Coach Carter

For the first time in a very long time, I have found it hard to decide on a topic for the blog post this week. In fact, I was getting to the point where I felt I would miss a week - but then I had a few emails asking where the post was this week: I even asked my athlete Craig if he could suggest something - "never thought I would start doing requests".

It was only this lunchtime that it dawned on me I had been having a recurring experience in the last fortnight: reminders that we tend to push, not stretch ourselves to new levels. What brought it to the forefront of my mind this lunchtime was my participation in a Body Balance class. Last week, my first time at this type of class, I came out feeling LESS balanced than when I went in!!! I had been over zealous with one of the stretches and my left hamstring / gluteal muscle has been tight all week. It took me back to my first yoga class two years ago: one week before the National Track Champs (I know, I know) and I was limping around all week having over done it. It doesn't take too much time hanging out with 'Yogis' to realise how amazingly athletic they are. Having got back into Yoga in the last few weeks, I am having a light shone on all the bodily weaknesses existing in me. I know its going to be good for my physical well being to stick at it. But, more importantly, I know its the mental well being I will benefit from the most.

I'm currently reading a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn called "Full Catastrophe Living". With a title like that though it probably brings negative messages to your mind - no, I am not having a mid life crisis! However, as Zinn explains, in this sense Catastrophe means greeting the full tapestry of life: the good, the bad, and living them to the full - opportunities for growth. The competing athlete can probably understand this - its often our worst performances that help us learn the most about taking ourselves forward. In the chapter on Yoga being used as a meditation, Zinn explains how in each practise we can discover the boundaries of how far we can stretch, or for how long we can hold a position. But, remembering that these boundaries are not static - he advises therefore to not become too static in setting our limits. If we listen carefully enough to our bodies, it will tell us how far we can go in that session - but in the next session we need to approach it with a beginners mind: with no expectation from the session before. He goes on to explain how athletes are used to this approach - exploration of their limits. However, I tend to disagree with what he says next. He suggest athletes always do that to get somewhere - but in Yoga, the idea is to simply use the practise to understand / discover where we are at: I actually think that adopting this approach - ceasing the relentless striving - would be an ideal way for an athlete to train and / or race. Simply entering each session with an open mind, listening to the limit the body sets us, and gently stretching it to a newer level. There aren't many people who get Yoga injuries or suffer from over-training...with the exception of competitive athletes who push too much, too soon...I hold my hand up to that! 

So, athletes beware - I might be setting some Yoga sessions in your training plans very soon!

This weekend saw the hottest day of the year so far: it has to happen each season, coming across a hot day for a race event - but what made this weekend so tricky for a group of my athletes was that it came out of the blue, and also on one of the biggest weekends of their season.

It was bad enough watching - as I stood on the dual carriageway in Warwickshire, the venue for this year's opening time trial championships of the year, the National 10 mile champs, it was 33 degrees. The same thing happened last year - but this year I was prepared: sun cream and not wearing my sandles (my athletes will remember my purple, burnt feet last year!). I got the impression though that many of the athletes competing hadn't learnt the lessons of last year...

The sport science literature is packed with research investigating the impact of heat on performance. Exercise in the heat results in major alterations in the body's circulatory, thermoregulatory and metabolic function. During races, the body's metabolic rate is already high - the exercise itself producing a lot of heat that needs removing from the system (or the muscle contraction will be compromised). Add high environmental temperatures, and the problem is worsened. In an attempt to keep itself cool, the body intiates an increased rate of sweat production. This helps to limit the rise in core temperature, and can prolong the time before a limiting temperature is attained. The downside is it costs a loss of body water and electrolytes. The body tries to offset this water loss by increasing the heart rate (as blood delivery to the working muscles is the product of heart rate and stroke volume, the latter decreasing as the body dehydrates in the heat). In my experience, athletes don't treat the heat with enough respect - yes, it doesn't feel pleasant - but worse than that, it doesn't have to be that hot to have a significant effect on performance. In a classic study back in 1997, Galloway and Maughan had cyclists work at 70% of their VO2max (similar to 25 mile pace) at various ambient temperatures.  Exercise time was reduced dramatically under the heat: 52 min at 31°C vs 81 min at 21°C. A reminder, it was 33 degrees on Sunday. As supported by a study published this January (By Ely and colleagues, Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2010 Jan;42(1):135-41) performance decrements can be as high as 17% over the time frame of a 10 mile time trial - this could be in the order of 40 to 60W: take a look at the results from Sunday - 50W might explain the difference between 5th and 20th in the men's event.

Its fair to say that there will be a huge variation in ability to perform in the heat: mentally and physically. The size of the athlete is one factor that Dan and I discussed after the race on Monday morning in our weekly meeting - indeed, looking at the top 20 of the men's and women's event, a few people were able to step up in the rankings perhaps because of their body size - smaller riders can dissipate more heat quickly because they have a relatively bigger surface area. But to me, the conditions of this race allowed the 'cream to float to the top': it separated out those who go that extra mile in preparation.

Call it what you will - being prepared, controlling the controllables, leaving no stone unturned. Sporting performance is more than just doing the training. One fault of time triallists is that they sometimes forget that the goal of the race is to go as fast as they possibly can - its ultimately about maximising speed. Okay, the days of regarding 'training as cheating' have now passed, but, there is still a somewhat 'amateur ideal' prevalent. A rider seen using a cold vest to cool the body whilst warming up on a turbo is almost ridiculed by his / her competitors; a rider seen sticking their race number on with tub tape rather than pins is regarded as 'anal'. It gives the impression of a certain degree of apathy; or maybe people don't consider themselves good enough to try those little extras ? As a sport scientist, I see these little things as meaning the edge on competitors. Indeed, when I was riding, knowing I had looked everything about my performance before, and on race day gave me a boost as I sat on the start line.

I try to get this same philosophy across to my riders. Before the event, I provided everyone with race notes and spoke with them all individually about the ideal pacing strategy and use of their available power. We took into consideration how the wind direction might change and impact on this. I loved reading a quote from men's title winner Michael Hutchinson "Having the confidence to sit back and sit back until I got to the last roundabout and try and squeeze it up the last drag to the last corner and try and be 'heavy' for the last mile" - it summed up how best to ride the course on Sunday. I look at Michael, and Julia Shaw the ladies event winner, and they are fine examples of looking at every aspect of cycling performance - aspirational in my opinion.

Having seen the weather forecast for the weekend on Friday, I sent an email out to the PBscience riders, reminding them of the consequences from last year's similar situation. I urged them to think about using ice packs on their torso while warming up. According to Allen Lim, physiologist with Team RadioShack, keeping cool in the warm-up is "the single biggest bottleneck in the Tour, or any other sport.” Pre-cooling is a great example of how to maximise what you have fought hard to gain in training hours. By using ice vests or simply frozen peas / freezer ice packs, you can keep the body's core temperature down near to normal. Even running your wrists under cold water helps. We're going to be talking about this strategy at our mid-season workshop in July. I was interested to read an interview with Russell Downing in this month's Cycle Sport magazine - explaining how Team Sky used ladies tights packed with ice cubes during their New Year camp / racing in Australia. All part of their 'marginal gains' approach. Many of you might remember the Tour de France time trial back in 2003 when Armstrong returned back from his ride, lips caked in salt. He blamed that loss to Jan Ulrich partly on dehydration due to warming up in the heat. Ullrich reportedly warm-up in a nearby air conditioned supermarket!

On Sunday, I saw many riders compromise their warm-up or opt out of it totally. Perhaps the name 'warm-up' doesn't help - I hear all sorts of talk about "no need to warm-up today, it is already warm enough for me". However, warm-up SHOULD be called 'acid-up' as the main effect is given to performance by switching on metabolic systems and enzymes controlling them. Its why I get my riders to do maximal bursts at the end of a 40 min progressive effort. Nothing can replace that benefit - even if the heat of the day puts people off going through it. In fact, I felt a lot of riders across both mens and womens events were going through the motions - and that's sad, given the hours since last November spent preparing for this big day. 

I don't think my riders were immune to some errors in prep at the weekend - for a lot of them, they are more focused on the 25 Champs in a fortnight's time. However, having opportunities to practise these things at big events are few and far between. We'll debrief the good, the bad items from the weekend and use that information to feed into the coming races. As I often say to the riders I work with, it is one thing to make an error, the mistake is letting it happen twice!

 

This week, there will be many cyclists around the country going through their final preparation for this weekend's National time trialling championships - around 400 people in fact. Even more athletes will be racing across mountain biking, road racing, triathlon and other competitive events. Athletes have spent hours getting ready for their sporting challenges; a lot of money has been spent; and undoubtedly the biggest investment is emotionally. It begs the question - why do we do it?

Sport is strongly interwoven with our culture in the UK: in schools we use it to teach morals, values and ethics. In adults we use it for escapism, a release from the pressures of working life. For many, the pursuit of athletic excellence and skill mastery becomes our purpose in life: sometimes to the extent we forget that we choose to do it, and that its a fun hobby! Ultimately, people that choose sport are wanting a challenge: to see what their bodies can do - see how fast they can get, see how high up the rankings they can climb. Having been an athlete, I can understand the motivations for competitive sport.

One facet of my sport of cycling always seemed a little curious - the world of cyclosportives. Indeed, the upsurge in the popularity of this discipline has led to serious criticism of the magazines servicing the cyclists in the UK - too much page coverage given over to 'overweight men with hairy legs' spending all day riding 50 miles at the expense of 'serious racing' (or, men with shaved legs wearing lycra). Yes, there IS a challenge of riding long - completion of the route becomes the goal. When I finished racing, I did ponder if this might be the way I kept riding my bike: taking on the classic cyclosportive rides in France and Italy - at the time, I thought it would still be about riding the routes as quickly as I can: after all, that was the challenge that resonated with me.

However, recently I have started to understand more about this 'new world'. Having decided to enter the London to Paris this year, I have been taking part in a few sportive events - as a way of training. This past weekend I rode the Castle 100 event in Kent, keeping my athlete Craig company (for company read 'super domestique', even down to pacing up climbs and bottle carrier!). Craig is in training for the Leadville 100 in August - and while that is 100 miles off road, we have set some intermediate milestones - riding 100 mile sportives is part of that plan. Last year, Craig rode the Castle 100 in around 7 hours 45 minutes - this year we were able to knock off over 40 minutes, despite Craig still nursing his injured wrist and the shocking road conditions. It was fun riding with Craig, and also very satisfying helping him overcome one of his goal events in such a fine way. We even helped his belief in hill climbing - the way he was spinning up Holybourne hill was a sight to see!

How did I fare? Seven hours in the saddle was not easy - I was riding at an intensity within myself, but over time, I realised that was a demand in itself. The main challenge came mentally - the first 56 miles were fine (up until the lunch stop), but the second part of the race was a test of endurance - mental not physical. I found myself playing games to break up the distance "I can have a gel when we reach 70 miles". This wasn't my way of rationing fuel supplies (!) but more a way to break down the total distance into smaller chunks. I think the most inspiring 'bargaining' I did was calling out to Craig in the final 15 miles (whilst climbing another hill!) "I'll buy you a mocha after this"!!!

I also used the ride (103.5 miles actually) to test out a fuelling strategy for London to Paris next month. Before I set off, I aimed for:

• 1 x 750ml bottle per hour , containing 40g of SIS 'Go' energy drink
• 1 x SIS 'Go' carbohydrate gel every other hour
• 1 x SIS 'Go' energy bar every other hour (alternating with the gel)

Based on a 6h 30 ride time, I was therefore aiming to take in ~60g carbohydrate an hour (the typical rate of optimal carbohydrate absorption): or with my diet above, a total of ~1800kcal. Sounds a lot? Well, if you consider 6.5 hours of riding (at ~140W) would require me to use over 3 times that calorie intake, you can see how easily it is to come back in deficit. It makes post ride feeding strategy essential when you need to repeat this effort on subsequent days (as I will for London to Paris). So, even if the intensity isn't demanding, fuelling adequately is. I have't ridden many century rides, so gaining this experience was very important to me: especially as I have not eaten ~1800kcal in carbohydrate energy products very often. I soon understood why Ironman athletes crave savoury food during their races.

Fuelling requirements over this distance is hard - and its one thing Craig needs to practice ready for Leadville. I managed to stay away from the lunchtime buffet at the feed station - I was appalled at what some people were eating in the middle of the event: 2 miles up the road I saw one poor guy looking like he was having a heart attack, crouched over his top tube - indigestion! I even made sure I could stomach more nutritional product, taking on 70g of SIS Rego protein recovery drink.....don't worry, it was at least 30 minutes later I drank the above mentioned coffee, can't slow down whey protein / carb absorption rates with all that casein protein can we?

Yesterday, I was explaining my adventure to Hannah, the fitness editor of one of those maligned cycling magazines I mention above. I told her how I felt 'peeking over the fence' and visiting this new world. I told her how I completely understood why these events are gaining in popularity. Standing in the grounds of Tonbridge Castle after the ride, I was impressed how many people had completed the challenge: all walks of life, all ages, men / women, all shapes and sizes, some on £5000 road bikes, others on mountain bikes (or even shopper bikes complete with basket - no word of a lie!). Why do some people criticise this? Sure, I witnessed some absolutely shocking bike handling, some appalling eating habits, and some curious 'pacing' up and down hills BUT, our sport is massively popular right now - the more people we get on their bikes, the better. You never know, it might make more motorists turn to their bikes - good not only for the environment but also our safety on the roads as two wheel warriors.

I am pleased to have experienced this weekend, on many levels. My body and mind felt tired all day Monday - even in my yoga class Monday evening, I could feel the same poses taking more out of me mentally and physcially - you know that awful feeling when you just know you are on the end of a cramp? ouch! I would even say I am now looking forward to riding the 330 miles from London to Paris.

(On writing that title, I have started singing the 1980s Tears for Fears hit! showing my age now)

Last week, I spoke of my time reflecting on where I am at, business and personal wise. We all need time to contemplate where we are, where we want to head and what steps we need to take in order to best 'arrive'. Life and sport, so similar. My weekend re-treat in "Mobie" allowed me to de-clutter and focus on the priorities I have set: 'tree felling' as I called it. The next step in the process is sowing the seeds of intention - starting afresh with new processes, systems. And, this is what I have been busy doing this past week...

On Friday morning, rather than starting my day with the normal 2 hours of file analysis, I took myself down into town for a working breakfast in Caffe Nero: my intention to set up the objectives for my morning of work ahead. I had put a line through my diary to ensure I kept this 'saw sharpening' time: this is a promise I have made myself - time to keep myself on track, to make sure I am always in touch with my priorities. The agenda for this morning meeting was to place some actions beside the priorities I had developed the week before. Over breakfast, I came up with 4 or 5 objectives to focus on - and with that, I packed up and moved on to Costa for a 4 hour working stint on those objectives. This isn't just because I like a coffee crawl (!), but I have found it a way to re-new my energy: setting up a new camp when I begin my work seems to work well for me.

I'm happy to share my objectives with you:

1. What is my vision for PBscience in the next 3 years, and the next 1 year?
2. What is my role in that vision? As coach, as business manager?
3. What is my assistant Coach, Dan's role in that vision?
4. Based on this, develop a work plan for the remainder of 2010
5. How do Dan and I keep on top of new knowledge in Sport Science and coaching, and ensure 'Continued Professional Development'?

This process was timely, as it is now 6 months since I left the University and Dan started with me. We had set a date for his first 6 monthly review, and this Friday session allowed me to prepare my own thoughts before discussing with him what had been good, and what had room for improvement in the way we worked together. Neither of us were keen on the phrase 'staff appraisal' or 'performance review' - we knew what we were intending to work on, so in a way, the name of our meeting was less important! Working through his prepared 'appraisal' form was an interesting experience for me. I have been on the receiving end of appraisals, and I was aware of how the success of these meetings is very much dependent on the "appraisee" - it can be deemed just a paper exercise. But, Dan had obviously reflected a lot on his role in PBscience and his career plans as a cycling coach / sport scientist. It enabled us to have a very vibrant discussion on the Monday (yes, in Costa!). I'm really excited by our 3 year plan for PBscience - and I think our athletes will be too.

Future performance needs investment - whether its sport, business, or personal aims. I had to keep this attitude strong when I attempted my back to back ride plans in preparation for the forthcoming London to Paris ride. As I have explained before, this challenge is going to require me to not only ride 100+ miles in a day, but to repeat this back-to-back over 3 days. The mileage each day is a challenge, repeating it is another - and I am daunted by it. By setting myself some smaller interim goals, I am gaining confidence. Yes, I have competed before: this shouldn't be too hard for me (as people keep telling me!) but this isn't really like anything I have done before: riding hard over 25 or 50 miles isn't the same as a paced effort over 110 miles, repeated for 3 days. I've also not had the same time to devote to my training as when I was competing in time trialling.

I've shared my concerns with my close friends - these 3 days are a big thing for me, and I don't see them as easy. I'm respecting the event. I've always come from the perspective that there are two types of athlete: those that enjoy the activity itself i.e. cycling; and those people who enjoy the challenge i.e. being a competitor. I've tended to be the latter - enjoying the pursuit of goals. I remember on numerous occasions trying to explain this to my Mum. I would often express my anxiety about a big ride the next day, and she would give me the option to 'don't do it if you don't want to'. How do you explain to someone that sometimes the bigger picture is what you enjoy i.e. pushing yourself when you might not want to do it, rather than the training session itself. As a coach, I don't need my riders to enjoy every session - but I do want them to enjoy the elements of challenge and discipline. There HAS to be something they love doing in all of this, or its not worth it.

Actually, I enjoyed leg one of my trip - 75 miles from Eastbourne to Farnham to watch Chris and Richard in their 10 mile time trial. Well, I enjoyed it until I stopped - but standing in the rain on a dual carriageway with only my Rego and protein bar for company DID stretch my passion for coaching (sorry Gents) but I DID enjoy our post race HQ catch up over tea and cake! Leg 2, the return journey the next day was more taxing - it was an early start, as I wanted to ride via another race, this time with 6 of my riders competing. Top training tip here: Two hours of standing beside a dual carriageway one hour into a 4 hour ride is NOT ideal!!! But again, I wouldn't miss out on these chances to watch my riders in action - its my chance to interact face to face, to live and breathe what we are doing together to improve their performances on the bike. And, at least I was riding towards the promise of a nice coffee - I am finding rides easier to cope with when I have a nice treat awaiting me - I think this says something about my intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation these days?!

So, my message this week is again about investing in the bigger picture. Yes, we all know we need to train to meet our race goals. But we also need time to sit down and think about objectives too. I was very conscious this weekend how sometimes athletes get so caught up in the manic-ness of the race season (week in, week out) that the planning of what they want from each race can be left out. Its not always about a time, a power, or a result goal - but we have to sit on the start line knowing just what you want from the race ahead. Our PBscience athletes can download a worksheet taking them through this process - mmmm, maybe I should go through that process for L2P? Great, sounds like an ideal exercise to do with a coffee!!!

I've just got back from spending 3 days in the New Forest: spending some quality time with "Mobie" in his intended use: as a motorhome - have to say, the 'mobile lab' got some curious looks as I drove into the campsite on Saturday morning! The 3 days were more of a 'retreat' than a 'break' as the intention was always to take some time out in order to reflect on my current goals - personal and business. Where better to 'sharpen my saw' than in the New Forest?

I've always been good at 'goal setting' - even before I started a career in sport, I knew what I wanted and prioritised my life according to the achievements I wished to make. I am able to see the resources I need, the skills to develop, and the people to gather around me in support of my aims. I'm fortunate that in the main, things have gone to plan. Certainly, my life in sport and training in academia have helped me when it came to setting up the PBscience cycle coaching business.

However, this 3 day period shone a light on something I didn't expect - I have wondered off my chosen path a bit. As I reflected on the goals I set in January 2010, I could see that indeed, those same goals, wishes, desires were still the most relevant to my intentions today. No bad thing. What I hadn't anticipated was that my current rating of how I was shaping up was down on my expectation. It helped me understand why I had felt under stress recently - my life has not been lived according to my goals, or more fundamentally, my core beliefs. The time out (from email, internet and all things technology - well, I took my iPod!) has allowed me to re-gather and re-start with a very positive motivation. It reminded me how easy it is to let your eye move off the ball. I know exactly why I have let it happen - I have been distracted by letting others' goals take priority.

This is a really fine balance for a coach: obviously, it is my role to help steer people to their goal events: to provide the best training, to evaluate their progress, and to tweak things as plans change, or we assess development of strength / weaknesses. This is the core of my job, and I value that. However, what I had started to do was engage in day to day activity and lose sight of the overall picture. The past 8 weeks have felt the same to me: I had got myself into a bit of a rut, blunted my saw. Each day, each week, has felt the same - because I had entered what is known as 'fire fighting' activity. The little non-important tasks have been ticked off; leaving the bigger ones for another day. Whilst I am a creature of routine, I have been a slave to it, rather than the master of it. My Sunday morning in Mobie allowed me to get creative in how I cope with this. Coming back to Stephen Covey's 'sharpening the saw' concept, I have re-prioritised my own personal and professional development: without that time, I will stagnate as a coach and let my riders down. I'm back on track now!

There were some downsides to the 3 days - firstly the weather wasn't great, which curtailed some of the cycling I had intended to do whilst away: I've had the opportunity to cycle around the roads of the New Forest with the a3crg team a couple of years back. What with Mobie being kept on site, the bike was the best way to get around - but a very wet Sunday meant a very wet ride - thankfully, a stop in Costa Coffee in Lymington cheered me up. Secondly, I find it hard to detach from how my riders are doing at the races....thankfully, most of them dropped me a quick text, and I have to confess to checking my email a couple of times (no, not a Wifi enabled camp site, but a Smartphone to the rescue!). Also, in my line of work, 3 days out of the office is 3 days of workload to catch up on. No-way would I let 3 days of training files slip away from my gaze...so, Tuesday has been a busy catch up day.

My saw sharpening isn't over for this week just yet - later this week, I have put aside some time to reflect on the first 6 months of PBscience - a process I started a couple of weeks back. From the recent review I did, I am now hoping to develop a plan for where the business is headed in the 12 months to come. Dan and I have a meeting lined up for next Monday, and I'm excited to get our teeth into 'Phase II'!

The funniest thing happened to me whilst writing the blog post this week....a tree surgeon just came to my door to ask me to move Mobie, parked up in the road behind my flat: seems they are tree felling and didn't want to scratch him: how coincidental is that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve said on previous blog posts that one of the key skills a coach needs is to manage athlete expectations. Early season is a prime example of when this skill is called upon. My riders are now a few weeks into racing – whilst the very first races are approached with a degree of acceptance, as the weeks go by, expectations increase – expectations that are often not matched by form....or weather for that matter!!

In part, this is a consequence of deciding to take a scientific approach to performance. Understandably, riders look to other riders to measure their form. Scientific training means a choice is being made to follow a periodised year: this means you’re starting out of the blocks relatively slower than riders not on this route: shortfall number 1. A few weeks in – riders are beginning to build to the season’s peaks: the nature of the structured training often means that the ramp is considerable – so riders are racing whilst under the fatiguing effects of high intensity training: shortfall number 2. Ever tried to ‘PB’ in a week you have performed multiple interval sessions? It CAN happen, but you certainly wouldn’t plan that to peak for your big race – so why do we expect to pull a performance out of the bag week in, week out? In contrast, the approach to the season taken by ‘old school’ riders means they start with good performances. That might appear desirable – but it explains why I have a history of working with riders who ‘come good’ later in the year...other riders are burning out, having attempted to hold their race form ALL year around.

On the whole my athletes buy in to the explanation of not being able to hold form week in, week out over a season that might last 7 months. However, even the most committed to the cause get confidence wobbles. A lot of the time, it comes back to me via training diary comments or phone call chats “but surely I should be better than this time last year?” I can completely understand that questioning. Dedicate yourself to performance improvement by taking up coaching, and its not unrealistic to expect improvement – but just like guarding against expecting week in, week out ‘PBs’, we must be cautious in expecting a year on year improvement in form at comparable times of the year. Even if we raced the same event, against the same people, under the same weather conditions, its a dangerous comparison to make.

Firstly, the human body is not a machine – there are many complicated ‘rhythms’ that the body follows. Female athletes are probably more aware of this than men given a pretty obvious monthly cycle. But men and women alike are subject to biological variation. Research in this area has shown ~3% variation in physiology even under the tightest of experimental control: put that into power output terms, and an athlete capable of holding 300W for a 10 mile time trial is looking at a range of 290 to 300W. A 20W swing in races over consecutive races might feel like a dramatic loss / improvement in fitness – but happily / sadly (depending on the direction!) this is just the body’s natural ups and downs. As an athlete / coach team, all we can do is maximise the possibility of controlling the controllables e.g. diet and freshness.

A second factor is again related to the human body’s unpredictable nature – even if we gave the same athlete the same training leading up to the race season year after year, the training effect won't likely be the same. A rider in their first year of training will respond differently to the programme 5 years on – simply because they have had 4 years of training in the intervening time. Endurance training is always in the system – like a bank account, the payments in will always exist on the statement, even if you have made multiple transactions since. The proof of this is seen in pro riders who come back quickly post injury (or after leaving retirement to make a comeback). A negative effect of this increased training history is that it might subtly change a rider’s profile. Years of endurance training might alter our muscle fibre type profile, or hormone responses, or ability to burn fat / carbohydrates as fuel. End result = increase sustainability of intensity. Unfortunately, these 'benefits' might negatively impact the ability to hit top end powers: does year in year training mean we should expect the upping of our VO₂max interval power for example? Research doesn't have the answers yet, but at the very least it suggests we cannot be sure of the timescales of improving fitness to the point that we look back at a session performed in April each year and see x watts improvement.

A third factor for consideration – the training response is not a linear function. In other words, there is not a simple dose – response relationship. In its simplest form, twice as much training does not make you twice as fit. Periodisation relies on building fitness in layers – you step through each stage building the body’s machinery needed for the next layer of adaptation. An example of this can be seen when riders may have come through a period of endurance capacity building (commonly after a lot of zone 3 work). This is a type of training I have a lot of success applying to riders – its not uncommon to see 20W added to people’s profiles. However, we have to stop the extrapolation of this 20W being ADDED to race fitness – not straight away at least. We still have to develop the machinery for race level performance: what the extra 20W may have done is increase the height of the athlete’s potential – but it says nothing about the speed they will get to their desired race level. Some athletes speak of 'tipping points' - despite feeling fitter, the proof does not materialise in powers, heart rates or anything tangible. Then, out of no-where, a step increase in performance occurs.

A fourth and related factor is the shape of the training plan and consequent ramp in training stress, and subsequent form emergence. When a coach has worked with a rider for a number of years, often a decision is made to change the season build / approach in some way. There may have been a mutual feeling that to hit a new peak, and an attempt is made to change the athlete’s fundamental physiology. I have a few athletes highly pre-disposed to fantastic endurance: lots of slow twitch fibres, good ability to burn fat, high fatigue resistance. If these athletes want to go faster however, building in a traditional way might not ever see a big enough shift. An experimental approach might be trying something very extreme. Because its an unknown, we don’t know the timescale needed to bring a shift in the physiology to fruition. We don’t even have guarantees it will work. In fact, in the short term we might expect DECREASES in form - since we aren’t working on the physiology that a) they are naturally pre-built with i.e. fatigue will be high impacting more negatively on any race performances and b) the sessions probably aren’t targeting a physiology that is related to race performance e.g. sprint work in riders aiming for an event lasting one hour.

Reading the above could appear like a list of excuses the coach / sport scientist has up their sleeves to protect from disappointment. However, I sense enough people go through these moments in the desert and come through safely the other side to be confident that in the long term, changes WILL occur, and occur in a magnitude that is worth the short term dips. Sporting performance can be a roller coaster. Here are a few suggestions to help you ride the ups and downs:

• Go in to a race with clear objectives - know the 'why' behind the race: is the goal more about preparation than outcome? What is the definition of a successful race?
• After the race analyse the race performance based upon your pre-race objectives, and these objectives alone. Don't be tempted to shift the goal posts and change the markers of success - this is tough, especially if others around you are setting PBs!
• Let the immediate post race dust settle, and then take time to reflect on the good aspects, and those that could be improved. The distance from the immediacy of the race is important, as it helps reduce the emotion and increase the rational.
• Consider what other impacting influences there might have been - what is going on in your life right now: work, relationship, social etc? If you could have the past week again, what would you change, what would you keep?

The key is having faith in the process, and to keep thinking about the bigger picture. Just like a Doctor would tell you to complete the course of anti-biotics, so we should reserve judgement on whether training is working AT the point you are trying to peak. This takes a lot of patience and trust. It also takes acceptance. As an athlete, I experienced my very own 'Damascus moment' when I learnt to be easier on myself, to accept that the performance I had just given (whether in training or in racing) was the best I could have given at that moment in time. Its easy to think "if only I had..." but you didn't.....so best to accept it, move on and just learn from the experience.

After a very disappointing race in the National 10 mile Champs one year, my then team mate Tim Lawson of Science in Sport said to me "Helen, you are only as good as your next race". Its a statement that gave me a lot of positivity as I prepared for the National 25 mile champs 2 weeks later. It allowed me to move on from a 'bad' performance. It can also keep your feet on the ground after a 'good' performance. I often use this statement with my athletes, but also with my own coaching work - it helps me stay grounded no matter the ups and downs I experience in performance week to week.

I'll finish by introducing this poem by Rudyard Kipling - appropriately, this is placed above the entrance to Centre Court at the All England Tennis Club. I think it sums up nicely how to ride the roller coaster...

 

 

This weekend, I spent a lot of time with my athletes who ride under the Team PBscience umbrella. Team membership is open to all the riders I coach, and we now have 7 riders. Building the squad to this number has allowed us to start entering teams into team time trial events – and on Saturday, we had our first ride at an event near Aylesbury.

In preparation, I took the team to Reading track for a practise session the Friday before the event. For a few of the riders, this was the first attempt at team time trialling, and for most of them, the first time they had ridden together. We were without one of our squad, Craig, as he has recently broken a bone in his hand and is stuck to the turbo L. This meant Lesley stepping up into the men’s squad – I don’t know who was more scared, Nathan and Dan, or Lesley!!

It was the first time I had coached on the track for a few months now, so I had spent some time last week creating my session plan, ensuring a progression of skills, drills and expectations. One thing I have learnt from running sessions is how important session planning is – it can feel a little ‘over the top’ but its a requirement to get the basics in place to ensure a smooth (and safe) session. The main advantage is that it allows you to see the progression of demands and goals you place on the riders. I split the 2 hour session into two halves, starting with those basics. Again, it can feel a little ‘over the top’ when working with a group of experienced, adult cyclists, but a lesson I learnt with the a3crg ladies squad when I coached them skills work for my British Cycling qualification 2 years ago. It is easy it is to assume basic skill competency. It is worth stripping back, taking things apart and rebuilding them. So on Friday I covered essentials like observation and communication, riding in a line, riding on a wheel and bike handling. It was only in the second hour I let them loose to ride in their 3-up formations of the next day.

 

Racing in teams is quite a different experience to riding on one’s own. For a start, a lot of athletes enter endurance sport BECAUSE they are individuals. To have a group that gels is fortuitous: but even then, a lot of work needs to be done on communication, on developing empathy, and awareness of not only one’s own strengths / weaknesses, but those of others. I think one valuable lesson most of the riders learnt from this weekend was that just because THEY operated in one way, it was not necessary the preference of their fellow team members. This applied to how one warms-up, how they run their pre-race routine and what is their focus. It helped that we had a team meeting on Friday night, as we all stayed at the Majesdski Stadium Hotel in Reading – this allowed us to discuss these issues, including our anxieties and priorities. Whilst team time trialling brings a level of lowered expectation (as riders are released from hitting a certain time), it brings an added pressure of not wanting to let those in your team down. So, we talked through expectations, and team roles. I also had the opportunity to explain to the two teams how their physiologies work – as combining riders with different riding styles and fitness profiles is a science. By the time race start came, everyone was ready to go!

 

As well as Team PBscience, I was also able to watch some of the other athletes I coach who ride for other teams. One team were the riders of a3crg, a group who I have had the pleasure of working with for a few years now, and specialise in team time trialling. Paddy, Jez and Seb have ridden quite a few races together now, so would be expected to be well drilled. However, they faced some challenges in their ride together too – illustrating how you can never fully be in control of performance. From the outside I perceived their major challenge being flexible in approach. Over the seasons, they have implemented different strategies – of pace, how hard to hit the front of the paceline, how long to stay on the front etc. Each time, feedback is generated – from the riders, and from me analysing race files. This process never ends – athlete performance is not a static value, nor is the course terrain or environment. One difficulty faced this time around was that all 3 riders have different form right now – so, a strategy that worked well in September may not be appropriate now. Normally, an athlete in this part of the season has less ‘top end’: this makes it harder to hit the front hard (a requirement to keep group speed the same). Even with recovery from the drafting effect when a rider sits on ‘the train’, at this time of the year it is also difficult to repeat this effort for a period of ~1 hour. Similarly, a team has to decide if the early season races are about the performance outcome (i.e. result / time), or about practising a strategy that will probably compliment their late season fitness – this comes back to a point I often raise with my athletes: knowing the goals that have priority in a year.

(Photo of the a3crg team courtesy of Sarah Brooke Photography)

So, its after this weekend that I have had time to reflect on how important getting the basics right is. In an athlete’s long term development, it’s easy to see progress in performance as linear – once you become competent in a skill we can become complacent. However, in order to keep stretching ourselves, we need to check back in as to whether our foundation is still solid. For me in my progression as a coach, I need to keep an eye on the essential core skills of communication and coaching knowledge – this weekend certainly gave me that practise!

 

You can read about how the athletes got on by visiting this week’s PBscience athlete blog. Dan is doing a great job in keeping this blog up to date, so be sure to check in each week to see how everyone is getting on.

I will share a little secret with you this week....a tip on how to get the best race performances ever; how to refine your fitness to levels envied by your fellow competitors this season: but you have to promise to keep it to yourselves – after all, you don’t want everyone benefitting from it, do you? Ready....

The short-cut to great races is training.

Mmm, not that enlightening really is it? We all know that surely? OK, the vital part I have omitted is that racing is not training. This has come up a lot in my conversations with riders this week: a challenge riders face once the race season kicks off is maintaining the training momentum. It is incredibly challenging to keep a training focus and fitness development at the forefront of the athlete mind. For many of my riders, their key event is still 8 weeks away – that is typically 2, 4 week blocks. If they were in race shape 8 weeks off their peak event I would be worried – often, they are racing at only 80% of their capacity – yet they see their competitors and want to be at their level.

Of course, I understand this feeling – I have been there, done that. A key to me finding a new level of performances as an athlete was firstly giving myself over entirely to the process of periodisation and secondly, to committing to prioritisation of fewer yet big peaks in a race year. Without these, I was destined to stay a mediocre time triallist. Instead I gambled and got my reward. In my final year, I raced just 6 times!

I sometimes struggle to tie my athletes down to a race season plan – and even then, a few have thrown challenging curve balls at me and my planning by scheduling in ‘last minute’ races. Of course, it is the perogative of athlete’s to choose and tweak their race plans: things happen to change the direction of a year. But, those athletes that give me their race ideas well in advanced can have far more faith in the grounding of the plan than those who can’t finalise their aims nor communicate those priorities to me.

Why does it matter so much? Surely, if the aim is to ‘get fit’, racing can only help get you into shape? To some extent, yes – undoubtedly, there are some benefits of racing to bring on race form. You may have come across the phrase “race yourself fit” – I doubt its getting ‘fit’ but more race pace efficient: for time triallists in particular, riding in the race position, at race powers, at race cadences will get your body more ‘practised’ at that movement, and therefore more efficient. More efficient means less oxygen per watt, allowing you to push more watts for the same oxygen uptake. I think all my riders experienced a drop off in powers as they shifted from road bike to time trial bike riding at the beginning of the season.

There is also a mental aspect – going through the race preparation, staying focused – these things all need implementing in the overall plan. Equally however, too much elevation of the psyche to the race scenario can be mentally draining. Its why I pride myself in having a group of riders that enjoy racing in September as much as they did in April – fewer excursions into the increased mental intensity of racing keeps you fresh (Lesley calls me her 'head glue'!). Before National Championships for example I advocate 3 practice races to be sufficient – so a rider with two goals of races over 10 and 25 miles might do 6 races in March and April. That is still a race every other weekend.

So, let me get to the crux of the issue i.e. racing is not training. Let us consider a time triallist who wishes to raise their race power from 250 to 270W. Each time they race a 10 mile time trial, they race at maximum effort, and the result is 250W (see picture on the left, click to enlarge). No matter how often they keep racing, all they can do is give their maximum effort – over time, they will get an improvement, but purely down to the improved efficiency I talk of above. This progress is likely to a) be very slow and b) ultimately limited (as they haven’t improved fitness, just efficiency)

 

 

If instead they train at the weekend, we have the opportunity for them to ride ABOVE their current maximum. Look at the session in the picture on the right (click to enlarge). Getting the rider to work at 270W for blocks of time, they can ride above their current maximum – and this is the key to enhancing training stress and allowing overload. Racing does not allow overload, you can only ride at your maximum.

Perhaps a clearer way of presenting this is to calculate the total work done in across a race at 250W for 23 minutes and a training session incorporating 5 x 5 minute blocks at 270W: the former gives 345kJ, the latter 405kJ. The breaking down of the effort into blocks allows more work done, but also to make this work done at the intensity at which the body needs to become accustomed to. This latter point is crucial – take a similar training session I like to call ‘redline’ (3 minute blocks above and below a sustainable power). An athlete using this session pushes their body’s physiology to bigger extremes in the 3 minutes above the sustainable power than they might hold in an hour long race. In the case of redline sessions, we encourage the body to get better at clearing lactic acid. Maximum race effort is not as demanding as a well planned training session. In the race, you sit at your maximal lactate steady state, so you don’t ask the body to clear lactic acid at the same rate as in the redline session. Ride at maximum week in week out, and all you get is riding at maximum. You need to ride BEYOND maximum to provide overload to the body, and for it to re-build stronger.

Using the bath analogy - work above steady state to turn on the tap (lactic acid production); recover a little to drain the water away (clear the lactic acid); and you will maintain a bathful of water at a controllable level. Training allows us to keep the duck right on the edge: by increasing the energy production by opening the tap; but draining away the consequences of the metabolic 'waste'.

How do we turn this into practical advice?

• Sit down and really consider what you want from your cycling – consistent year round performance OR fewer, bigger peaks. Neither is right nor wrong: just choose according to your wishes and be honest with the consequences of this choice
• Choose 2 or 3 events that will allow you to practice performance in your chosen goal – use these to perfect race preparation, race pacing and nutrition strategies
• Make sure you race no more than every other weekend, thereby giving you one weekend to devote to training and achieving that ‘beyond maximum’ approach to performance development
• If you are struggling to hit training targets due to lifestyle / work commitments leaving you lacking in time or creating tiredness, consider dropping your race at the weekend to prioritise the training: it will take you further in the long run

On a personal note, it is rumoured that my ‘bike riding’ is now bordering on ‘training’...my plan to take me towards the London to Paris with more confidence has required me to build the miles up in each ride. A few milestones to tick off – I can cope with 4h comfortably now, so I now want to build through 80 and 100 mile rides; eventually reaching the ability to do a few back to back rides before June. On Sunday, I had the excuse to tick off the ‘80’ goal, riding up to Broadbridge Heath to watch my rider Tom in a 25 mile TT. At 6:30 am I sent a text to Tom telling him I was on my way – his ‘you must be insane’ text did not deter me! At 1:30pm, I realised he was right – 5h15, 87 miles later I returned home, walked straight through to the lounge, collapsed on the sofa and put on the TV to watch Cancellara waltz away with Paris-Roubaix (awesome display!). I was pleased with my ride, in the main because I coped with it mentally (a long ride for me on my own) and also nutritionally my strategy was good – 3 bottles of PSP, 1 Go bar, and 3 Go gels. My recovery nutrition was even better – one slice of carrot cake. I wonder if that will be made available to me after each stage of the L2P?  ;-)

I was watching coverage of the World Track Championships last week when Dave Brailsford, the Performance Director of British Cycling was interviewed. His interview came immediately after the British trio of Chris Hoy, Ross Edgar and Jason Kenny 'only' claimed bronze - it seems anything less than gold in cycling is just not good enough theses days: at least from the perception of the media and the general public. However, Brailsford summed it up very neatly - he explained that with Jamie Staff being out because of a back injury, Jason Kenny had to step up and play the crucial part of #1 man. The fact that Kenny, the next generation of athlete being primed for the 2012 Olympics, put in an amazing performance (17.2s for the first lap!) under pressure at this level was the highlight in Brailsford's eyes. As extreme as it might seem, to this organisation, nothing can match the importance of the Olympics - not even a world championship. All eyes are on 2012 - this year is insignificant - its about breeding success in 2012.

When one reads about British Cycling, often the first phrase we come across is 'aggregation of marginal gains': how the smallest of components (the 1% enhancements) all add up - each 1% can be added, accumulated - and will make the difference at the elite level of performance: diet, training, technology - no stone left unturned. However, what is often overlooked is their ability to also see the bigger picture. What struck me in the interview I mention above is how single minded Brailsford was: World Champs 2010 served purely as a stepping stone to THE goal, 2012. In his words "Kenny stepped up, job done". The staff at British Cycling see the bigger picture as well as they implement the finer detail - like a camera that can see the wide angle and narrow focus view.

Its pertinent to contemplate this concept in the early part of the race season. At the beginning of the annual cycle (November time) I will have a conversation with each of my athletes about their goals for the season ahead. The riders are very clear on what they want, as the recent season is still fresh in their minds. Come January, I start to push them on firming up race plans and objectives; by March I begin to notice how hard it is to get a plan 100% in place - they suddenly want to race every weekend yet STILL be peaking for 2 or 3 key events. Essentially, its a human trait - we want it all; to be good all year around, and to be even better for the goal events. I have written about this before - how cyclists differ to runners for example. Runners pinpoint a key event and train for that; race; then plan again for the next event. In cycling, there seems to be a pressure to a) be fit all year around and b) want to peak all year around...its just not possible.

Even if I am able to pin a rider down to their race season plans in February, I still sense the need to perform well from the off: early season races often come with disappointment - an expectation that because of all the winters training, they will be better than where they left off in September / October. For example, its easy for a rider to forget that the 'big one' in May is still 12 weeks away when the racing 'red mist' descends at the season opener in March. I had reason to contemplate this 'wide angle, narrow focus' thinking at the weekend, as  I drove up to Andover to watch 5 of my riders in a 10 mile time trial  - for most of them, it was their first race outing of 2010. Of course, you always want your riders to perform well - but you have to manage expectations without extinguishing the flames of motivation! As it turned out, all five performed exceptionally well on the day - but I added another layer of context when I made sure to take each rider back to where this fits in the bigger picture.

I spend a lot of my time encouraging riders to think about fine tuning - in training, in nutrition, in recovery. But as with the racing example I give above, "bigger picture thinking" also applies to the day by day routine of training, nutrition and recovery. I think this is in part due to the data we now have available - data overload sometimes. I wrote last week about balancing health and fitness: adding the subjectivity of how one feels to the numbers coming back at you from your bike computer display plays a role in keeping you healthy whilst pushing the boundaries of fitness. This is a great example of seeing the bigger picture - does it matter if you don't do all 8 of the 3 min reps that coach sets? In a word, "no" - I often use the expression "getting the essence of the session". What type of overload did I intend? Did that get met? If "yes", stop, don't push yourself over that. By all means, pay attention to the detail of the interaction between heart rate, power, cadence to get the session dialled - but if one doesn't quite marry up with the others, don't let it overwhelm you. The body is not a machine; and we sport scientists whilst knowing a lot (obviously!), we don't understand the body entirely - and every one is different.

Even knowing a lot, we sport scientists have to keep on learning! Last week, I was part of a team at the University that presented a workshop on the 'Critical Power' concept. These workshops are supported by the British Association of Sport and Exercise Science (BASES) to help their membership keep on top of the latest topics in the discipline. It was the first time I have contributed to one of these workshops since taking on my new mantle of coach / sport scientist (as opposed to being purely a researcher). I feel my new role allowed me to bring home the application of techniques alongside the traditional research, theoretical presentation. Although a day away from my coaching work, I enjoyed it - and hopefully we inspired a few budding coaches in the room!

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the day for me was working alongside my mentor, Jo Doust. As well as being my boss at the University (and the Chair of BASES) Jo was my PhD supervisor and I always learn something new from him. Last week at the workshop he opened up the afternoon session by introducing a definition of "intelligence" he had read that morning in the Guardian newspaper - apparently the article explained that intelligence is an ability to hold two, not necessarily agreeing concepts in the mind simultaneously, yet work with both. Jo was explaining this in the context of the Critical Power concept: a measure of fitness that is vague in its physiological meaning yet more sound in its application for monitoring performance. However,interestingly, it is just as applicable to a 'wide angle, narrow focus' approach to sports performance.

As all scientists are guilty of, I will now extrapolate - based on the above definition of intelligence; and how I must work on a 'wide angle, narrow focus' approach every day in my role...that must make me VERY intelligent, no? ;-)

The general consensus is that exercise is good for you - exercise, along with good nutrition, does improve health and longevity. However, it can be taken to extremes, and indeed, exercise does not cancel out a poor attitude to health. If we take this to the extreme, athletes are actually sailing very close to the wind for a large proportion of the year: the very need to stretch their bodies to get fitter is actually in the short term, affecting health. Each training session will suppress normal immune function. If this overload is too high, they 'overtrain' and the immune system takes a bashing.

We all perhaps know or have known athletes who seem to use their training as an excuse to overeat or make unhealthy food choices. I won't criticise the likes of Phelps or Bolt for their fast food diets (as it seems to work for them!) but ultimately, its not the healthiest fuel to run your engine long term. For some athletes, there is a perception that training allows you to eat more - they think of re-fuelling after training simply as replacing the calories lost. Little thought is given to the quality of the food. Take time to think what you want your body to be made up of though - we literally "are what we eat", as the body can only take the material you ingest for its building blocks. Choose foods that will help you recover from the stress of training, not just equate energy burnt. Working with my colleage Lucy-Ann, a nutritionist, I often get chance to tell an athlete that the basis for good performance is one of good health. You can't expect your body to perform at the peak of its potential if you do not have good health. The best training in the world can't happen if you are not fuelling well, sleeping well, and don't have good health. Lucy-Ann has some great food ideas, so check out her website.

Another example of fitness not being the same as health is when it comes to injury or illness. One of the most frustrating times for an athlete is having to let go of performance aims when a injury flares up. Often, injury / illness comes to us at a time of peak fitness - as its when we have pushed the envelope in order to peak that we are at our most vulnerable. The temptation is to keep training, or even to compete when injured. We grasp at the short term often at the neglect of the long term. This time of year often sees this pattern emerging: athletes keen to get started on the race season often ignoring the little signs that all is not well.

I've had a few discussions with athletes this week about the need to move focus outward, away from the detail of training and take a look at the bigger picture. So attentive to power, HR, distance targets, we can sometimes forget to listen to how we feel: yes, that good old fashioned metric we seem to have lost since having objectivity through numbers! Training plans, when first written, are not perfect - they just form templates, guides to follow. If we see them as gospel (Coach wrote this, and expects me to finish it) we will override the signals from the body telling us to slow down, or to stop. We ignore the fact we are eating more (to try and combat fatigue) or sleeping less (from being overtired). I think in general, the athletes I work with are pretty switched on to these 'metrics' - this comes from me nagging them about training diaries!

One of the reasons I have been contemplating health this week is having Craig prepare for the Leadville 100. We had a team meeting last week, and we covered the main aspects we need to address: not only in helping him reach peak potential in the event; but firstly GETTING him to the startline, and then getting him around the course safely. A good example of this is our intention to acclimatise Craig ready for altitude - we explained the acute reaction the body will have, how he will need to cope with this. At 3000m, even his Dad (his support team!) will have to be aware of the symptoms and actions. Craig exercising at this altitude will have to take the preparation another step - we explained he will lose 10% of his fitness because of the environmental extremes. As well as the threat to Craig from the lower pressure of oxygen at that height, we also need to protect him against the severe physcial challenge of the event terrain and duration. One of Craig's major aims is to improve his power to weight ratio for all the climbing ahead: so the next 20 weeks are about increasing fitness at a time of losing weight whilst retaining lean body mass - complicated dynamics...but he is in good hands with the team we have built.

As much as the training athlete, Coach has also heeded words of wisdom on health this week - I found a great blog post on the need for rest, so I took it on board and have now set an intention of taking one full day off per week. Sundays, I am no longer allowed to turn my PC on - it is now about me, a book and a trip to Caffe Nero for breakfast...its hard looking after yourself ;-)