I thought I would push the intensity up a little this week - at least for a few sessions. Not quite by design, but a couple of other sessions ended up steady instead of easy. There were a couple of things I wanted to check out - both equipment/data wise, and how the training was going. The annual opportunity for a "birthday special" also presented itself this week. There are a few challenges floating around for what you can do for your annual birthday challenge, and I decided I would do something this year. I was not too hung up on the "year" factor coming into the formulae, just a solid hit-out for the day. But to include the year factor, I thought at least 42min of running and 4.2km of swimming (guess the year??). On the cycle, I was tossing up between a time trial (as it was due), or a longer steady ride. The steady ride prevailed, mainly due to the fact I wanted around 4 hours training with a good portion of it at a solid steady effort.
So this is how the birthday special rolled out -
- Friday morning run intervals, which was just a hill run, which did not start off very well, as I went fairly hypoglycemic after 15min, and just wanted to go straight back to the car and head for home. Got myself over that and rolled through the run, taking it reasonably easy for a 45minute run. Finished felling OK, but not quite the start I was after.
- Breakfast and a short nana-nap (love that), and then down to the pool. Aim was a solid main set of 30x100 on the best send-off I could comfortably maintain. I thought 10 on 1:35, 10 pull on 1:30 and then 10 freestyle on 1:30 to finish with would be good. Felt OK after a 400m warm-up, and it usually takes 2-3 reps to get into a good rhythm and get my pacing sorted, with the first few a little slow being the usual start. Did the first one in 1:20 and it felt OK, so decided 1:30 was going to be the initial send-off. All went well, and kept going through to 15, most in 1:20, a couple at 1:22. A quick change to paddles and pull buoy, and continued on. The next 5 were in 1:15, still leaving every 1:30. That was a bit more rest than planned, so thought I would try 5 on 1:25, which went OK, so pushed on and did the last 10 on 1:20 mostly 1:18's a couple of 1:20's in there as well. Finished off with a kick set (8x50m on 1min) and an easy warm-down (8x50 fs on :50). All in all better than expected, although the lower legs gave a few cramp twinges pushing off the wall, which I figured was from the run a couple of hours before. I did feel a bit stuffed after, and could feel the HR was still quite high an hour or so later, so it was probably a little harder effort than it actually felt in the pool.
- Being wet, the ride was going to be indoors! The cramp in the swim put me completely off the time trial option, so decided on the virtual reality trainer, and to do a couple of climbs up alp d'huez, after a lap around the verona world champs circuit! The virtual reality trainer does make a nice change to just sitting on the trainer and pedaling, and the load does vary quite a bit, as on the road, so it is sometimes not so easy to get into a good rhythm. The HR was quite high in the warm-up, so figured I was going to have to take it a little easier. The aim was to try and ride the climbs around 150HR perhaps slightly under, but not over 155. The first time up the climb (13.6km at around 8% average) the HR was sitting just below the 155 threshold I wanted to keep below most of the time. The power was down a bit as well, both good indications I was tired! Each "climb" took just over 40 minutes, the first 269 watts and 153 HR average, the second 261 watts and 152 HR. I would expect that if I did the same session fresh I would average around 290watts at a similar HR. That data is from the powermeter, the trainer gave over 400 watt average (I wish!!) and the second as faster - shame it is not as accurate as it is entertaining...
I as pretty stuffed after, with a few cramps in the legs afterward. Not so much the day itself, but probably the previous 3 days were also quite steady - certainly relative to what I have been doing in the recent past. Tuesday was solid with a sprint swim session, and bike intervals (2 1/2 hours total), Wednesday a steady swim and steadier bike class (3 hours all up), and Thursday school cycling and a hill run (around 3 hours). I wore the polar RS800 heart-rate monitor in conjunction with the power meter, to see compare a few bits of information. The RS800 is suppose to measure training fatigue, and be able to tell you how well "recovered you are. It does this by measuring the variation between heart beats. I can assure you that as the week progressed I was getting pretty stuffed! I was not sure whether I can get out of bed to train over the weekend! The HR monitor tells me I am at a "normal" level! Right, time for a fitness test then. I have always been dubious about this, as every time I have done this test, my fitness rating has always been the same until a birthday, then it goes down one point! Does not matter if I do it after a rest day and feel great, or after a really hard session and I am stuffed. According to the monitor I have a VO2 max of 43, and my status is "normal" (2/5 - 1 is fully recovered, and I am guessing 5 means don't leave bed for a week). Under "normal training load" my resting HR is usually a little under 40, (if I sit down and relax, I can get it under 40 most days), today - I am struggling to keep it under 50 - so definitely a fair degree of fatigue! I am not sure what I have to do to get to a 4 or 5 on the recovery/stress status with Mr polar!! I won't be relying on that too much anyway!
Another little experiment for the week has been to compare the polar calorie count to the energy produced through the powertap. The polar HR monitor is estimating your calories burnt from the settings you enter and the HR. The powertap is measuring the actual energy you produce. If you know your efficiency for energy conversion (can be measured), or at least you can estimate it, you can calculate your energy expenditure from your energy produced (the conversion factor is probably not going to change much). There are also a few formulae around to estimate this for running and swimming - based on body weight and speed. As a rough guide, the KJ you produce on the bike multiplied by 1.1 should give you the kcal you actually burnt off. So for the two rides this week - measuring both:
1 - powertap gives 1130 Kj, which converts to 1243 kcal burnt. Polar estimates 1081kcal.
2 - Powertap gives 1853Kj which converts to 2038 kcal burnt off. Polar estimates 1963kcal.
This is much closer than I was expecting. The older polar models were know to be quite good for females but underestimate males by 20%. So this give a good estimate at a steady effort, and an average estimate at and easier effort (first ride). Obviously a fair amount more data would be needed to make it more meaningful - however it was a good spot check. I am not sure I want to wear two chest straps for most of my bike rides - 1 is plenty enough!
Of course if you then want to be a little more diligent with the training and diet, you make sure you eat what you burnt off (plus or minus weight loss/gains you want to make). So for my 4 hours training on Friday, I probably went through around 3600-3800 kcal in training plus base metabolism of 2400kcal, gives a total output of around 6000 kcal for the day. I better get eating...
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