This is our first edition of “Ask Fast Talk.”
Because we receive so many compelling questions from Fast Talk listeners, we will begin devoting frequent episodes to answering your questions. On today’s episode, we discuss the following: the importance of aerobic threshold training and the physiological adaptations that take place from doing so; should FTP be based on one’s very best race effort or on a test; dealing with muscle soreness after weight training; training in extreme cold; and much more.
Episode Transcript
00:00
Welcome to Fast Talk, the velonews podcast and everything you need to know to ride like a pro.
Chris Case 00:11
Welcome to the first edition of Ask Fast Talk. I’m Chris case managing editor of velonews joined as always, by my charming and well spoken colleague, Coach Trevor Connor. Today, we’re going to do something a bit different from our regular episodes. Since we get so many compelling questions from listeners, we want to devote regular episodes to answering those questions. Simple. So without further ado, let’s answer some questions. And let’s make you fast. Oh, don’t forget, keep those questions coming.
Chris Case 00:50
First question for today comes from a listener out there with a goal to improve his pace to make the cut offs for eight to 12 hour races. He says, last winter, I was doing 12 to 15 hours of work of zone to at least two more months of that and maybe more, he’s been really happy with what he did. And it worked for him last year, the workouts are two and a half to three and a half hours, mostly zone two. What he finds is that for the first one to one and a half hours, he’s cold, his heart rate is low. He’s really bored. As he says not feeling any pain, just spinning, focusing on his cadence and doing cadence drills. After about 90 minutes, his heart rate is up, his legs are hurting a bit. And the ride gets more interesting from there, even though the effort is the same. Usually the last 30 to 45 minutes of the workout are quite painful. And he feels like they’re providing the most benefit. So this listener asks, I’m wondering if there is something I can do to skip ahead to the good part of these long rides or simulate even longer rides? What do you think, Trevor?
Trevor Connor 01:56
There’s several parts to this, this question to address and I love this question because I get it a lot. And basically what it’s asking is, is there a shortcut to the long slow volume type work? We actually just got this question yesterday. And at the same time, I was reviewing a paper by Steven Siler, and they were trying to do studies with recreational riders to figure out the best intensity distributions. And the studies have failed because it couldn’t get the recreational riders to go slow. So it says comparing the intended and achieved distributions highlights a typical training error committed by recreational athletes, we can call it falling into a training intensity black hole. Training intended to be longer and slower becomes too fast and shorter in duration and intervals, training fails to reach the desired intensity. The result is that most training sessions end up being performed at the same threshold intensity, foster at all all found that athletes tend to run harder on easy days and easier on hard days compared to coaches training plans. At the very end of the study, he offers suggestions, low intensity, longer duration training is effective in stimulating physiological adaptations, and should not be viewed as wasted training time. So we tend to fall into this trap of if if doesn’t hurt. I’m not getting any gains out of it. And that’s essentially what I’m hearing in this question is, well, the first part of the ride I wasn’t hurting felt too easy. It felt too easy. So I wasn’t getting any gains out of it. So how do I skip over that easy part? And the response that I wrote to this listener did really appreciate the question was that my feeling is the first part of the ride was good. He was going too hard at the end. Mm hmm. And that he actually needs to slow down. I’m certain that’s not what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear. How do I make the whole ride? Feel sorry? Yeah. what he’s trying to do is get to a Seiler just described of recreational riders try to get kind of close to threshold.
Chris Case 04:03
Right. All right. So what about the people that don’t have six hours to go out
Trevor Connor 04:08
for a ride? So actually, the study that I just read from, that’s actually what they’re trying to figure out is, what’s the right distribution of intensity and easy volume for people can only train six to 10 hours a week. And obviously, a lot of studies struggled to actually get recreational riders to do the right intensity. But they he does cite a study where they finally were able to do it, and still showed that when recreational riders did a fair amount, you know, still 70% of their time at low intensity. They saw better gains. So all this is saying, there are no shortcuts Don’t try to take the shortcuts you need these rides that feel kind of easy. And going back to what the listener described, I noticed he talked a little bit about zone two. And he talked about power, so I’m pretty sure he was doing those rides by wattage I’m a big believer that when you are doing longer lower intensity work, you should be doing it by heart rate, because there’s an effect called cardiac drift, where if you just wrote at a steady wattage, your heart rates gonna go up. Some of that’s caused by just dehydration. But as long as you’re hydrating pretty well, a lot of that’s caused by by muscle fatigue. So what it means is, if you just ride at a steady wattage, you’re actually training in a different zone by the end of the workout than you are at the beginning. So from his description, I think he was at the right intensity at the beginning. And by the time we got to the end of the workout, he was more in that sweet spot, threshold range and was actually not doing the right type of work. So instead of trying to find that shortcut to get to that point, he shouldn’t be getting to that point at all. Mm hmm.
Chris Case 05:45
Is there a short answer to the question of why we need those long rides that are relatively easy? What are the physiological adaptations that you’re gaining from such a ride,
Trevor Connor 05:56
but I’m glad you asked for the short version. Because if you actually go earlier up in this study, it has a whole table explaining the benefits of riding it at 60%. That includes things like may amplify signal signals of synthesis of specific oxidative enzymes, increased metabolic activity and faster motor units enhancement for old muscle fat oxidation, rate shift, and lactate, turnpoint. And a whole bunch of other things in this big long table. They show that they show the benefits of intensity, and they show the benefits of the the slow volume. And if I’m going to take this and summarize it down into one minute, I would say two things. One is there, there’s a another column of possible negative effects for both. And what you don’t have in this when you’re doing this low volume is a lot of those negative effects that can lead to burnout. So we are limited on how much high intensity we can handle. So having a mix of intensity and a lot of slow volume is going to improve your gains without pushing burnout. That’s the one side of it. The other side of it is and I think we covered this in a podcast before but there’s actually I think it was Larsen review that showed that, well, the the physiological gains of long soul volume and high intensity are actually fairly similar. They both activate this this master regulator of endurance adaptations called PG c one alpha, they do it through different pathways. And the high intensity has been shown that that pathway is limited, you see the gains very quickly. But after about six weeks, you’re really not going to see more gains, were with that long, slow volume work, the gains are going to continue to progress. And that’s where you’re gonna see your biggest gains over time.
Chris Case 07:47
All right, our next question comes from ronto Vich. He’s wondering, can he use rollers to get an effective aerobic LSD like workout without resistance.
Trevor Connor 08:01
So that’s somewhat depends on the rollers. But he did have the operative word without resistance. My experience with rollers that don’t have resistance is you can’t put out a lot of power, I have a set myself and I’m not sure I can break 100 watts on them. So it does make it hard to get an effective longer ride rollers also take a lot of concentration. So if you’re trying to do a two and a half, three hour ride and you’re trying to do it on rollers, that’s going to mentally fatigue you that’s going to wear you down a bit so you can try I know some people who love rollers, if you can get through it and you can get your heart rate and power up into the right zones, then go for it. I’m not sure it was something I would want to try. My personal feeling is if you’re doing longer rides, you’re probably better on a trainer, especially one that offers resistance. Where I think personally think rollers are really valuable is for that neuromuscular type training. So doing Caden’s work on the trainer, it helps with working on your balance on the bike. What I use my rollers for was a lot of cadence pyramids, where you do a minute at varying cadences going all the way up to 130 140 track riders will go up to an insane 170 180 doing that type of work and rollers is fantastic. I’m not sure I personally want to use it for the long rides.
Chris Case 09:23
Alright, the next question comes from Mark Kane. And he’s referring back to the episode is FTP dead, which I know a lot of people out there loved, hated, debated. He asks, Can should an athlete base their FTP and subsequent training on their very best 20 minute effort in a race as opposed to a test?
Trevor Connor 09:46
So I love this question because it gets into a couple really important themes here. And the first and most important one is to always remember when you’re training it’s not training is not about the best numbers you can put out Training is about the right numbers training in the right ranges to get the right physiological response. And I have seen riders a lot feel like their workouts only successful if they are putting out the best numbers they can put out if they are seeing prs with every workout. And what they what I see when riders do that a lot is they tend to train above threshold, they tend to really hit those anaerobic capacity systems. And so they developed this really big anaerobic engine, but never really developed that aerobic engine, you run into that danger. So going back to how do you figure out your your best ftps quick qualifier here, I think everybody’s heard this in the podcast. I don’t particularly like FTP, I understand why they used it and the value, but it’s not really a physiological thing. It’s an estimate of physiologic of what should be your physiological threshold, I prefer the maximal lactate steady state mlss. So I personally would not use your best 20 minute ever. Because that’s probably well well, above your threshold, and even taking 95% of it is going to put you over your threshold. One of the things I really liked about the test that Neil and sufferfest talked about in the app is FTP dead podcast. And there’s very similar test by by a lot of different people out there is, you first did some sprints, you then did a five minute effort, then you did your 20 minute effort. And I guarantee you, you weren’t going to put out your best watch in that 20 minute effort. So you were actually getting something that was a closer estimate of this as a true or robeck threshold effort.
Chris Case 11:43
So Trevor, are there any indicators when you’re doing your intervals that you’re doing to high wattage?
Trevor Connor 11:50
Yeah, if you are doing threshold type intervals, or just sub threshold, make sure you’re wearing a heart rate monitor, especially if you’re doing them by power. And you want to look at that heart rate curve. If you are at your your maximal lactate steady state or just below it, and you’re holding a steady water, you should see your heart rate come up and level off. So let’s say you’re doing a 10 minute effort, you should see your heart rate come up in the first sort of minute to two minutes depending on the person and then just hold pretty level for the rest of that interval. If you are seeing your heart rate never really level off and just continue to rise. That’s an indicator that you’re above threshold and you’re relying a lot on anaerobic metabolism. So whenever I have my athletes do any sort of threshold work where they should be right about or just below their their lactate steady state or FTP. I look for that that leveling of the heart rate. And if I don’t see that I bring their wattage down.
Chris Case 12:52
This question comes from Jim cotton. I’ve just started on some weight, strength training over winter to try to build a bit of leg muscle. I do this every winter. At the moment, the delayed onset muscle soreness, some people will refer to it as Dom’s. I’m experiencing is so bad after some sessions, it’s screwing with my writing. I feel like I have no energy in the legs and I just feel crappy on the bike. What’s the best approach to riding the days after lifting, just easy riding? Or is Dom’s actually mostly a mental thing? And you should be able to ride through it. Driver? What do you think?
Trevor Connor 13:29
So I’ll take on the very last part of that question. First, is it a mental thing and should I push through? There are times definitely in cycling and training where you need to push through but a general mindset of I need to take the pain and the more I take the pain and the more I push through things, the more you’re going to get yourself in trouble always remember training is not about how tough you are. Training is about trying to produce the right physiological responses and the right adaptations to make yourself as strong as possible. And sometimes being tough is counterproductive. So always keep that in mind. I love tough riders I’m going to say in races, the tougher the better. But but don’t always feel that way and training. There is a mental component to Dom’s. That’s quite fascinating. I’m not going to get too deep into this. But very interestingly, they’ve shown that the mental effects of Dom’s follows a completely different time course from actually the physical effects of Dom’s that you can be completely recovered physically. But mentally you’re not quite there, and it can affect your performance. So get into what you should be doing from a training perspective when you’re experiencing a lot of Dom’s one is know that this isn’t going to be a long term thing. delayed onset muscle soreness is mostly caused by very damaging eccentric work that you do in the weight room, which you really don’t do on a bike. The nice thing is, well, it really hurts the first couple times or the first time you get in the weight room. Your body adapts Very quickly, and as you get into the weight room subsequent times, it’s not going to be nearly as sore. And that protective effect of a single session can last six, seven months. So by the time you’re hearing this, you’re probably not having the problem anymore. But when you do have that soreness, you’re looking at 48 hours, sometimes longer 72 hours before you are recovered. So plan your weight work, if you know that it’s going to hurt you plan to have a recovery day, the next day, and maybe even just have an easy ride the day after that. When I’m doing really heavy lifting, I know it’s gonna beat up my legs. I tend to do my lifting and my intervals on the same day, and I’ll do the intervals in the morning, the lifting in the afternoon. And then I’ll have two days of offer easy to let my legs recover. So hope that answer your question.
Chris Case 15:49
All right, this next question comes from a listener who’s referring back to one of our live podcasts. listener asked about needing to lose 40 pounds and whether he should try a low carb diet. Your answer seemed myopic, huh. Trevor is calling you out. If a rider is that much overweight, he’s probably not a cat, one racer and might need different type of advice. I understand that your research shows low carb diets might not be optimal for racing performance. However, this guy is asking about losing 40 pounds of fat, I assume. And a low carb diet might help him reach this goal. calorie deficit will likely not work, especially if he’s exercising a lot. Losing that amount of weight will be a huge performance gain No, and likely provide significant health benefits. Maybe after he is at his ideal weight. He can worry about how to use carbs to optimize performance. Question mark? What do you think, Trevor?
Trevor Connor 16:43
So I think it was just a couple episodes ago, we actually we put up a podcast with my opinions on nutrition. So certainly, some of my answer is actually in that podcast. So just quickly, as very quick background, I love that I’m being called out for being anti low carb diets, because I’m actually on the editorial board of the Paleo Diet website. I work with Dr. Loren cordain, who’s the originator of the Paleo diet. And you know, when people think about low carbohydrate diets, that’s one of the diets I immediately think about. Another one that people think a lot about that very popular right now is a ketogenic diet, and sometimes paleo diet and the ketogenic diet get confused. I’m actually not personally a big fan of the ketogenic diet. And I covered that I believe a bit in that podcast. But here is my issue. And I think why I said what I said in the Live podcast, and I apologize if I didn’t say it, well, we were live. So you don’t always get to go back and restate things. I am not a fan of low carbohydrate, low fat, low protein, high carb, high fat, high protein, anything diets, to throw it a little bit back at the the listener. I personally think when you try to simplify a diet to lower high and any macronutrients, that’s a myopic view, the ratios you’re talking about. So I think right now, the nutrition world is way too focused. What is the right macronutrient ratio? And my response to that is always when you try to simplify it down to macronutrient ratios you are not focusing on what are the foods that you are eating, and I’m a much bigger believer in, we should be focusing on what are healthy, nutritious, nutrient dense foods, and what foods should we be avoiding and let the macronutrient ratios be what they’re going to be. As I said, I’m because of that that’s part of why I’m a fan of the Paleo diet. It’s a little lower carbohydrate than the typical Western diet. But that’s simply because to get the percentage of carbohydrates in the Western diet, you have to focus on high glycemic pretty unhealthy carbohydrate sources. Wherever you eat healthy carbohydrate sources such as fruits and vegetables, you are going to necessarily be a little lower carbohydrate. In terms of the caloric deficit. I had the opportunity a few years ago to talk with Dr. Joseph Donley, who’s considered one of the top experts in the world on bioenergetics and obesity. So he runs a lab that explores the whole question of weight loss and weight gain. And I asked him point blank, is it a simple question of calories in calories out. And the fact of the matter is, we can’t break the first law of thermodynamics. calories are about energy. And if you take in more energy than you, you burn, you’re going to store it. If you burn more than you take in, you’re going to lose some energy and fat is simply a storage form of energy. The issue is, it’s next to impossible to accurately measure how many calories we’re taking in and how many we’re burning unless you want to go and live in a caloric chamber. So that’s where calorie counting gets difficult and different diets affected differently. But at the end of the day, if you are losing weight it is because you are consuming fewer calories and you’re burning. And that’s not something that we can get around. The reason a low carbohydrate diet seems to be very helpful, is because a proteins and fats tend to have a higher level level of satiety, which I’m sure I just miss Heidi, I can never pronounce it satiety. I think I majored in this stuff. It has a higher level of satiety, where simple, high glycemic carbohydrates tend to spike insulin. And insulin actually turns on a hunger signal. So there’s this weird effect that if you start eating sugar and simple carbohydrates, you’re not going to get satiated, you’re actually going to get hungry and you’re going to eat more. So that’s one thing that that I have seen a lot in researches that when people are eating those, those high glycemic carbohydrate diets, they’re eating a lot of calories, because they’re never really feeling full. So yes, you can lose weight on a lower carbohydrate diet, but I would still be focusing on what are your sources? So one of the reasons I’m not a big fan of the ketogenic diet is simply because again, it’s just focusing on ratios. And I see a lot of people saying, I’m on a ketogenic diet, I’m very healthy. I eat a pound of bacon every morning. Sorry, that’s not healthy.
Chris Case 21:23
Okay to bring it back to the example here with the man who wanted to lose 40 pounds. And our readers question, maybe after he’s at his ideal weight, he can worry about how to use carbs to optimize performance. Question mark,
Trevor Connor 21:41
right. So for that listener, who’s trying to lose 40 pounds, I’m still going to recommend this is what I recommend to every athlete that I coach, focus on nutrient dense, healthier foods, low glycemic index foods. When you’re off the bike, obviously, on the bike, I’ve said this before, and I’ll keep saying this simple sugars are going to help your performance. Certainly, when you’re training in the base season, you can cut back in those a little bit. But you want to avoid pushing yourself towards burnout, which you you can go head in that direction if you’re not getting enough carbohydrates. In terms of performance when you’re at races. Yeah, I’m gonna say that you need those carbohydrates for performance. So if you are choosing to do a low carbohydrate diet, to lose weight, do remember, and we had dr. john hollein, here talking about this, that actually breaks down or hampers your ability to use carbohydrates even when you start consuming them. And when you are in a race, and you’re at that those above threshold intensities, you’re relying completely on carbohydrate, so you don’t want to harm your body’s ability to use them. So if you are experimented with a low carbohydrate diet, when you get close to the race season, you do need to get those carbohydrates back into your system.
Chris Case 23:01
This question comes from UC kekkonen. I hope I got that name, right, you see is from Finland. His question is, I was wondering what the lovely experts at Fast Talk and thank you for that compliment. Think of the demands of cycling and training. In general, when temperatures drop below freezing. I’m from Finland, we tend to get four months of ice and snow, I cycle 10 plus hours through it, even if temperatures go below negative 25 degrees Celsius. And at that point, I find a need to take an extra day off. I wonder if that’s something due to cold temperatures leading to different nutrition requirements which I fail to meet. Or just because everything is so stiff, I keep hitting against limits of my strength and stamina. Winter is coming. How do I tackle it without doing damage? Trevor, what do you think?
Trevor Connor 23:51
So this is somebody after my own heart. I feel like we’re brothers here as the Canadian who has to write in the cold a lot. I sympathize. And yeah, I’m the same. I have been out many, many times when it’s getting down to those sorts of temperatures, which I believe negative 25 is below zero Fahrenheit, but can’t remember my conversions off the top of my head right now. Yeah,
Chris Case 24:11
it’s like negative 20.
Trevor Connor 24:13
Yeah, that’s right. It’s right around them that they’re Fahrenheit and Celsius meet.
Chris Case 24:17
Yeah, so you multiply by 1.8. And so negative, that would be negative 50. Ish, negative 45 plus 32. So it’s negative 1213 degrees Fahrenheit?
Trevor Connor 24:29
Yeah, it’s cold. That’s very cold. And I’m impressed with your URL riding in it. We are actually working on a podcast on this which might have already gone up by the time you’re hearing this answer, where we talk about how to do bass training in the cold. I’m still doing some research on those questions you’re asking because they are really interesting questions. I will certainly tell you if your legs get cold, you are doing more damage to your muscles and it’s not productive damage. So the more you can have your legs covered up the better person. There is gotten those temperatures, I often will double tights, where a thin, tight and heavy tight over top. It’s not comfortable bunches up behind the knees. I’m okay with that. Because it’s important to keep my my leg muscles warm. But likely you are doing a little more damage when you go out and cold like that. And you’re going to have to build in a little more recovery. In terms of fueling, you brought that up. That’s actually the question that I’ve been trying to research before we get into this podcast and it’s been top of my understanding is that when it gets cold, when it gets really cold, you tend to burn more glycogen when you’re exercising, so you can deplete your your carbohydrate stores a little more rapidly. Again, I’m trying to find the research on this. I remember seeing it somewhere, but I can’t confirm that right now. But it does mean when you are exercising in the cold, you need to make sure you’re refueling or you can bonk pretty quickly. And that’s tough because you’re hopefully we’re in good thick gloves. It’s hard to get food in, you can’t really do it through bottles, because when it’s negative 25 your bottles freeze though sometimes flipping your bottle upside down in your water bottle cage can help. So stop periodically get some food, make sure you’re fueling, fueling and make sure at the end of the ride, you’re getting lots of good recovery food and you but at the end of the day, when you’re going out that cold, you’re probably going to need more recovery time.
Chris Case 26:28
Alright, this question comes from Todd troxel. I’m a 65 year old non racer, I am a fitness junkie who loves to push himself. I live in a mountainous part of the US. By using a power meter and heart rate monitor would I be getting the same physiological benefits by riding in zone two going up steep long climbs, as compared to the flats by cadence would be significantly lower. And I certainly would not be quote spinning. How I feel riding like this is totally different than hitting the same numbers on the flat. Does my body care? What different effects are these two having on my training? And are they equivalent?
Trevor Connor 27:06
So Todd, thanks for your question. I get some of what you’re dealing with. I too, having lived in Colorado know what it’s like to live in a place where you’re surrounded by climbs. And sometimes you just don’t have a choice. It’s always great when you have some flat routes that you can do. But if that’s not an option, you have to deal with what you have, even if it’s not ideal. You also have to enjoy what you’re doing. So as much as I’d like to say this time of year mostly stick to the flats and keep it steady. It’s okay to head into hills a little bit more and make sure you’re enjoying your cycling. But a few things that might help. One is some of the time it’s okay if you’re pushing a bigger gear. As a matter of fact, it’s a good thing for your training. I with a lot of my Masters athletes, during the bases of I actually have them go to some climbs and do some big gear work. One of the things that happens to us as we age is we lose a lot of muscle strength. Get in the weight room doing some off the bike work really helps. But also being on the bike, pushing a big gear is great for building some strength. So I would say some of the times I should be happy that you’re doing that. You can also add in some other efforts like six to 10 second Sprint’s periodically during this base work. Second thing I’ll say to you is obviously you don’t want to be doing big gear work all the time. So first, try to find climbs that aren’t as steep. So for example, there’s some climbs in Boulder that I will not do in the offseason only do them during the season, I tend to stick to the passes that are more five 6%. And I could still ride at a decent cadence and ride easy. Likewise, if you haven’t done so already, see if you can get an easier gear ratio onto your bike. I’m assuming you’re already riding compact cranks. Now, with 11 speeds, you can have a 30 to 33 on the back. Yeah, you might end up being a little bit slower. But at this time of year, it’s about the base training. And it’s about training in the right ranges or zones. It’s not about how fast you can go. So if you’re in an easier gear and you’re just going really slow, who cares? It’s great training. That’s all I can pick up for right now. But I hope that helps.
Chris Case 29:16
This question comes from Darren Norton in Australia. Darren writes, I’ve been listening to your show since September 2016. And it is so informative I love the perception and comedy The team present with each episode makes my day. I haven’t training seriously for three years and with a cycling coach for the last 12 months. I have a solid aerobic base and diet. I recently raised a UCI world qualifier event and just missed out on qualification. I totally got smoked and dropped by multiple groups in the first major climb, which was a 6% 11 k climb that arrived 500 meters from the start of the race. I warmed up correctly. However we all cooled down as we were held on the start line. For 20 minutes in cold, eight degrees temperature, I would assume Celsius. I just couldn’t put down the power other riders had on the day and my heart rate was very high, about 10 beats per minute from threshold. What training sessions should I focus more on? I estimate the other riders were punching out 100 watts more during the climb to deliberately split the group early. What do you think, Trevor?
Trevor Connor 30:24
This is one of those fascinating questions where like to say that every athlete or every rider is their own puzzle, and you have to figure out how the puzzle pieces come together. And certainly, there are a lot of puzzle pieces to this one. And I’m not exactly sure which is the right one for Darren, the fact that the climb is right at the start of the race is a big factor. Some people can come off to the line Full Tilt full strength other people take a while before they’re really unformed no matter how well they warm up, I’m wondering the ladder, I hate it when there’s a big climb at the start of the race because I can warm up for an hour and it’s still gonna hurt me I’m better later in the race. And certainly the riders who are better right off the gun took advantage of that. And I’m sure they were driving the the pace up to climb to get rid of people who could be a danger later on. standing around an eight degree temperature certainly didn’t help you. And I hope you were doing a lot to keep your legs warm, and do whatever you could to keep your muscles active. Beyond that, I’m hearing a couple issues when you’re dealing with a 6% climb for 11 kilometers, you’re going to be climbing for a long time. And that’s going to be a hard, sustained effort. The fact that you were saying you were close to threshold, when you think everybody else was holding a much higher wattage, I start to hear a Robic threshold issues here. So you’ve probably heard me on the podcast talked about how we have two thresholds, you have an anaerobic threshold, anaerobic threshold, they tend to move together. So working one is going to help the other. But when you’re telling me you’re going up that climb, and you’re getting popped, and you’re close to threshold, that telling me that you don’t have that sort of sustainable sub threshold power that a lot of the other people in the race hat. Certainly if you talk to pro tour riders, especially Grand Tour riders, they spent a ton of time working on this, because this is what grand tours are just go up this 30 to one hour, 30 minutes to one hour long climb. And if you’re taking all those climbs that threshold, you’re not going to make it through the three weeks. So they really learn that sustainable power. So doing base rides at that aerobic threshold, can really, really help doing some sweet spot work can really, really help. And like I said, your your anaerobic threshold and your robot threshold tend to move together. So work in the anaerobic threshold can help as well. I don’t know how that climb was being paced, but my guess is also that they went really hard at the start for the first kilometer and then they kind of eased off. So there could also potentially be an issue here. And this is where I’d really need to look at your file from the race. That simply you weren’t able to go really hard at the beginning to stay with them. And actually have you made it through it’s possible. Have you made it through those first couple kilometers, that would have been much more sustainable. I don’t know because I can’t see your file. But if that’s the case, working on some some high end doing some Tabata type work before a race like this, doing some sprint work, to build that ability to go really hard above threshold and and suffer through these efforts right at the beginning, could also potentially help. Chris, you’re a good climber and love this sort of stuff. What What would be your suggestion? How do you approach something like this?
Chris Case 33:32
Well, man, it’s it’s tricky when those climbs are right at the start. But like you said, just if you’re standing on the start line, you got to be jumping around, you got to you got to raise your heart rate a bit so that you’re not going from that resting heart rate to 100 miles per hour, right from the start, you got to keep the legs as warm as possible. And if there’s ways to keep well dressed, certainly keep your clothes on until the very last minute, then shed those layers and go from there. In terms of the climate itself. Sometimes those things are really about the mental struggle, you know, it’s early in the race. You see these guys going up the road, and you are like, Man, I’m already getting dropped and it’s easy to get deflated early. But that’s a crucial element to trying to hang. And it’s not necessary that you are with that front group because like Trevor said, they might have gone hard for a kilometer and then ease back and that’s when if you had gone at your you know, sort of maximum just for a bit longer you might have caught a group. It’s hard to say of course races are always different every day is different, but working with that mental mental component being very positive is going to help you at times claw your way back to groups. That was an episode of Ask Fast Talk. As always, we love your feedback and questions keep them coming. Email us at Webb letters at competitor group.com. Subscribe to Fast Talk on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play. Be sure to leave us a rating and a comment. While you’re there. Check out our sister podcast developer news podcast which covers news about the week in cycling. Become a fan of Fast Talk on facebook@facebook.com slash fella news and on twitter@twitter.com slash news, Fast Talk is a joint production between velonews and Connor coaching. The thoughts and opinions expressed on Fast Talk are those of the individual for Trevor Connor. I’m Chris case. Thanks for listening.
