2017/18 Training

Lama's 5 x 4 TT Intervals - Shane Miller

Shane miller is a professional cyclist and journalist he writes for the likes of  Zwift and TACX. He has a video https://youtu.be/Apnwg1TAsIU that is the basis of my focus for this training plan.

Googling "Lama": It is a competitive 100K route in England around lake Lama. However he is pictured with Lamas so it could be that connection. His signature is GP Llama. It was possibly some of these reasons Shane constructed this training regime. I have decided to adopt this as my winter ftp builder.

My current ftp is 200W or 2.63W/Kg. It is not bad for my age (67) but improvement is what my road cycling is all about. Shane put together his regime presumably for competing in a Lama event so it should be good enough for me. I would like to come out of the winter this season at 3W/Kg or 228W or a 14% improvement. For my declared ftp (200) here is the suggested starting point. P1 - P5 are the yellow and Orange blobs on the screenshot diagram below.

Start point for me.
Intervals	% ftp in W	W	W/Kg
P1	106	212	2.79
P2	108	216	2.84
P3	110	220	2.89
P4	112	224	2.95
P5	114	228	3.00

I am a little concerned with my heart rate so I initially back off a couple of percent at the beginning to ease myself into the regime. Here is the original screenshot from the video.

All set I then conducted my first training ride on Zwift. The scenery is just the same for a normal ride except the trainer is in ERG mode. It apparently stands for Ergo Mode. Ergo mode adjusts the trainer resistance for a given cadence to match your target power chosen (The yellow, orange and grey power bars). It is like a servo system where you (the human) are the motor and Zwift is the rest of the control system. See ERG mode Some people don't like being controlled by a computer so it is not for everyone. You can switch off ERG mode on the workout from Zwift.

The results are shown above are my second attempt and are 1% down on my start point. The power curve shows how ERG mode maintains the target power during the 4 min interval. Also you should note the heart rate climbs to 164 bpm at the end of the session so I am obviously not pushing it beyond reasonable for my age.

Best fit MHR (Maximum Heart Rate) formula

 After years of searching for an arithmetic formula that's more accurate, the authors of this article (see link) have developed the "best-fit" formula and believe it to be the most accurate to date. You can use this formula in conjunction with the sub-max tests (see link) to determine your more accurate maximum. When you average all of these sub-max and arithmetic formula's together, you'll be close to your true maximum heart rate. Here's the formula:

210 minus 50% of your age minus 5% of your body weight (pounds) + 4 if male and 0 if female = Estimated MHR.

In my case 210 - 33.5 (50% of 67) - 8.36 (5% of 167) +4 = 172bpm.

After telling Strava my calculated Maximum Heart Rate (MHR). Strava sets a limit at  >166 for a red line Z4 giving me a small margin of warning when going into the danger zone Z5.

Start

 

Suffer Score

The Strava Suffer Score is an analysis of your heart rate data. By tracking your heart rate through your workout and its level relative to your maximum heart rate, Strava attach a value to show exactly how hard you worked. The more time you spend going full gas and the longer your activity, the higher the score. In this case it was 54

Points in the Red

Points in the Red is the portion of your Suffer Score that you earned in your Zone 4 and Zone 5 heart rate zones. Points in the Red shows you the intensity of your workout – if your Suffer Score and Points in the Red are the same, you were hammering the entire time! In this case the points in the Red was only 18.

Cadence

 My cadence for the workout is very low at about 66, it would be better if I increased this in future as it is more efficient, however in ERG mode I find this very difficult, just a case of getting used to ERG mode.  I choose today the London Red Hill course, and even set some records, but this is not the object of the session. I have chosen a hilly course so at least you think you are achieving something during the ride when the load is high.

Conclusions

The training ride does what it says on the tin. It definitely pushes me especially at P5. I have a hill near where I live that takes me 4m:46s to the top called Kingscavel brae. Thanks to Strava I recorded 250W average power  on my last PB time. Unfortunately I have no knowledge of my heart rate when I did this as I had no strap on. If I want to improve on that hill I need to expand my horizons in the training session. To this effect I have constructed a spread sheet increasing the difficulty by 1% each time. Before doing a session I will fiddle with the numbers to try and achieve at least what I do on Kingscavel brae. Hopefully this will train my Cardio system to stay within the Z4 range while I eventually put out my 14% more effort (228W for 20 mins) and give me a bit more margin for the climb at (250W) for 4 minutes.