Annnndddd ACTION!

This weekend I'll be sitting in the directors chair, well assistant directors chair, for the Los Gatos Women's Elite Team as they tackle the San Jose Criterium on Saturday and the fabled, albeit reduced, Amgen Tour Of California Women's Race. I'm excited to work with the likes of these ladies. They are all fast, smart, and just good fun. We don't have our strategy dialed quite yet, and I wouldn't tell ya if we did, but suffice it to say that we think we can pull a podium, er rabbit, out of our collective hats. I mean let's look at the crew....
JVM - Jenny is tenacious and fit....
LVG - Super Pro Laura Van Gilder is flying the colors this weekend and will surely be an asset when it comes to keeping the ladies on the sharp end of the field. All that and she'll still finish in the money!
MEA - Shelly Olds gets a lot of, deserved, press and praise on the Nor Cal circuit, but don't think Mary Ellen doesn't know how to dial it up to top tier on command. I've watched her completely SMOKE some talented womens fields. This would be the proverbial feather in her cap....and ME likes a challenge!!
KF - yea, though she be but small, she be fierce! Prime hunter? Set Up gal? Kim Fong will certainly be put to the whip this weekend, and she'll respond glowingly
Karla - she may not be a one name wonder in Nor Cal quite yet..but she very well could be after this race.
Starla - really, we need some sort of Karla/Starla pnemonic here. Don't worry you'll see her smiling face at the front.
Lindsay - she could be the next 'thing' in women's racing 'round here. We tested her last week and her VO2power was AWESOME! Like over 5W/kg awesome..and it's only January.
Erin Dunn - another slayer for the cause...Erin has good fitness right now, lucky Erin.

There are some heavy hitters coming to town for sure. Columbia, Webcor,Proman, Tibco, etc...pretty much all the speedsters. But don't think for a minute that the end result is pre-determined...that's why they call it a RACE!! And anything can happen in a RACE! See you out there

Webinar Coming Jan 28th

Sterling Sports Group is pleased to announce the first in a series of Training and Racing Webinars designed to facilitate your development in cycling. Matt McNamara, a USAC Level 1 Coach, will be hosting an informative and useful webinar on Developing Your Annual Training Plan on Wednesday February 28th from 4 - 5:30pm. This is much more than a simple rehash of the 3-weeks ON/1-week OFF methodology. Instead it is designed as a comprehensive look at your training and racing plans for the 2009 season. Have you set your goals? Do you know your strengths and weaknesses? What workouts work best for you? What workouts do you need the most? January is a great time to sit down and answer, or better yet refine your answer to, these questions. We'll cover some sound principals including the value of base training, creating a responsible High Intensity Training (HIT) plan, and tracking your progress throughout the year. The webinar includes several DIY-Worksheets and planning tools that we'll walk through together. The emphasis will be on power based training, but we will address heart rate and perceived exertion as valuable metrics too.

The clinic is $20 and registration is exclusively through PayPal. You can sign-up on our website - www.sterlingwins.com - or by sending your registration fee to info at sterlingwins dot com. Once registration is confirmed we will send you the webinar packet, including worksheets, sign-on information and link. Future webinars will be scheduled bi-weekly, check the website for upcoming events.

See you online!

2009 Fired Up!

Every year, for the past 20 or so, I get increasingly jazzed for the start of the cycling season. Some years it's because of my own aspirations, most years it's the return of european pro's to competition. In the 80's it was events like the Ruta del Sol and Tirreno Adriatico that kicked off the seaon for me. Of course in '88 we had to wait for Winning to come out, but the pictures of the field riding along some warm coastline always enticed. La Primavera, Paris-Nice, Vuelta Andalucia (Ruta's new name), Tirreno, these are Spring. By the late 90's the season started moving earlier with the arrival of the Tour de Langkawi and Tour Down Under. With the rise of the internet it became easy to get immediate results for a road season that now lasts the better part of 10 months. Add cyclocross or track racing and there is great racing somewhere year round. Still, the return of pro road racing is it's own special beast. New teams, new colors, the chance to see how your favorites are doing. Sweet!

So, we're quickly coming up on the start of the 09 season and the excitement is building for the Tour Down Under. Say whatever you want about Lance - he may be a jerk, an ego-maniac, a doper, but he's certainly compelling! I've never been a big 'fan', but i'll give the dude his due....Lance is a bad-ass when he wants to be. Of course there are plenty of other story lines to follow besides that, thank goodness. I'm curious about Columbia and Garmin of course, but also interested to see which new Belgian rises in April, how the 100th Giro will play out, and what team will be a revelation. BMC in europe? Katusha? Liquigas or Silence-Loto? We'll know soon.

I'm not more psyched for this year than others...just about the same I guess. But it builds slowly and next thing I know I'm sitting in front of a computer screen trying to discern the action at Tour of California via video-feed! Last year I sat and watched nearly every stage in real time (it helps to have a job where you work real early). Throw in the local racing scene...Snelling, Cherry Pie, Merced, and it tends to keep me busy.

Typically I'm 'preparing' for one of them, trying to squeeze in miles and intensity to be ready for Merco, or riding old la honda looking for better numbers before Pilarcitos. Not this year. Instead I'm trying to enjoy a slow build towards a different kind of season. Different means less worry about continually chasing race fitness or some abstract idea of what being an active racer means. Different means putting in some fun races on the track and aiming for top 20 finishes in the big crits like San Rafael, SF Twilight, Cats Hill and maybe a few others. Different means putting the time and effort into a full cyclocross season. That sounds fun to me.

2009 Clinic Schedule

We just released our 2009 Camp & Clinic schedule for Sacramento and the Bay Area. In addition to our traditional favorites like climbing and descending we've added some level 2 clinics targeted at racers and advanced riders. The schedule is complete through mid-July and we'll have the Fall schedule up by the 1st of April.

Upcoming Events:

2009 Full Events Calendar Available Here
Bike Fit Clinic January 17th 8:30a - 12:00p
Climb & Descend Level l 1 Jan 31st, May 9th Feb 7th 8:30a - 12:00p
Climb & Descend Level 2 April 4th June 7th 8:30a - 12:00p
Speed Camp Level 1 March 21st, July 18th March 22nd 8:30a - 12:00p
Speed Camp Level 2 April 18th April 11th, June 14th 8:30a - 12:00p
Time Trial Camp May 10th 8:30a - 12:00p
Mini Camp Weekend March 6 - 8th May 23 - 24th Fri - Sun

BASP Finals - Coyote Point!!

First off a big - tough guy shout out - to Ed M....brother took a chain ring in the calf in his race and let me tell you it looked just about serious when I walked up on him! Oh, ouch..oh my gosh....damn. We got him into the car and off to the hospital for care. I was worried it was one of those 'couple of weeks' kind of injuries....d'oh! Then a couple of hours later I get a text from Mike V saying that Ed is coming back to the venue!! what??? Wow...he's tough. Turns out it wasn't as bad as initially thought. He was even walking.


I had never been to Coyote Point for a race so the venue was a pleasant suprise. ton of technical single-track combined with road race worthy straights and fast sections on the back side. Good fun. Got off to a good start and was ~8th onto the first singletrack. Mike Sayers did a barnstorm on the first hill to come past just before the dirt and was cooking! I actually followed him into the fun singletrack downhill...but i'd been working a little different line and used that to pass him before the tree barrier. The sand ate me up 1st lap...but from there it wasn't that bad - run the first 30yards, mount, ride the rest - and don't eat the bacon! smelled good, tasted good for 3 seconds - then remember the nature of mostly warm bacon grease. Bleeeeach! No water forced me to spit and suffer for the whole of the straightaway trying to clear the taste. I rode the back side barriers the first 4 or so laps...then decided it was a lot more work for not much gain. Was riding pretty consistently with a Scott/Alteeza guy and a Family Cycling Center guy had come up to us going pretty well. We rode the better part of a lap or so together at a pace I was happy with; Somewhere 10-12th with 2 or 3 guys within about 30s. At the start of 3 to go I flatted entering the single track and RAN the entire fun single-track section!! It probably took 5 minutes or so to get to the wheel pit. Bummer...right at that 40min mark again....s'up? Anyway, got a wheel after watching everyone pass me, jumped in and was quickly lapped by Josh and the other top 4 on the last lap....I was ok with not having to do another lap, but was ok not doing another lap too. Overall a pretty good race personally. Quick power details - "Race - 40min" ~325Wnorm/308Wavg...better than last week, but down from the BASP #3 Night Race.

Team wise we had a good day, save Ed's suture safari. The super-juniors..Anthony and Matt V were again on fire with Anthony pulling a 3rd in the race and a 2nd overall in the series - wow, good job Anthony! Matt V also lit up the race finals and the series overall placing 6th today and 9th overall. A really impressive start by these first year 'cross riders....big fun next year!


Anthony D - 3rd Junior U18
Matt V - 6th Junior U13
Mike Sayers - 20th Elite A's -
Bill S - 22nd in 35+B's....and a quick convert to the idea of a Leopard CX rig.
Matt M - 22nd in Elite A's....drat!

Elecrtric Drag Car

Ok...this is pretty cool. I was never a gear head...but knew enough to know that a sub 12sec in the quarter for a street car is pretty darn quick...add to that that it's both a DATSUN! and ELECTRIC...and wahoo....sweet!!

More on todays CX race at Coyote Point in a bit....

Putting On The Coaching hat

I've been reading a bunch of stuff lately (see the previous post), but not all if it has been pure candy. I try to read some relevant stuff too. Physiology, biomechanics, stuff that is important to both my day to day job and the performance of my athletes (which is my day to day job - a potential infinite loop of hilarity).

Anyway, there is some good stuff out there from coaches across the spectrum of spots (gotta read it all). I just read some very interesting stuff on the influence of the brain on fatigue and There is also some junk out there as well. A few coaches are pushing ideas and their own theories that are based more on ego than real science. I won't throw them out now, but may later...guess it depends on the quality of my coffee tomorrow. A couple of observations

1. Lots of coaches claim to have the next silver bullet of performance. This year it seems to be Tabata Intervals. Roughly, its a set of 6-8 intervals of 20 seconds ON, 10 seconds OFF performed at about 170% of VO2max (power i presume as the study had them on a cycling ergometer - though they are usually described as 'all out' by those referencing). I've been using them for about a year now intermittently (yep, one of the sheep) and can say that they are both effective and too easy. I haven't done them in the run up to a competition, but my athletes seem to like them. They are hard, but they aren't as hard as some other workouts I do. The argument is that those doing Tabatas had a 14% improvement in VO2 and a 28% improvement in anaerobic capacity over the course of a 6-week study doing these 2 or 3 times a week, while those exercising at 70% of VO2 only showed improvement in their VO2 (53 to 58 ml/kg). It just seems to me that doing a block of these 2 or 3 times a week isn't sufficient to make performance gain - think about it this way...6 sets of 20s is only 2minutes of workload - so although intensity factor is very high, total training stress is very low. Then again, as an interval model they are a valid approach. Then again so is Peak Power. Think of Peak Power as VO2 power. The strategem is to do your peak power for 60% of your T-max (maximum sustained duration at peak power). While a solid approach to High Intensity Training (HIT) I think that the Thibault approach is much more elegant. Dr Thibault has built a model for improving your VO2 power by working across a range of intensities (85-110% of VO2power) and durations (45s - 6:30m). I like it because it offers both a standardized approach and a wide variety of workout options to keep athletes motivated.

2. The next big 'revelation' is the move away from periodization in training. Carl Foster of ACSM asserts that no reliable studies validate the periodized training plan approach. While I haven't read the reference material he drew from, I did look around a bit and found an interesting look at the relative volume of training done at Lactate Threshold at an ACSM Annual conference, chaired by Carl Foster, that could certainly be a backstop to the idea of eliminating periodization if for no other reason than to minimize training time spent at higher intensities. That study, lead by Stephen Seiler, looked at polarizing training (increasing volume of low intensity and essentially decreasing threshold level work) and the positive results that came as a result. My worry is that athletes will simply hear that periodization is out and use it to justify an increase in volume of intensity (defined by me as Level 4/LT and above) that will ultimately lead to stagnation or perhaps overtraining.

Anyway, this idea of ego-centric coaching was all brought home recently on a series of threads authored by a coach with a great list of acronyms and accomplishments behind his name (which is a HUGE pet peeve of mine!!!!) but a complete lack both perspective and couth (sp?). He went on and on about how doctors are, basically, inept and dangerous, how chiropractic will be the wave of the future, and what a jerk another coach is for posting an educational link that happened to also be revenue generating for the other coach. It was distasteful and tacky. That he followed it up by telling this group (that includes many accomplished coaches, PhD's, etc) that the next big thing ("you heard it here first") was having trainers partner with doctors to help both gain credability. What? My first job out of college in 1995 was working as a trainer/exercise therapist in a clinical setting with chronically ill patients - yea...almost 15 years ago!


I guess my point is that each of you should really try and see the big picture with your training. Don't look at the next 'new' thing as the path to greatness. Don't presume that because someone has a lot of letters behind their name that they know what they are talking about. Challenge your sources. Ask questions. Don't settle...

Too Much Time....

I am a confirmed bike-holic (b/c bike-a-holic sounds like a problem). Bike-addict? Anyway, I think it may preclude my ability to succeed in other areas. It's like a constant pre-occupation or gnaw. I think I should have taken my riding more seriously. I kinda squadered those foundational years with girls and college...ok, not exactly a waste of time since I can form a sanguine thought, or so I think. Anyway, the point is that I spend a bit of time reading blogs and am constantly amazed at the talent that is writing about cycling, the creativity of their posts ( a quiz where the winner gets to watch the Family Ties when Alex P Keaton gets addicted to speed - come on!), and the seemingly endless amount of free time people have to do this stuff. Nevermind the time spent trying to read it all! I normally read the same one or two but have tried to challenge myself to go beyond of late. I've been pretty far. Glad I did. The myriad of perspectives and opinions that grace the web is daunting, disturbing, and fun.The good ones have made it to the left hand column. I'm gonna try to make my posts have a bit more panache to them from now on.

CX Magazine Photo Stream

Find more photos like this on Cyclocross Magazine

BASP #3 - Night 'Cross Comes Calling...

Tom and Alec Simpson throw a pretty good party for the Super Prestige, but Saturday night was a new ceiling! Their crew and the folks at Roaring Mouse put together a fun new twist on 'cross....Night Racing. I've done some night races, they are fun because everything is more surreal, feels so much BIGGER. This was no exception. Rolling out to pre-ride one wondered if there would be enough light thrown on the course. The bumps were there. The short, crisp climbs. Rocks and dust - all the CX mainstays.
Would the darkness mask an errant bump and take me out? Strangely the visibility on the course was akin to a daylight race, I think because the haze of race level intensity is the same so a lack of light isn't really a distraction. I'd certainly say that the crowds helped....a super shout out to Liza and her crew - you were sooooo loud every lap!! It was inspiring to come up that hill and hear the cheers...thanks! Anyway - the race...

I haven't raced an Elite A CX race since 2002 or 2003. With a call up for the top 20 I was a little nervous about the start, the all important start. So I lined up way early, shot the breeze with some other guys and slotted into the 2nd row right behind Josh Snead and his flashing red bar ends (well, at least i'll know how far ahead he is - eg if I can see those lights I'm probably ok!). Off the line and up to speed - not too hard, but enough to take a wide line into the first turn/curb - hot onto single track and i'm in 4th. A couple of hard chargers, including Buckethead, slip past in the corners before the barriers, but I'm feeling pretty good and trying to recover a bit as we head into lap two. Held my own through the lap, but bobbled the barriers and got passed by one other guy, drat. Kept it up the next couple of laps, started to get some recovery and felt pretty good - time to go looking for places. 20 minutes done - wow, 40 to go...pace yourself, but go! A little hot into the slippery transition onto the homestretch pavement and, down! Not super fast...but don't those always hurt more!? I got up quickly but my shoulder and thumb hurt. Back on the bike - out of sorts and in pain. I rode the next lap or so in a daze, lost some positions and kept hearing the internal voice saying - 'you're hurt, probably should stop" - but I didn't want too..i wanted to do this race, wanted to finish in the top 15 darn it. The next few laps were painful. It actually hurt less to grab the bars hard on the bumpy stuff...for awhile anyway. Aaron Kereluk passed me and we played chase for the next 3 or 4 laps. He was faster in the technical stuff, but I had him cold on pure power. Honestly, without the injury I never would have seen Aaron - I was just faster, and Aarons fast! That felt pretty good. Unfortunately the pain kept getting worse and I spent two of our three laps braking almost exclusively with my front brake/left hand. Managed to scare myself a few times, but didn't crash. I dropped out at 36 minutes. 36 hours later I am hopeful that my thumb will be ok for districts and I think I can run with the top 5 in 35A's, we'll see.

Ok - now the fun part....the power data! I'll post the screen shot in a few minutes. I've taken some grief for putting a power tap on my cx bike. Extra weight, unreliable, blah blah blah - I'm just curious what it looks like. About like you'd expect - tons of spikes in the 600-700 range alternating with 0 watts on the barriers, downhills, turns, etc. i averaged 79rpm for the race - which is actually a good cadence for that course - slightly larger gear saves the legs a bit. i didn't have heart rate, but i'm guessing it was high!
Race Time: 36minutes
Watts: 323W
Watts normalized: 346W
Details - the race started with a 1238W punch - that averaged out to ~750W for the first 10s and 550W for the first minute. The first 20 minutes Normalized out to 356W, which if we use the Coggan formula would put my LT Power at ~340 (95% of 20min value) - which is quite a bit higher than I expected. I really wanted to get the full hour of data, but that slippery pavement didn't feel I should. I can't wait to see the next one...