Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Help

Would someone please go to work for me today? I just don't feel like it.

Oh, and I am in desperate need of a Vet with madd surgical skills. We have a very vocal cat. The bastard. I really can't see any reason, any more, for this indoor cat to have need to make sounds. At night. All friggen night. Kitty vocal chords...gotta go. Sorry Brisco. NOT!

I have a podcast that I've been listening to - besides the Tb'nB show - called Tri Talk. He's got 14k listeners or so, yes, I'm pretty late to jump on that bandwagon, but he's got some really good stuff on there. And he's not funny, so we don't have to worry about losing any "market share". And he does talk a lot about triathlon. And give tips. Basically, his show is the Anti-Tb'nB show.

So his (David Warden's) 61'st episode talks about a method to tell if you are ready to leave base training and go to the build or speed phase of your train-up to a particular event. It's called decoupling. Studies indicated that if you could maintain your output for certain periods over varying durations based on the upcoming event, you could determine the quality of your personal base. For Ironman, he recommends a 4 hr bike. He also recommends that a power meter be used, as HR and speed have too many variables like wind and grade - fortunately I train on a 12 mile circular loop, so the variables get canceled as I go in circles. Granted, I only went 50 miles, or 2.5 hrs, but the results were very positive.

Tri Talk recommends transitioning to the next training phase (based on coaching advise from Joe Friel) only if the first half of your training ride is different from the second half by less than 5%. Oh, and for shorter distance events, the test ride is shorter too - so if you are not training for IM, you can still use this test!

On yesterday's ride, I did the first 24.82 miles at a 20.3 mph avg. speed and 138 avg HR. The speed to HR ratio is 6.8. The second half went 19.9 mph at 143 avg HR, or 7.2 - for a difference of .55% decoupling - not too shabby. The true IM test would be over another hour and a half, and I'd certainly start out slower, but still these results were positive....I've almost got a good base.

edit: oops, that should read 5.5%, not .55% ... and this test is designed to be done in Zone 2, btw....

12 comments:

Bullet said...

I've been listening to this guy as well and he's got some good stuff. He did a list a while back about the top 10 or 20 things you can do to drop your time during a race. He includes bike fit, aero bars, yankz, etc. Good stuff. Don't worry, you've cornered the market on funny in the tri pod cast community.

Kevin said...

Ive been listening to him for awhile. He also does the triathlete mag podcasts as well. I have found his podcasts very useful. I just found your blog/podcast and am listening to your latest right now and find it really entertaining

Spokane Al said...

I have listened to David Warden from the beginning and he loves to dive deep into technical and training issues. He also MCs a podcast for Joe Friel's training company.

Brent Buckner said...

Interesting decoupling link. That 5% number looks very similar to estimating race performance for doubling distance (e.g. see various running calculators).

The Stretch Doc said...

I'll go to work for you if you go to work for me.. wait.. i like the indoor AC. never mind.. ha!

rockon`

Jumper 2.0 said...

I've been listening to him since I started getting interested in Tri. It's kind of amazing cuz he actually is funny but just in a mild self deprecating way. Again, not competition for the TnB show! He use to do podcasts 2 X month until just recently but has cut down due to the fact that he is now coaching and helps with training bible podcasts. You may want to look at that in iTunes as well

Anonymous said...

Dude - Tri-Talk is an awesome podcast. One thing he didn't mention about decoupling was what speed the ride is supposed to be at. I've been thinking about sending him an e-mail about this. If I rode at 30 mph I'd probably decouple in 1 min. If I rode at 10 mph I'd probably decouple in about 18 hours.

Check out David's video promos - hilarious!

Another podcast you should try is Ironman Talk. Listen to it from the beginning because the early episodes have a lot of good season planning and training info.

Bigun said...

Excel man - he does say that it should be a zone 2 ride...I left that out by accident. That's where your HR should be. If you rode with a HR monitor, you'd know what that was. But since you don't, I don't know how you'd know if you decouple. Mr. Old School Triathlon Guy Without A Heart Rate Moniter or Power Meter.

Anonymous said...

Dooohhhh!!! :^0 It's all true! At times I don't even have a bike computer!

Anonymous said...

David Warden also does the Triathlete Magazine pand Training Bible podcasts.

Mike said...

Yeah I don't think you could get two podcast so extremely 'different' than TriTalk and 'The Big'n and whatever his name is' one.

I love them both ... but for very different reasons. I will try the decoupling thingy later in the year when I gear up for my half

Good luck with the rest of your training!

Oly said...

I'm more into coupling.