate total time, ~60 min
• Do a short 2-3 min burst of ultra hard effort
• Rest as much as you can for the remainder of the day
• Eat a diet of 90% carbs

Good luck!

Morris Principles

Here are some notes drawn from the MTBR posts of a guy who goes by MTBDOC. I don't know who he is, but he apparently espouses a lot of the Dave Morris principles and has used him as a coach. The full version of his posts can be found here.

The Morris book can be found here.

My aim here is to put this in some kind of order as it pertains to a season plan. Any rough outline would be offseason, base, and season. This is very rough, but it gives you something all plans structure by. A lot of the thoughts presented in the raw link above are forum replies. So you don't get complete feel for the post he was replying to. In the end, this is one guy's perspective of a training philosophy. I think it's a good approach, since Morris essentially advocates reverse periodization as well as intervals year round, which fits in with my personal philosophy given time constraints and winter weather.

Weight Training
The details of weight training are left to the link above. I'm currently not a big believer in a rigorous weight routine at this stage. I believe my efforts are better directed at weight loss and riding through the winter right now. I do not plan to devote much time to resistance training this winter. I may do some work to help maintain weight and to switch things up. But it will not be the basis of my offseason biking plan.

An extensive description of the Morris offseason plan can be found here.

Base Training
Many of the base training concepts are old school. LSD rides are far from efficient in terms of getting the most out of your training time. Look for your base miles to be more race simulation, or at least race distance plus hard efforts. From where I'm sitting, my race distances are 24 hours. So this clearly doesn't apply. As much as I'd love to give a 24 hour winter event a shot, no such animal exists...thankfully. Having high intensity during high volume is ok as long as you can hit the duration targets. In fact, many riders compromise fitness gains by not having some intensity. Interval work is beneficial year round, short and long sessions.

In going forward with this, many of the workouts are going to be intervals. Morris preaches block training, and pure block training some of the time, specifically as his program moves from weights to the bike. The goal is to maintain your speed/effort/power throughout the interval. It will often feel easy (relative) at the start, then deadly at the end. You get the most effect this way. Your rest is easy, make that EASY. It's all about recovery. This goes for between intervals, between sets, and on your rest days. When called for, you need proper rest to make solid gains. Morris is all about hard work combined with hard rest.

The structure of your intervals is a personal thing, like the number of reps and sets, as well as the duration of the second/third day of a block. This will take some time to work out through trial and error. Truly structured intervals should probably be done on a trainer. There are so many outside variables that maintaining your environment is difficult if not impossible. Plus, on a trainer you get the most benefit in the least amount of time. Having said that, you don't want to make it harder than it needs to be. I personally find intervals much easier on the flat roads.

So the general plan is such:

• Weight/resistance training
• High power, short range intervals
• Aerobic endurance base (volume) with periodic high sustainable power for 4 weeks
• Moderate duration intervals, VO2max, 2-6min range, 20-40m of work per session, 4 weeks (early March)
• LT intervals, 8-15m range, work:rest=2:1

At a higher level, you want to do high intensity, then power, then endurance.

I doubt I will ever follow this plan. It still suffers from the problem that your aerobic endurance base will be in February. I'm not doing 3 hour rides routinely in February, neither indoors nor outdoors. Maybe I occasionally catch a break and get out on an epic ride when the weather is a balmy 40 degrees. But I'm not packing in 3+ hours when it's 8 degrees out. It should also be noted again that this is just one guy's version of how to use these methods. The following will be presented from short duration to longer duration.

Interval Notes

• Shorter intervals build VO2max power.
• For LT intervals, you don't need as much rest, maybe 2:1 work:recovery, up to 5-7 min.
• To develop the ability to make & sustain power above LT, it requires a fair amount of volume at that intensity.
• High power (anaerobic) intervals are done to develop power.
• After the high power phase, you want to sustain it for large periods (first make, then maintain).
• You can add sprints to the beginning of a workout, ME/LT to the end.

Short duration stuff.
Maximum force generation needs a lot of short efforts, on the order of 10-20 seconds. Your rest between efforts can vary between 20 and 60 seconds. Try something like this:

• 10 secs seated, as hard as possible, 60 sec rest
• Do 4 reps, with an easy 5 min between sets
• Do 3-5 sets
• Another day do 20 secs on, 20 secs rest
• This can be done along with high volume training (ie, this does not necessarily need to be done in a block)
  

Anaerobic capacity/tolerance
Anaerobic capacity/tolerance is trained by doing hard efforts with insufficient recovery to "restock" energy substrates (ATP, creatine phosphate, lactic acid). These are hard efforts at greater than 120% of LT power.

• Shoot for a pace that gets hard in 1 minute
• Recover 1 minute
• Do 6 reps
• For the next set try 30 secs of rest

Moderate Length Intervals, VO2max
The best way to build power output is to focus on moderate length intervals in the 2-6 minute range with a 1:1 work:rest ratio, say 6x4:4. These are most beneficial in 2 day blocks, with the second day often being a lower duration that the first day, say 6x3:3 or 8x2:2. This is essentially the first step "in season" for the typical Morris Plan user and is what I plan on starting with in January 2007. The overall structure (macrocycle) is going to be something like this:

• week1: 2on, 2off, 2on, 1off
• week2: 2on, 2off, 1on, 2off
• week3: repeat week1
• week4: 2off, spin, 5x1:2, 3off

You'll note here that this is pure block training, and that there are no weekend rides in this mix. This is going to be in the January time frame, when temperature is often measured in the single digits. At the end of this pure block, you will (theoretically) see huge power gains. After this Morris suggests another pure block of LT intervals in the 8-12 minute range.

Moderate Length, VO2max, in season
The above is a pure block which is how the Morris Plan season starts. When in season - usually March or later - you're not going to forsake all other training for a single energy system. So you need to work in race simulation rides or endurance rides on the weekend. Here is a sample guide for how to work that into a mixed schedule.

• Mon: 5x3:3
• Tue: rest
• Wed: 6x3:3
• Thu: 6x2:2 (slightly faster than 3:3)
• Fri: rest
• Sat: Race simulation/endurance
• Sun: Race simulation/endurance

It's not required to ride on both weekend days, but you should be riding one or the other. Monday will hurt more if you ride on Sunday. Saturday will probably hurt a bit if you pull a race simulation that day. Keep the total workout time under 30 min, and as usual, keep the workout at a speed where you can barely finish the last one. Over time, you can bump these times up to 4-5-6 minutes, though that begs the question about what energy system you're actually working. At times I think a lot of this gets caught up in too much terminology and levels and whatnot, which leads the potential training rider to throw it all out the window and just go ride.

The following 2 weeks, add a rep to each of the interval days, if you can. On the 4th week - or the rest week - do something like this:

• Mon: rest
• Tue: rest
• Wed: 5x1:2
• Thu: rest
• Fri: rest

Then you can pick it up from there. This is one sample recovery week, which I don't specifically use. I would do an easy hour ride on Tuesday and the 5x1:2 ride on Thursday, then on Saturday I would do a 1-2 hour ride with some intensity to get myself ready for a harder ride on Sunday. I would also up the carb intake a little on Saturday to make sure the muscles are ready to go the following day. This overall scheme can be used for any in-season block training.

LT work
For either a pure or in-season block, you can use the guides as outlined above. The duration of these intervals is much higher than the higher power intervals. In the Morris Plan, a pure block of this follows the initial pure block of VO2max work. Then you get into more mixed work in March. These intervals are at a lower power, and they need less recovery. As the season winds on, you'll be doing 20+ minute reps, where a 1:1 work:rest isn't necessary. In general, 5-7 min rest should be sufficient.

To start, shoot for intervals in the 8 minute range, and do 2-3 reps. You probably want to keep the early season stuff around 20-30 min of total work. After that, you can progress to 8-10-12-15-20 min reps. Ultimately you'll be doing 2x20:5 sessions as your LT work later in season.

Conclusion
There is no conclusion, this is just a way to separate the final comments from the last section. These are snippets of the Morris Plan as yanked from some guy's postings on a message board. You may or not may agree with them. They may or may not work for you. You may or may not be better off getting the book from Morris. Mine is on order, so I'll see what I think of all of this after I read it. Essentially, there's a lot of information out there, and this is one of many ways to approach your training. Coggan is another, as is Friel, Burke, and Carmichael. If you put them all in a pot and boil them down, you'll probably have one hell of a confused view of things. I know I do. That's the main reason I've put together these pages at all, so I can make heads or tails of all of this.

Testing

Testing is a fairly important part of training for 2 reasons. The first being that you need to determine your power/hr zones through a test. The second is that it confirms your training is working. From an idealist point of view, if you have a plan and stick to it, your training will work and there's no need to verify it. Also, with a lot of trail and error, you can get the workout zones without a formal test. But in reality, testing covers these issues a lot more efficiently and without the blind faith.

For any test, you should perform it when rested and keep variables as consistent as possible. For instance, always do a test on a Saturday at the end of your rest week, at 9:00 am with the same breakfast, a full night sleep, same warmup, etc.

LT Test
The standard test to find your LT can be found here. Essentially you "should" be able to ride at your LT for 60 minutes. Since this is painful, a 20-30 minute test is much easier. With experience, you'll know when you're getting close to your LT and testing will become less formal. This test is what Friel uses in his plans.

3 mile
Carmichael uses a 3 mile time trial to determine your various zones. Regardless of your using this method, it's not a bad idea to mark off a 3 mile course and test yourself on it occasionally. If you're recreational, the Mendoza Line is 10 minutes. If you're a racer, it's 8 minutes. Beating the 8 minute mark puts you in the advanced-intermediate category of riders.

Make It Up
There's no reason you can't make it up as you go along. I have a short 13 mile loop I occasionally use for recovery rides which loops around the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. I use this as a metric to test where I'm at. There are other common loops I ride which I check as the season goes on. Some are hill rides, some are 30-40 miles. Some are nothing more than how I feel on a particular off-road ride.

Or make up whatever you think works for you. The LT test is a good "industry standard" to go by. On top of that, there are any number of things you can do to measure your progress, even if it's nothing more than comparing this year's race results with last year's.

Goals & Events

It's probably important to have goals & events in mind when you set out to train on your bike. In addition to a yearly plan which lays out specific cycles, ramps, rests, and peaks, goals and events allow you to have some tangible mark to shoot for at the end of the road and/or period. Personally, I'm always trying to lose weight. But I don't consider that a goal, per se. It's more of a side benefit of what I do. Given that so many people are trying to lose weight, I figure I'd mention that I don't think weight loss is a viable goal in terms of why you might be doing 60 second intervals which make you want to puke at the end.

Anyway...I believe it's important to set goals and to be tough on yourself in trying to attain them. At the same time you need to know yourself and your limits. If you're just starting out it's not a good idea to jump right into trying to do the RAAM. Set realistic goals, ride in events which stretch or test your goals, have a plan, and be smart about how you put it all together.

Above all else, you need to have fun. Don't get me wrong, I'm not so delusional to think that riding in a 24 hour event isn't somewhat painful - it certainly is. But you need to be able to come up for air now and again and realize that a lot of what you do is fun as hell. If you're not having fun some of the time, then you need to reassess your plan, your goals, and the events you do.

So ok, this entry really doesn't have much meat other than to say, you need goals and events. So there you have it. Find some goals and events.

Designing a Training Plan

At a certain point you're going to hear the expression "training plan" enough to decide for yourself that you need to have one. A training plan is not, IMO, something you go out and pick up at the food store. Sure, there are any number of websites selling training plans but unless you get an online coach with your plan, you're going to end up asking more questions than you answer. Eventually you'll put together enough information where you can cobble together a rough outline of what your season should look like.

To start you probably want to read the following links first:

• Periodization & Reverse Periodization
• Energy Systems
• Block Training
• Morris Principles

When you've digested all of that, you may be ready to either put together your own training plan or throw it all out the window and just go ride. Personally, I'm still debating. But for the time being let's assume I'm actually going to work with a plan. Here are some things I might consider when I do that.

• Your plan would normally have macro & micro cycles.
  
• You may want to have macro & micro goals
• Every workout should have an objective
• The more specific your goals, the better/smarter you can train
  

At this point I think you need to work with a spreadsheet or create a chart to go further. I basically got the idea from Friel where you break down the year on a week-by-week basis. Most of my spreadsheet columns are different than Friel. I use week, race, focus, score, and long ride. This is specific to how I train and I highly recommend that anyone designing their own plan do the same.

My columns are as such:

• week is the Monday of the week in question
• race is any ride/race I might do that week
  
• focus is where I'm directing my efforts for that period
• score is TSS (training stress score) for the week
  
• long ride is my longest ride of the week

You may want to pause at this point and take a look here. This is a training plan for long-distance riding. You may find this is all you need to go forward with the season. I like to be more detailed and specific to what I think works for me. As long as you have some plan, you should see improvement in your performance. You may want to tweak as the season progresses, or as you enter a new year.

Assuming you want to go forward with designing your own plan, and you have some sort of spreadsheet or chart to work with that encompasses what you want to focus on, I will now lay out how I am going forward with my training plan for 2007. This is how I plan to tackle the season for 2007. Since I've never actually run through a season before, you can assume that there will be changes along the way. But we're in October now, so what we have here is the basis for how to approach next year.

Step 1

You need to put dates in your spreadsheet. For 2007 I'm starting with October 30, 2006. Biking seasons do not begin and end when Dick Clark says. So we mark the start of next season with the end of this one, which is roughly the end of October. In the first date cell, enter 10-30-06 and in the one below it enter 11-06-06. Then highlight both boxes and pull down the square in the lower right corner so Excel fills in all the dates through 11-05-07.

Step 2

Enter your races/events in the race column. Enter anything that you might be interested in doing. You can (and should) put in any major group rides or riding vacations/tours/etc that you might want to make note of in your training. Highlight the primary races in bold. This way you know where your targets are. General practice is to not mark any more than 3 as primary. Anything else you train through, or use as experiments. If you have more than one potential event for any given week, enter them both.

Score is filled out as the season goes so leave that blank for now.

Step 3

Training focus for me starts on the first week. It is "Weight loss, Enjoy." I plan on riding through the fall and enjoying things a little more than you might during the season. Since weight loss equals better performance, it's pretty integral. I may also lift some weights in here but nothing lower body and only because it makes me feel better and burn calories. But this is not a bike training tool I subscribe to. So it's not part of my "plan" per se.

On Jan 1 I add a pure block of L5, then on Jan 29 I add a pure block of L4. This is what I would call the preseason. I probably won't do much, of any, outdoor riding during this time of year. So this is when I start hammering out the block training following the Morris philosophy. After these 8 weeks, the season starts.

My first target event is the week of May 28, which is a 12 hour race. So I have 3 periods to build up to that. Each period is a 4 week block with a rest week at the end. The first period will be L3 on Feb 26, followed by L5 on Mar 26, and L4 on Apr 23. These are all mixed blocks. The L3 I'm pretty sure about. The L4 and L5 are still up in the air. I may toss in shorter blocks, or I may work on mixed blocks, or I may do something completely different. Either way I will be riding off-road on weekends as well as building my endurance. Nothing in season is pure for me.

The weeks before and after the event are Peak and Transition. Peaking is covered in another blog entry. I'm not entirely sure what works in terms of peaking. I have a lot to learn in that regard. Transition means taking it easy for a week and allowing your body to detox from the event of the previous week.

After the transition I have 2 periods, L5 on Jun 11 and L4 on Jul 9, then a week of mixed work on Aug 6. I very well may alternate L4 and L5 for 4 weeks, then do a 5 week L3 block leading up to the 24 hour race, the second target event of the year on Aug 20. Add in the standard peak-race-transition around the race and you're left with only a handful of weeks before the last event.

There are 6 weeks between my second and third target events, which will be transition, mixed work for 4 weeks, then peaking. After the last target I work on enjoyment and whatnot.

Step 4

Now I need to figure out how to ramp up my long rides on a week-by-week basis. Leading up to the first event, the 12 hour ride, my rides look like this (in hours): 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 6, 12. There's really not a lot of peaking going on with the 6-6-12 combo, so that middle 6 may change to a 3 or a 4. That's a peaking detail I need to work out. Some say that for these kinds of rides riding through it is better. We'll see. I may also be asking too much of myself to do block training as well as this hefty amount of hours. Again, learning experience so we'll see.

Leading up to the 24 we get a similar build: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 6, 24. Again, that last 6 may turn into something smaller. And the 8 in there represents a training mark to try and hit as a confidence builder and final run to make sure you're all set to go. I'll have the previous 12 to go by, so it's probably not as crucially important.

Leading up to the final event, a 50k race, the long rides look a lot smaller: 2, 2.5, 2.5, 3, 3, 3.5, 4. The 4 is the target event here, or so we hope after all this planning.

Step 5

Be flexible, things will likely change. Also you have to realize that any training in the season means you have L2 and L3 rides on almost all weekends. Similarly, you need to work L7 into the mix, which is usually done on the trail as you need. You can also work on some of that in the beginning of any workout.

Notes

• If time is limited, workouts should look more like race simulations
• Your score needs to ramp up as the year/block goes on.
  
• Your score needs to be lower in those rest weeks.
• Once every 14-21 days, push your limits.

Conclusion

I think the planning of a season is highly personal. If you're totally clueless you can try Friel, who sets out a fine outline but does nothing with reverse periodization nor block training. So for me I'm not really interested in that approach. Or you can check out the link above, which is a nice classic training plan. Or you can get yourself an online coach. Or you can wing it, a plan which has gotten a lot of people basically nowhere over the years. Having some sort of structure is good, and ramping up to a peak is what all of the plans you pay for will have you do.

In the end, the priority is to have fun. Plan on enjoying it all and you probably will.

Specific Workouts

A lot of what's on this site is observation, theory, and planning. But when the day rolls around, you have to get on the bike and do something. This is the big transition from "just riding" to riding with a purpose. This page is a list of various workouts you can use to hit the different levels of intensity. It is a good idea to read the Energy Systems link first, and then maybe the Block Training link as well. If you don't use the same system (Coggan) I use to label these workouts, it's going to be hard to follow.

These are organized by the Coggan levels as described in the Energy Systems link. The HR and Power numbers can be found there.

L1: Active Recovery
Active recovery is basically a rest day. You can choose to ride really slowly, or not ride at all. If you do ride, you should keep your HR low. We're talking a Sunday cruise in the neighborhood, maybe with the family. Your feet are feathers on the pedals. If you can't do this, take the day off.

• 30-90 minutes, 90-95rpm, generally flat course, small chain ring
• Active recovery is useful in all periods, save for offseason.

L2: Endurance
Endurance, or LSD rides. A lot of time spent in the saddle. Don't mistake these rides for 3-5 hours of nothing but spinning your legs at a moderately low HR. You can (and should) add some intensity to these rides because it keeps you from going crazy and it's more realistic.

• 2+ hours, moderate intensity
• ...or, 2+ hours with 10 second bursts (@130rpm) every 10 minutes
• ...or, 2+ hours with some hills, some extended runs, but of moderate intensity/duration
• You need to be able to hit your endurance goals
• The road bike is better for these rides
• Duration is usually goal/event appropriate
• These rides are done all year round

L3: Tempo
Tempo rides are like endurance rides but ramped up on the intensity. These tend to be longer, but not of endurance length. You can also throw intensity into these rides. Fartlek workouts are usually done at Tempo pace. Recreational rides should be able to do Tempo rides of 45 minutes.

• up to 2 hours at target HR
• ...or, 40 min, 20 min low cadence, 40 min, 20 min high cadence
• ...or, a typical fartlek workout, with no stops
• These rides are done all year round.
• As the season goes on, the L3 workouts should increase in length
• At your peak, 2 hours at L3 is outstanding

L4: LT
LT workouts are usually in the realm of 8-20 minutes, with some people pushing this limit to 40. LT workouts are used to push the limits of your lactic tolerance, so you can exercise at a higher intensity without having lactic acid buildup rapidly. The basic workout for this level is 2x20:5. That means 2 reps of 20 minutes with 5 minutes rest between. This is where you start to see (what I call) the "goofy" workouts, from L4 up to L7. Some of the workouts are so mixed with zones and levels and sprints and cadence that you need an IRS agent to help work out the details of what you should do. These are all variants of the very basic, very standard interval.

• 2x8:5. This is where you start the season, at 8 minute intervals. Work to 20 as the season progresses.
• ...or, 3x20:5. As the season progresses, you can try to add a 3rd rep to the standard 2x20 set.
• ...or, 2x20:5 then 8-10x1:2. This is late season stuff.
• 3-5x6-12:5. Another variation on the same theme. More early season stuff to break up the work into more reps.
• 20-40 minutes alternating between L4 and L5 every 3-5 minutes. Late season work.
• Set your HRM limits to LT-8 and LT+6. Increase your speed to the upper alarm, then decrease to the lower alarm. Do this every 2 minutes. Extend the time you can maintain this as the season goes on.
• 2-4x8-20:5 long, steady hill climbs @ 70-85rpm (can also be done with lower rpm for force/muscle tension work)

L5: VO2max
This is where the workouts really start to hurt. Anything you can only do for 3-8 minutes at a time necessarily hurts for a good part of the time spent doing it. While this zone is defined as 3-8 minute intervals, the workouts are almost always 3-5 minutes. Remember, the idea is to do the interval at a constant pace, and to be able to finish all your reps. Work:Rest is generally 1:1 in this level.

• 4x3:3. This is your season starting L5 workout
• 6x5:5, 2 sets. This is later season. Progress from the above to this as the season progresses.
• 6x3:3, rest 5 min, 4x2:4
• Intervals of 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5, 7 minutes with 5 minutes rest between, rest, 2x3:5
• A pyramid variation of above with intervals of 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1. rest=work. This crosses into L6.
• 3-8 reps of a moderately steep hill. Enter the hill & pick up speed. Shift up, jump, explode to the top in the last minute.
• ...and so on. There are an infinite series of possible combinations, all of them hurt.

L6: Anaerobic Capacity
Like L5, these workouts also hurt. They range from 30 sec to 3 min. More often than not you'll see a standard set in the realm of 1 minute intervals. IME, these are a lot harder to get right, because they're so short. Go too easy and the interval is useless. Too hard and it's impossible to finish. As with all of this, you need to work it out a few times before you really get it right. The first few times you do these you will feel like crap.

• 8x2:2, rest, 8x1:3
• 3x2:1, rest, 3x30s:1m
• Hill repeats, 1-3 min climbs seated (gears change according to aims)
• Short loop off-road course with several tight turns. 6-9 sprints of 1 minute each.
• 60-50-40-30-20 seconds descending. Equal rest. Finish with 2-4x30:30.
• ...and so on, again. Start with smaller total work time at the start of the season and progress up.

L7: Neuromuscular Power
These are sprints, which are generally worked on year round and at the beginning of a workout.

• 6xsmall ring, wind it out to 120 rpm, rest, 3xbig ring, wind it out, rest, 3xbig ring, wind it out
• 2x10m of 15s on, 15s off, rest between sets
• 6-10x10s all out, full rest between
• 3-5 sets of 5 jumps, concentrate on explosive power, each jump is 10-12 revolutions
• 8-12 hill sprints, 8-10s in duration

Other Workouts
These workouts don't really fit anywhere in the above. So they go in the "other" category.

• Isolated leg work, trainer, 80-100 rpm, low gear, concentrate on smooth pedaling
• Off-road skills practice (bunny hop, wheelies, balance, slalom cornering)
• Race simulation, targets all energy systems
• 10-20 minute off-road time trial loops, 4 sets, try to lower time each loop

Billat Intervals
These are supposed to be intense, I've never done them. She claims there is no improvement if done more than 1 time per week. She also claims there is a 3-6% improvement over 4 weeks. In order to keep this working, you need to retest yourself every 6-8 weeks.

The test:

• Warm up for 30 minutes
• Start going at 12.5 mph
• Every 2 minutes, add 1-1.5 mph to your speed.
• Continue until you have to slow down, or cannot accelerate anymore
• The last speed you could maintain for 2 minutes is your VO2maxSpeed

Rest for 48 hours then do the second part of the test:

• Warm up for 30 minutes
• Ride the same course you did the above test on
• Get up to the VO2maxSpeed you found above, via rolling start
• Time how long you can maintain this speed
• This is your timVO2max, on average this is 4 minutes

A 30-30 session:

• alternate 30s@100% VO2maxSpeed with 30s 50% VO2maxSpeed
• repeat for a total time of 1.5*timVO2max

A 2km session:

• ride 2km@100% VO2maxSpeed
• recover for the same time @50%
• total time of work=2*timVO2max

Power, Heart Rate, RPE

This is a big question. How do I train? What system do I use to structure my workouts? Do I just go out and ride, or do I use one of the standard metrics to gauge my daily workout? This is a tricky area, one where you will never get a unanimous answer for. Your options are 4:

1. Heart rate monitor (HRM)
2. Power meter (PM)
3. Rate of perceived exertion (RPE)
4. Nothing

I own an HRM that I don't use all the time. I wish I owned a PM (too expensive). I sometimes use RPE. On my weekend off-road ride, I use nothing, though it could be argued that I inherently use RPE since I know myself well enough at this stage to gauge my level of effort.

What's the difference between RPE and nothing? Well, RPE is a skill where you can tell how hard you're riding based on experience. If you're reading this you're not experienced enough to use RPE. Don't delude yourself, you're not the exception to this rule. Despite the fact that RPE has been shown to be highly accurate, you don't know how to use it, for now.

That's not to say that you couldn't learn in a short time. But unless you've been inwardly focusing for a good long time, RPE is not going to be that accurate for now. And if you're reading this at all, chances are that doesn't describe what you do when you ride. So what to do?

Heart Rate
Heart rate is probably the best way for a beginner to pick up the whole concept. An HRM is fairly inexpensive and allows you to really get a feeling for how your efforts correspond to your RPE. If you've been riding for a long time it can still help, but it probably won't be as beneficial. Still, HR allows you to put a cap on your efforts, especially for the long ones. Even those who have gone to power often still collect HR data.

Power
If you have the money go buy yourself a power meter. It's the so-called wave of the future and when a moderately reliable mid-range model comes out ($500 range), I'll probably get one. Power allows you to exactly measure what output you can maintain for how long. Software packages have made it a lot easier to sort out the data. Those who have converted to power never go back.

RPE
As mentioned before, RPE has been shown to be highly accurate. But you need to be in tune with yourself and it takes hard work as well as experience. This is a very cheap way to train and it allows you to not get caught up in the numbers. For my LT intervals, I'll put on my HRM and go. But for longer rides or shorter intervals, I leave the HRM at home and do my best with RPE.

Nothing
Just get out and ride. Good advice, but it only goes so far. If you use this technique you're probably not going to make huge strides in your biking. You'll feel better at the end of every season and then gain 10+ pounds and start all over when spring rolls around. This is great if it's your thing. But if you want to make gains and keep them over the winter, you'll need to be more dedicated than that.

What you choose is up to you, your wallet, and your aims. There is no right answer. But if you want to see sustainable growth you need to do more than just go out and ride your bike. If you want to structure a program it's going to help if you have some power or HR or at least RPE framework to exist in. Any book you buy will break down workouts by these parameters.

Energy Systems & Target Workouts

This is one of those crucially important concepts which borders on being overly obsessive. It's an interesting aspect, the one of energy systems. On one hand, in order to train thoroughly and efficiently, you need to identify and address these energy systems. On the other hand, you can go way overboard, and feel overwhelmed by all of this information. So what to do?

To start, you need to simplify. There's always room to expand and learn more later. But to start you need to quantify the energy systems at a very basic level. So let's break down the energy systems:

1. Your body
   

That's it. When you get on the bike, all you have to rely on is your body. No matter how convoluted these discussions get, remember that it's all about you getting on the bike and riding. The rest? Details. Ok, so let's take it one step further. Give me 3 energy systems:

1. ATP - extremely short duration, in the order of 10 seconds
   
2. Aerobic - the long stuff, where your body learns to burn fat as an energy source
   
3. Anaerobic - the shorter stuff, primarily carbs used as fuel. Hill climbs.
   

This combination gets you a start, but this is really the beginner view of things. Ignoring ATP, you'll never be completely aerobic or completely anaerobic. There's always a mix of the 2 systems. But this still isn't really enough. You need to break it down a little bit more.

At this point, every expert has their own system they use. There are the 5 HR zones. Friel uses something like 7 HR and power zones. Coggan uses 7 power zones. Carmichael doesn't break down his work by zone, per se. He sort of lives outside the box with his recommendations. For my purposes I have started using the Coggan zones. Yes, they are based on power. And no, I do not own a power meter. His array is complete enough that I think you can get by using these 7 levels.

For a thorough explanation, you can look at Coggan's intro to power PDF here.

The part we're interested in is Table 1, page 17. This breaks down the training levels from 1-7, which is what I use. I'll leave the details of that table to the PDF linked above, but will briefly summarize them here, with rate of perceived exertion (RPE) listed on a scale of 1-10.

1. L1/Active Recovery. RPE 2. Easy spinning.
2. L2/Endurance. RPE 2-3. All day pace, regular breathing.
3. L3/Tempo. RPE 3-4. Spirited group ride, halting conversation.
4. L4/LT. RPE 4-5. 10-30 minute blocks, conversation difficult.
5. L5/VO2max. RPE 6-7. 3-8 minute blocks, conversation not possible.
6. L6/Anaerobic Capacity. RPE 7+. 30 sec-3 min intervals.
7. L7/Neuromuscular Power. RPE max. Super intense.
   

If you're not familiar with this stuff (and training in general) you're probably going to be surprised to realize most of your rides are in the L2-L3 area, with the occasional foray into L5 and L6. L4 is usually too hard to maintain for the prescribed times unless you push yourself, and L7 is usually avoided in order to not blow up. One of the things breaking it all down does is show how much room there is for improvement.

So these levels are all based on some scale, where Coggan uses power. The reality is that the top of one level will always meet the bottom of another level. So L3max and L4min is essentially the same thing. This is the same with any system, and gets at the heart of the fact that these are all approximations in order to help you train better. To that end, the aims of each system is described by its name. Here are more comments as I perceive them:

• L1 is all about recovery. If you choose to take the day off instead of riding, then you will never be in L1.
• L2 is for everyone. Everyone spends time in L2 since this is where most people naturally default to. It is important to realize that this level does not stress the body enough to cause significant aerobic gains. It helps you in other ways such as saddle readiness and energy expenditure (fat versus glycogen).
  
• L3 is tempo, which is probably as accurate as you'll get in terms of a name. These are where your real aerobic gains are made. Your body learns to store more muscle glycogen when you do big tempo blocks. This is a key area for the endurance athlete.
• L4 is where you get into your LT training, where you increase the level you can ride at before lactic acid builds up and stops you. LT Training is one of the most important areas for training gains. The standby here is 2x20:5.
  
• L5 is where you increase your VO2max, which gets you over your LT. This is in the realm of anaerobic training and gets you into the painful category of training. This introduces you to the ability to clear lactic acid. 6x5:5.
  
• L6 is also anaerobic, pushing your limits there. This is generally combined with L5 when you get into block training. 10x1:1.
  
• L7 is sprinting. This is a very specific area that most people (who train) train all year round. 10x10:60.
  

In terms of block training, it will be most common to block L4 and then L5/L6. L7 is done year round. L3 and L2 are done on weekend during the season. And L1 is a recovery ride. Anything more than that is overkill, IMO. Or maybe you just have that much time on your hands. I personally subscribe to block training, and if you were to block L3, L4, L5, L6, and L7, you would lose your L3 gains by the time you got done with L7. So by boiling it down to L4 and L5/6, you can block train and keep all energy systems sharp as the season wears on.

By combining L5 and L6, we're essentially doing blocks that decrease in length by day. So if you do 5min Monday, you can shoot for 4min Tuesday, and 3min Wednesday. Or you can do 5-4-1, or 5-3-1.

Friel

For those of you who favor Friel, I have attempted to break down his areas and match them to Coggan's levels. But first it's worth looking at Friel's areas of concentration. Friel uses 3 basic abilities and 3 higher abilities. Endurance, force, and speed are basic. Muscular endurance, anaerobic endurance, and force are higher. You start the season with the basics:

• Endurance. The ability to delay/reduce the onset of fatigue. The basis of everything. This teaches you to conserve glycogen and burn fat.
• Force. The ability to overcome resistance, or the amount of pressure you can apply to the pedals. This is an extension of resistance training for Friel.
• Speed. The ability to move quickly/efficiently/smoothly at high cadence, and to negotiate terrain quickly without wasted motion.
  

After this, he advocates adding some muscular endurance, then the other 2 higher abilities:

• Muscular Endurance. The ability to maintain a high load for a long time. This is a combination of endurance and force. Friel contends that this is the critical ability for mountain bikers.
  
• Anaerobic Endurance. This is the ability to resist fatigue when effort and cadence are high. This improves your ability to clear lactic acid. This is a combination of endurance and speed.
• Power. The ability to apply maximum strength. This is force plus speed.
  

Friel contends that the longer races favor the basic abilities. He also contends that Anaerobic Endurance and Power are not terribly important for endurance racers. I highly disagree. If you cannot efficiently navigate the tough climbs and technical spots, you'll be burning matches when the aim is to save as many as you can.

Here is how I perceive the Friel areas correspond to the Coggan levels:

• Active Recovery = L1
• Endurance = L2/L3
  
• Force = L6 (lower cadence)
  
• Speed = L6/L7 (higher cadence)
  
• Muscular Endurance = L4
  
• Aerobic Endurance = L5/L6
• Power = L7

This isn't a perfect match, especially since Speed and Power are both in the L7 range. But it works well enough. I think Friel gets into areas geared for the weight lifter. Force, for instance, is a direct offspring of the resistance training he advocates in the offseason. Force workouts are dropped after the base periods in the Friel plan.

Periodization, Reverse Periodization

Periodization gets into an area of training where you not only adopt the philosophy that every ride has a purpose, but these rides combine to form a bigger plan where you obtain a peak of fitness targeting a certain event. The idea is that you break your year/season up into periods which lead up to a peak. The general approach is something like base, build, peak, race, transition, offseason.

The wikipedia definition can be found here. To better follow some of the ideas here it is a good idea to read the Energy Systems link first.

Friel uses the classic approach as such:

• Prep. Late fall through early winter. 3-8 weeks in general. This consists of resistance training, cross training, and some bike training.
• Base. There are 3 sub-periods in the Base of 3-4 weeks each. The focus is basic abilities. Muscular endurance is introduced in base2 and the focus in base3.
• Build. There are 2 sub-periods in the Build of 3-4 weeks each. The focus here are the higher abilities while maintaining the basic abilities.
• Peak. 1-2 weeks where you taper/sharpen.
• Race. 1-3 weeks where you cash in, but lose fitness in the process.
• Transition. 1-4 weeks, take a break, active recovery.

Carmichael has a similar approach:

• Foundation. A 16 week base where you work on your aerobic engine, strength training, and pedaling mechanics. Carmichael does not believe endurance and resistance training mix well.
• Prep. This is where intensity & volume increase. Sustainable power @ LT is a focus, obtained by doing frequent & long intervals @ LT. Work can be 2 or 3 days in a row, but you need to increase recovery time (block training). These workouts need to be done at intensity, just below your actual LT.
• Specialization. Your goal is in this period. Here you focus on race specific elements & high-end energy systems, high intensity, and lower volume (this assumes non-endurance events). Workouts are full throttle and there is plenty of active recovery. Your aerobic conditioning may suffer here, so you can throw in a few weeks of endurance to maintain that.
• Peak. A time of unloading and & supercompensation, really just an extension of specialization.

As you can see, there's really not much difference between these 2 plans. They start slow, ramp up, then focus as the event draws near. This is in agreement with the traditional periodization schemes used for decade.

Reverse Periodization

But many people, including myself, believe this structure is outdated and less practical. First of all, you should never take the offseason off. So you should never need to start each year like you're never ridden before. Thus, base rides with little intensity are a waste of precious training time. Secondly, how do you start your season in January with long, steady rides? For those of us in the winter locales, this isn't practical. Finally, doesn't it make some sense to build up the higher skills then go for long rides which tax all of these higher skills while working on increasing your endurance? Indeed, and thus we have reverse periodization.

This is where you want to make sure you've reviewed the Energy Systems link. We're basically focusing on 2 of the higher energy systems to start the season, VO2max (L5/L6) and LT (L4). These are the 2 most important energy systems a rider can focus on. Dave Morris (see Morris Principles) advocates this as well, so far as I can tell. These are general thoughts on reverse periodization.

First start off with a pure block (see Block Training) of VO2max (L5/L6) work. This will help you build the power you need to successfully ride for longer durations. This may very well be the single most important energy system in terms of focus and block training. After the VO2max block do an LT (L4) block, again pure. In season, some LT work can be tacked on to VO2max days, but the reverse is less productive as the L5/L6 work suffers when done tired.

After these 2 weeks you get more into "in season" riding, where you go for long rides on the weekends. You basically want to start these in March and do them once a weekend. You can also tack endurance time onto the end of the VO2max intervals if you so desire. I prefer to keep it for the weekends. You should also start hard group or off-road rides around the same time, once a week.

Now you're at a point where you've built up some power with VO2max and LT work, and you're working it into your season plan by using those abilities in your hard group rides or off-road rides. You're also working on endurance with a long weekend ride. After some time of this, you should start to swap out some of those endurance rides with L3 rides. Or you can reverse the order you introduce L2 and L3 or make them the same ride. Details up to the user in a lot of cases. The L3 work is more important for the endurance rider, who is going to need to be able to put in a lot of time with a brisk yet efficient pace.

You should be sprinkling sprints in with all your work save for the first 2 pure blocks of the season.

As the season gets towards the event/goal, you're going to work on mixing more than focusing on one system. You may do a mixed L5 or L4 block leading up to a race. But you'll still be doing sprint work (L7) as well as race simulations and endurance/tempo work.

In between events it's important to step back and focus on L4/L5/L6 work again to build up these systems. But you don't want to do pure blocks now because you've also got to hit the endurance rides as well. Endurance usually suffers near an event so you need to get that built up between events.

You can use the group rides or hard off-road rides as part of a block. It makes more sense to use it as your first day, then do a second day after it. Or for those of you who are doing 3 day blocks and ride better following a ride day, make it your second day. There are more variables here than you might think. Slight changes often times make more of a difference than you'd imagine. It is crucial to run through a lot of these permutations first to see what works for you.

Essentially, traditional plans boil down to L2 work, then adding L3/L4/L7 work, then later hit ting L5 and building to L6. In reverse periodization, you almost do the exact opposite. You start with L5 and L6, then add L4. After these blocks you add L2/L3 and L7. You then cycle back to the L4/L5/L6 as a focus later in the season, either right before or right after events, or both. The idea behind reverse periodization is that you make the power first, then you maintain it. Then you add it to your normal base/tempo rides that act as race simulations.

Block Training

Block training is useful in getting the most effect from a limited time of training. The idea of block training is to target a specific energy system and focus on that system for a certain period of time. The variables you work with are:

• The energy system to focus on
• Length of the block
• Stacked or staggered days
• Pure block training, or not

Block training allows you to get the most bang for your buck for the time spent. If you have limited time to train, block training is a good way to go. That's not to say people with plenty of time shouldn't train in blocks. Blocks are extremely effective regardless. More than that, it's a great way to train very hard and get away with it. This volume of intervals mixed with a traditional training approach could easily lead to burnout.

An example of a block using the variables above might be as follows:

• Targeting the LT system (LT push workouts)
• A 4 week block
• Back-to-back LT work on Tue/Wed
• Non pure, where weekends are used for other rides (race sims, endurance)
  

This is something I might do mid-season, between events. As mentioned, the block work here is really the Tue/Wed stack during the week. Mon/Thu/Fri are rest days. Sat is an off-road ride. Sun is either an active recovery day or an endurance day. The first week I might do a pair of 20 minute LT push intervals on Tue, with 5 min between. Wed I would try to match that, but might fall short at 18, or 15, or whatever.

The next week I would bump the 20min set up to 22, or 25, or whatever worked for me. Week 3 would be another increment. Week 4 is rest & recovery. R&R actually starts on Sunday of week 3, as I will ride an easy 60 min on Sunday, then do the same Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Thursday I throw in some sprints or harder work to get myself back in the flow. On Sunday of week 4 I got for my normal hard ride of the week. Monday starts a new 4 week block.

The theory is that you get the most gains from a block of training where you pick one area of focus, then rest, allowing your body to super-compensate. After the rest you move on to another energy system. The focus should be heavily on one system at a time. It doesn't matter what energy system you focus on, but rotating systems makes sense. How to lay that out is more an effort of your periodization plans.

The system in question is up to you, your goals, and the current point you're training at. To be complete, you should probably spend some time in each of the L3-L6 levels, as defined by Coggan. Essentially these levels are summarized by the time you can spend at a certain power output, roughly:

• L1 Recovery (forever)
• L2 Endurance (3+ hours)
• L3: Tempo (45m+)
• L4: LT (8-20m)
• L5: VO2max (3-8m)
• L6: Anaerobic Capacity (30s-3m)
• L7: Neuromuscular Power (~10s)

For the sake of this conversation, we generally omit L1, L2. Many people combine the L5 and L6 work so you are often really left with L3, L4, and L5/L6, and L7. These are details. The takeaway here is that the higher the system the shorter the interval. Also, the block is going to be maximally effective when you work at a stress level that isn't maintainable for any more than the duration of the interval. Simply stated, if you're doing a 5 minute interval and you can actually maintain it for 10 minutes, you're not going hard enough. You need to barely be able to finish the interval at 5 minutes for it to be most effective.

The most common approach is the 4 week block, where you spend 3 weeks training and 1 week recovering. Stacked back-to-back days lead to greater adaptation, as opposed to the classic staggered approach where you rest after a hard workout. Mentally this is tough, but the results are better. In order to maintain overall fitness I don't use pure block training, since that omits all other training for 3-4 weeks. My approach is usually 2 days of blocks on Tue/Wed, then an off-road ride on the weekend. Racing, race simulations, hard off-road rides, and group rides will tend to work all energy systems. I then follow a hard Saturday ride with an endurance Sunday ride, or an active recovery ride if the day before was really difficult. This is as outlined above.

An alternate approach is to do a mixed block, where you can do 2 days of L6, 2 days off, 2 days L4, 2 days off, and so on. This is probably effective at keeping yourself sharp, or for mixing up your trainer work in the offseason. This may be a good approach for the weeks leading up to a race. You can also tack L4 work onto the end of an L5/L6 workout, so long as the overall work load doesn't leave you spent. You generally want to do the more intense stuff earlier in the workout. Having said that, you don't get to choose when the killer hills are going to come up during a ride. So some high intensity stuff at the end of your workout probably better mimics the "real world", if you want to call riding a bike the real world. This isn't Day 1 sort of stuff. This is a good time to remind yourself that intervals lead to a much higher rate of dropout when added to any exercise program. They also lead to vast improvements.

In general, the training load is reduced somewhat as the block progresses, but not always. If you do 5 min intervals today then maybe shoot for 4 min intervals tomorrow. Or maybe 5-3-1, 5-4-3...you get the picture.

The exception might be the beginning of the season when the trails are messy and the roads are loaded with salt, sand, and chunks of pavement from the snow plows. The biggest drawback with pure block training is that you literally focus on only a single energy system at the expense of the others. At the beginning of the season, when you're not at the peak of fitness, you can probably get away with jumping right into a block of L5/L6 and going from there.

This fits with the reverse periodization scheme as well as the aforementioned lousy weather blues many people experience. Also, when you hit the highest energy system, you do actually work the lower systems in part. So if you're going to be exclusionary, shoot for the L5/L6 intervals at the beginning of the season. This translates to roughly 3-5 minute intervals. Many say this is where you see the best gains in the shortest period of time. So it could very well be the best way to introduce yourself to the regimented season again. After that block, you're probably better suited to get away from the pure block training and mix in some race simulation type work on the weekends to make sure you're not neglecting anything. Or at most, do a pure block of VO2max stuff, followed by a pure block of LT work. Then start your off-road or group rides to maintain your overall fitness.

There's one key to make sure it all works. Rest. With block training, you usually don't need to worry about the "hard enough" aspect of your training, though it does sometimes take a few weeks to realize that yes, you can actually go harder. If you follow the ideas of block training you'll be getting plenty of training stress. The thing you absolutely need to do is rest & recover enough. The general rule is a 1:1 ratio of work:rest. So if you have a block of 2 days, rest for 2 days. 3 days is tougher. Some can get away with 2 days but others need 3. You really need to play around with it a little to get it right. But your better off erring on the side of too much rest, especially as you get further into your block. This is a time to be in tune with your body, and to learn how to be in tune with your body. Overall, it's good to rest every 4th week for the whole week. Some people can push this to 6 weeks. Some people also choose active recovery rides on their rest days. I prefer to let the whole system rest, which includes tight knees, potential saddle sores, back issues, etc, Again, details which need to be worked out.

The amount of time you rest is also dependent on how hard you've worked. Again, this is a time to be in tune with your body. If your 3 days block has left you struggling to get out of bed, a 2 day rest might not be quite enough. Overall, block training is going to put more stress on your body, which is the driving force of the super compensation. But if you do it properly you also allow for full recovery. Another thing to remember is that it isn't necessarily based on a 7 day work week, at least pure block training isn't. So many are either forced to abandon the 7 day rotation or to not train every available weekend day, something foreign to those of us with real day jobs and free time on the weekends.

With pure block training, you would look to do something like M/T/W on, then T/F/S off. S/M/T on, and so on. Some advocate 4 day blocks, but that may be putting too much stress on the body at one time. You can also work with 2 on, 2 off, or maybe 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 1 off. Again, much of the structure is what works for you. But you need to make sure you have 2 cornerstones for this: hard work and hard recovery. Otherwise you'll either be burnt out or underworked.

David Morris, author of the book Performance Cycling, advocates the pure approach. Says Morris:

"Remember, improvement in work capacity requires hard work and periods of rest and recovery. Thus, you should follow each block of interval work with an equal number of days complete rest or easy recovery rides."

and

"...involves training very hard for several days in a row and then resting for several days to allow the body to recover and super compensate. Frequently, to increase the training stress on the body, the same types of workouts are performed on each day of the training blocks. The theory behind block training is that overloading a single system and then allowing adequate rest will cause the system to supercompensate more than with traditional training strategies"

Morris also advocates focusing on VO2max and anaerobic intervals before LT, which also works well with reverse periodization and inclement weather. The general idea there is to first build the power, then maintain it.

Here is a quote form Tim Crowley CTS coach

"Block training- This training concept is quite popular for elite cyclist and multi sport athletes. Simplified, block training combines several (usually 2-3) quality training days, followed by an equal amount or more days of recovery. Hard training on Saturday and Sunday can be followed by 2 days of recovery. Another 1 or 2 quality days mid week can round out the training week. This is an effective method of increasing the total minutes of quality training in the week without over reaching or over training."

Here is a quote from Carmichael

"this can mean alternating workout days and recovery days one for one, or applying training load over two or three consecutive days and then allowing one or two days for recovery"

and

"After giving athletes appropriate recovery time, I found that the consecutive days of load lead to greater training adaptations"

Block training can be used in the cycles of your periodization plan. Instead of generic base1/2/3 or build1/2 periods, these can be L4 or L5 periods. Or you can mix them together. A lot of this really depends on what works for you. But many people have had success in using block training. So the principles certainly apply.

To get the most out of block training, you need to experiment and see what works for you in terms of intervals and back-to-back days. It's also a good idea to have a reasonable grasp on the concept of different energy systems, as well as a rough training plan which follows some sort of periodization principle. Putting it all together is a mix between assessing how you deal with this kind of training and laying it out into a plan that will have you in good shape for your target event without overdoing it. As always, the whole process is a work in progress. You won't be able to sit down in October and lay out exactly how next season will go. It doesn't work that way. You're always going to have snags along the way and you'll assuredly change the plan as you move along. By having a good understanding of yourself and your approaches to training, on-the-fly changes will be more useful and training more effective.

A Blog Is Not a Bike Log

Ok, I'm ceasing this experiment to post my ride recaps on the blog. First of all, it's starting to be a bit of a chore to do. Basically, this is because not much happens on a ride to ride basis. Adding a generic entry that I'm sure I will never look at does nothing to help the cause. So, experiment over. And more to the point, experiment successful. Now I know this doesn't work.

Next I will try the paper log. I think it's more reasonable that way. Plus you can stack entries on top of one another and go from there. That gives you a table of what you're looking at so you can see trends. It's a better medium. The big problem will be keeping track of it in a way which allows you to reference it in the past.

So I'm going to delete the specific ride entries and transfer them to a paper log. This will be my second experiment in bike logging. I will maintain this blog for general observations, like, "Man, Block Training is Hard."