Marketing Coordinator

Peaksware is looking for a marketing genius who also lives and breathes health, fitness and athletic performance. We need an experienced, organized, creative, web savvy coordinator with lots of self-motivation and initiative who will utilize in-bound and out-bound marketing strategies from social networking to blogging, newsletters and content writing/editing to traditional public relations.  If you are interested, please view the full details.

Web Designer

Peaksware is looking for an artistic leader to design web, email and mobile communications, promotions and software applications. We need an experienced designer who is self-motivated, takes initiative, contributes to, and works well with the entire team and is passionate about our products and mission to help motivated individuals and professionals achieve health, fitness and peak performance. If you are interested, please view the full details.

By Ben Greenfield

Many people engage in what I would call “under-reaching”. Individuals who “under-reach” typically arrive at the gym and perform light exercise at an intensity that is insufficient to achieve weight loss or boost fitness levels. However, there is a truth to the mantra “Something Is Better Than Nothing”, and even under-reachers are doing better for their bodies than if they hadn’t shown up to exercise at all.
On the other hand, there are “over-trainers”. Over-trainers work out at a very high intensity, sometimes accompanied by a high volume that may include multiple exercise sessions in a single day. While high-intensity and high-volume training is not necessarily harmful, long periods of time (weeks or months) spent training in this mode, especially in non-elite athletes, can lead to inadequate or incomplete recovery, which can not only be very dangerous and detrimental to the body, but can also work directly against weight loss or fitness goals. If overtrained for long enough, an individual can completely crash, become chronically ill and fatigued, and be forced into complete rest for up to 3 months! Let’s look at three variables: 1) how overtraining occurs; 2) common signs of overtraining; 3) what to do if you’re overtrained.

1. How overtraining occurs:
• Inadequate recovery between training sessions
• Too much high intensity training, typically for too long
• Sudden drastic increases in distance, length, or intensity of exercise routine
• Daily intense weightlifting
• High volumes of endurance training
• No vacations, breaks, or off-seasons
• For athletes, excessive competition at high levels (i.e. trying to win every race)
• Inadequate nutrition, typically in the form of caloric and carbohydrate/fat restriction
• Insufficient sleep
• High amounts of stress and anxiety

2. Some common signs of overtraining:
• Excessive fatigue/lethargy, especially outside of the gym
• Loss of motivation, energy, drive, and enthusiasm to train
• Loss of sex drive
• Increased stress, anxiety, irritability and feelings of depression
• Insomnia, sleep problems, or nightmares
• Poor concentration, hyperactivity and an inability to relax
• Large fluctuations in weight
• Loss of appetite
• Constant excessively sore and/or weak muscles
• Increased susceptibility to sickness and injury
• Lower performance in competition, such as racing
• Higher resting heart rate and elevated resting blood pressure
• Longer periods of time for heart rate recovery to normal levels after exercise
• Diarrhea, nausea, or headaches
• Menstrual irregularities

If you experience just one or two of these symptoms, it does not mean you are overtrained. However, several symptoms taken together should be strongly indicated with overtraining, and you should take immediate action.  TrainingPeaks offers athletes and fitness enthusiasts the ability to closely monitor progress so that overtraining can become a topic of the past. By following a training plan that is well balanced and incorporates the critical recovery component, you can avoid many of the pitfalls associated with endurance training. In a recent blog Dirk Friel shows you how easy it is to watch for overtraining with PMC.

Train smart this year, give yourself the balance needed to get stronger and faster with professional plans, expert guidance and the tools available at TrainingPeaks. (View the complete article on Overtraining by Ben Greenfield).

TrainingPeaks contributor Ben Greenfield, M.S. PE, NSCA-CPT, CSCS,  is recognized as one of the top fitness, triathlon, nutrition and metabolism experts in the nation. For more information on coaching and training with Ben,  click here. Or send Ben an e-mail at ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com.

By Joe Friel

I was asked in a tweet last week if a rider should sit or stand when climbing a hill on a bike. I wish I could give a one-word answer, but that isn’t possible. As I’ve said so many times here in responding to reader questions, my answer must often start with “it depends.” This one is no difference. Here’s what this answer depends on…

Steepness. Low gradient hills are usually done seated. Steep hills often demand at least some standing. And the steeper the hill is, the more likely you are to stand up. When standing on a steep hill your body weight takes some of load off of the leg muscles. On the other hand, it tends to stress the aerobic system more. As a result you’ll probably breathe harder and have a higher heart rate when standing. But the steeper the hill is the less difference there will be when it comes to muscular- (seated) vs aerobic- (standing) system stress.

Hill length. The shorter the hill, the more advantage you will have by getting out of the saddle. You’ll create more power (again, because of adding body weight to the pedals) and get over it quicker.

Type of event. On low-gradient hills a triathlete or time trialist is less likely to get out of the saddle than a road racer. This is primarily due to the variably paced nature of road racing (as opposed to the steady-state riding of triathletes and TTers). If another member of the group is accelerating up the hill, you are often forced to accelerate to keep pace, or risk being dropped. A quick acceleration on a hill usually requires standing.

Body mass. The lower your body mass the more advantageous it is to stand on a climb. The greater your mass the better off you’ll be staying seated. One quick and simple way to come up with your body mass is to divide your weight in pounds (1kg = 2.2lbs) by your height in inches (1cm = 0.4in). So if you weigh 154 pounds (70kg) and you are 72 inches (180cm) tall your “mass” is 2.13 (154 / 72 = 2.13). I’ve found that for males the best climbers are at less than 2.0. These folks should stand a lot (think of Marco Pantani). Men in the range of 2.0 to 2.3 tend to alternate between standing and sitting a lot (for example, Lance Armstrong). Those men at 2.3 to 2.5 are best advised to sit a lot (like Miguel Indurain). Folks over 2.5 usually avoid hills. Women should use a scale which is about 0.2 lbs/in less (for example, under 1.8 are climbers).

So losing (or gaining) weight may change how you climb – and how well you climb. For example, a 1kg (2.2 lbs) loss of weight (bike and/or body) allows you to climb a 1000m hill with a 10% grade about 3.5 sec faster than when heavier at the same power output. Another way of looking at this is that 1kg is about 3w on a climb (so 1lb is roughly 1.5w).

Speed. At about 12mph (20kph) or faster staying seated and in an aero position if in a time trial or triathlon is usually a good idea. If your speed is less than 12mph then sitting up or standing is often better. This is affected, however, by the wind. A headwind essentially reduces your actual speed. So even if your speedometer says you are at 15mph (25kph) but there is a strong headwind then you are better off seated and even aero. While you may be more powerful above 12mph bike-wind speed when sitting up, your speed return on energy investment is not favorable due to headwind drag.

Fatigue. On long climbs, especially those late in the race, there may be some advantage to alternating standing and sitting to relieve muscle fatigue. Even if all of the other considerations listed here indicate you should stay seated, but the muscles you use to drive the pedals when seated are wasted, you may need to stand simply to give them a break.

Gearing. This is related to steepness. If you are on a hill but your gearing is so high that cadence bogs down you will need to stand in order to keep the gears ticking over.

Mountain bike. Standing causes the back wheel to lose traction when riding off-road on a steep hill on loose gravel or wet roots. So staying in the saddle is recommended for such climbs on a mountain bike. Pedaling while seated produces more even tension on the chain throughout the stroke and helps to prevent wheel slippage.

The good news here is that you can basically trust your instincts on hills in races. In most of the above situations your body will tell you when you need to stand or sit. It’s really not a great mystery – unless you overthink it. In this case, experience is the best teacher.

Training should involve both sitting and standing. Sitting will help to build greater muscular force for riding on flat terrain. It’s a bit like doing squats. Standing may boost your aerobic capacity, especially when the hill takes only two to three minutes to climb.

Joe Friel is a Co-Founder of Peaksware and author of many popular training books including, ‘The Triathlete’s Training Bible’, ‘The Cyclist’s Training Bible’ and ‘The Paleo Diet for Athletes.’ To learn more about his services including coaching and training camps based on his books visit www.TrainingBible.com. For training plans and additional information visit TrainingPeaks Plans.

I recently heard from a TrainingPeaks subscriber who was looking forward to activating the new web-based Performance Management Chart (PMC) in an attempt to help him avoid his tendency to overtrain. This athlete has a perfect reason to start using the PMC, which could potentially prove out to be a saving grace.  PMC allows users to see trends in training progress as well as to spot potential overtraining.

This TrainingPeaks member sees the value in tracking a daily heart-rate based TSS (hrTSS) value as a way to better understand their daily workout benefits. In working through some questions he posed, it brought about an interesting list of tips I’d like to share.

Tips:

• Chronic Training Load (CTL) Starting Value- As long as you have previously recorded workouts within TrainingPeaks which includes heart rate, pace or power data, there is no reason to enter a starting CTL value. You’ll need to use the “Backfiller” feature and then I’d just let the PMC calculate the CTL for you.
• If you do not have any recorded workouts to establish TSS values from, you can estimate a starting CTL value by estimating your daily TSS average. If you tend to accumulate around 30 points for example per day then just enter a starting value of 30. The PMC chart will becom emore accurate as you start tracking your actual TSS values.
• Make sure you have your Heart Rate Zones set on the Zones page .
• You may need to use our “backfiller” feature within the PMC so you can set your Zones History and have TrainingPeaks calculate past TSS values. Be sure to set the date range and assign a HR Threshold value .
• There might be some days when you didn’t upload a heart rate file.  No problem as you can manually type in your estimated hrTSS into any days with missing TSS values and get credit for those workouts. The best place I’ve found to review daily TSS values is on the Spreadsheet tab. You can customize the spreadsheet to add a “Score” column and quickly run through your daily TSS values.
• PMC Zoom Feature: There is a really neat feature within the PMC which allows you to zoom into specific date ranges. I keep my default date range set at “Last 365 days” then I simply zoom into shorter ranges to see the details better. Here is a short video of my PMC where I zoomed in twice then snapped back out to the original Last 365.

I hope you find great value in using the Performance Management Chart. This concept of modeling training and performance has been well utilized at the highest levels of sport. The concepts are easy to comprehend since we can all relate to how fitness grows with consistency.  However, fatigue is a necessary evil if you wish to build fitness. For most people who are just looking to lose weight and improve their health, overtraining is  not an issue since their main goal is to simply get out and exercise on a regular basis. 

Good luck with your training and here’s to your health. Get out there and get your blood moving!

Dirk Friel

Co-Founder TrainingPeaks

TrainingPeaks Professional Edition Subscribers can now track Training Stress Score (TSS), Normalized Power (NP), and utilize the Performance Management Chart (PMC) for all of their clients online. Not only are these great features now available online, you can also calculate TSS/IF even if you don’t have a power meter, using either heart rate or pace-based TSS functionality.

By using the TrainingPeaks workout scoring system you can now calculate a TSS value for virtually any sport or activity and watch the Performance Management Chart take shape for each of your clients. This is the same system used to track the fitness programs of many of the Tour de France cyclists for more than 5 years.

Your clients don’t need an expensive power meter like the pro cyclists use either. In fact, by leveraging TrainingPeaks new heart rate based TSS (hrTSS) calculator, any workout that contains heart rate data can be assigned a score. Once the athlete’s threshold heart rate value has been set on the zones page, hrTSS can be calculated based on time in each zone or a TRIMPS-based TSS (tTSS) value can be calculated by just knowing the average heart rate and duration of the workout. Additionally, pace can be used to calculate a pace-based TSS value for sports like swimming and running. TrainingPeaks.com also contains the original running TSS (rTSS) found within WKO+.

Finally, no device is needed at all. Once your clients understand the simple scoring system, they will be able to fairly accurately assign themselves a daily score through perceived exertion and by knowing the duration of the workout. Here are some tips to pass along to your clients:

• Cyclists and Runners can earn 100 TSS for an all out effort during a 60-minute workout. Of course most workouts are not completed at an all-out intensity level, so most workouts will probably accumulate less than 100 TSS per hour.
• Think of intensity as a RPE value on a scale of 1-10, “10″ being the hardest. If you exercised at a level 5 for an hour, then you would accumulate 50 TSS. It wouldn’t matter if you were training for the Tour de France or to simply lose weight.
• You can earn more than 100 TSS within a single workout, but never more than 100 TSS per hour.
• No matter what your sport may be, you know what a maximum one-hour effort feels like. This equals 100 TSS. Now you can relate every workout to that gold standard. For example, if you walked the dog for an hour at an easy to moderate pace you might reward yourself with a score of 30 TSS.

Performance Management Chart: TSS Over Time Shows Fitness Trends

The really powerful benefit of tracking your clients daily TSS is your ability to leverage the TrainingPeaks Performance Management Chart to easily track their relative fitness progression over time. TrainingPeaks’ advanced formulas will accurately calculate fitness (known as a Chronic Training Load or CTL), fatigue (known as Acute Training Load or ATL) and finally a freshness or form factor (known as Training Stress Balance or TSB).

We all know that health and fitness aren’t created through occasional exercise and that is why your clients have hired you. Your job is to manage their long-term fitness goals and to keep them motivated and out of trouble. Even if your clients never look at the charts within TrainingPeaks, the Performance Management Chart can be one of your best kept secrets. Consistency and progression over time are the real secrets to long-lasting fitness and health.

To learn more about Training Stress Score and how to use the Performance Management System please visit the following pages:

-How does TrainingPeaks calculate TSS?

-How can I add the TSS option? You’ll need to add the “Stats” section to your Quick View on the Calendar.

Also, try this video.

-How can I backfill past TSS values?

-Learn more about Performance Management Chart

-Archived Webinars and How To Videos:

Now available from the North Face and Carmichael Training Systems, new training plans designed for distances from 5k all the way up to 50 miles can help you achieve your fitness and racing goals! Created by the same coaching group that has worked with many elite athletes for years, these plans are designed for everyone from beginners to advanced runners with the same expert knowledge that has brought success at the highest level.

While these training plans can be used for any event, you can also join The North Face Running Club to enjoy a host of benefits and have the chance to connect with other runners and Endurance Challenge race participants on a weekly basis. Select the Flight Membership for this introductory level of community, or take your Running Club membership to the next level with a Performance Membership.

The North Face Endurance Challenge events present a serious test to even the most experienced runners. With a Performance Membership, you receive tailored training programs and group coaching from Carmichael Training Systems that help build the required skills, strength, and endurance necessary to complete The North Face Endurance Challenge races. Performance Membership includes all the benefits of Flight Membership as well as a complimentary Endurance Challenge race entry, detailed training calendar corresponding to the specific distance you are registered for, live and remote access to experienced CTS coaches, group training sessions, a 9-week nutrition plan and much more.

Learn more about The North Face Endurance Challenge & get started with a training plan!

By Melissa Field

Everyone seems to have a strong opinion about barefoot running these days. Running barefoot, in a light, lean shoe, or Vibram FiveFingers is nothing new. Many runners have sworn by this approach for years, but when Christopher McDougall’s book, Born to Run, hit the bestseller list, this quirky idea became a massive trend. Most running experts agree on most things—get enough sleep, eat well, vary your workouts, incorporate rest days, and stay hydrated. It’s easy to follow the experts when they all seem to agree, but what is a good runner to do when the experts suddenly collide?

A few weeks ago, Amby Burfoot, a long-time Runner’s World editor and Boston Marathon winner, appeared on the Diane Rehm Show with Christopher McDougall and Dr. Stephen Pribut, a Podiatric Sports Medicine expert. The topic was supposed to be “Running in America” but the conversation, or debate, focused almost exclusively on barefoot running. McDougall told us that barefoot running had the potential to cure our running woes and perfect our stride, Burfoot was not so sure, and Pribut held a solid middle ground. Each man offered a convincing argument, but they didn’t exactly agree.

If you’re curious about trying barefoot running and confused about these conflicting expert opinions, consider the middle ground. The experts still agree that any training program should start slow and short and the same can be applied to barefoot running. Before you spent $80 on the latest barefoot shoe, run barefoot at an easy pace in the grass for one mile. If that feels comfortable, try a few more miles, and then try those miles again with a barefoot shoe on a harder surface. If you have experienced running injuries, this approach might be worth your while. If you have remained strong and injury free for years, you might want to stick with what is already working for you.

In the end, barefoot running is a new idea but it’s not a miracle. It may be an approach worth trying, but it certainly won’t give you the ability to run as fast as Ryan Hall or as far as Scott Jurek. A shoe, or lack there of, will not make up for proper training and nutrition, and that is a fact even the experts can agree on.

Get a plan from the experts on TrainingPeaks to help you achieve your running goals, from your first 5k to your best marathon.

[This webinar was archived here, and more are available at the bottom of this page.]

Join us this Friday, August 6th at 10am MST for a FREE webinar presented by Dirk Friel on using the new online Training Stress Scores (TSS) and Performance Management Chart (PMC), once only available with WKO+ desktop software but now also on TrainingPeaks.com!

Learn how to set your thresholds for power, heart rate and pace, and watch to see how to add the Stats tab to your workout Quick View to easily view your training score for each workout. You will also learn how to trigger the back-fill tool to get training scores for all your past recorded workouts, filling in the TSS and PMC pods in the Dashboard. Finally, find out how to read the Performance Management Chart to understand trends in your fitness, form and fatigue.

See you on Friday, and happy training!

By Tammy Metzger, M.Ed.

Flexibility is one of five components of physical fitness listed by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness & Sports, and is defined as, “the ability to move joints and use muscles through their full range of motion […].” In an effort to increase flexibility, we are told to stretch, but what does stretching really accomplish, and will it result in better performance? That all depends on the types of stretching you do, and when you do them.

One of the main confounding factors in this question is that the word “stretch” can mean a multitude of things. The official Dictionary definition that applies best to our topic is, “to lengthen, widen, distend, or enlarge by tension.” Ballistic, active, isometric, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), passive, static, and dynamic are all different types of stretching that seem to be used interchangeably in this discussion. Each of these terms describes a different type of stretching, and each has a different effect on muscle performance. In fact, in looking at our official definition of the word, we see that engaging in endurance activities results in stretching of muscles. As we swim, bike, or run, the muscle-tendon unit contracts, and is stretched.

Most past research has been on static stretching; stretching to the furthest point in the range of motion around a particular join, then holding the stretch for a period of time (usually 30 seconds). This type of stretching, especially when performed before exercise, has been shown to increase risk of injury, while decreasing strength, agility, and power. Dynamic stretching, on the other hand, is receiving attention in more recent research, and the findings have been overwhelmingly positive. Dynamic stretching is akin to a ‘warm-up’ wherein one takes the body through the same motions as will be employed during their activity of choice, but usually in a wider range of motion (check out this video from the NY Times for examples of Dynamic Stretching). Warm-ups that employ dynamic stretching have been shown to increase performance over those with static stretching, with no increased risk of injury.

Interestingly, there appear to be no adverse effects from stretching post-activity. This may be due to the fact that your muscles are warm, and therefore more fluid, after a bout of exercise, thus already more flexible, and less prone to being damaged by stretching. It could also be that any vulnerability that the muscle incurs during a stretching session is diminished in the downtime post-activity, provided it is not asked to perform directly thereafter. The consensus seems to be, if it feels good, do it. There’s no evidence to suggest a detriment or a benefit either way.

Yoga is currently a hot topic in kinesiology research. Research on this popular activity is minimal, and the field is rife with opportunity to investigate and explain it’s purported benefits. What we do know is that stretching a muscle helps facilitate healing of muscle damage. When injury occurs, the body deposits a cluster of repair materials at the site, and when the muscle is stretched these materials are encouraged to line up properly, thus minimizing scar tissue. When we exercise, we create muscle damage, so whether we have an “injury” or not, we are almost certain to have some muscle repairs going on at all times. For this reason, I recommend stretching sessions be done away from other activity. Check out Sage Rountree’s half-marathon with yoga plan for an example of incorporating yoga into your training program.

There is no rule as to long to wait between stretching and other activity, as further research needs to be done, but I recommend at least 2 hours, or until you feel fully recovered from the previous bout of activity. To minimize damage that can be incurred from stretching, it is important to warm your core temperature first, as warm muscle is more fluid and less likely to be compromised. I specifically recommend Bikram yoga, which is performed in a high heat, high humidity setting which creates an optimal environment for stretching activity. One or two sessions per week will be sufficient, and if you choose this type of yoga, remember to pay proper attention to rehydration so that future workouts are not adversely impacted.

Massage, use of a foam roller, Trigger Point therapy, and Active Release Therapy are all additional ways to address injury prevention if you can’t bring yourself to participate in a stretching routine. They are also great additions to a stretching routine, for those with the time and money to invest.

The Bottom Line:

Before exercise: avoid static stretches which decrease performance and increase injury risk, while embracing a dynamic warm-up which will increase performance and decrease risk of injury.
After exercise: No positive or negative effects have been found. If it feels good to use stretching as a cool-down, then do so, remembering to never stretch past the point of mild discomfort. Light massage, or the therapies listed below, could also be employed at this time.
Away from other exercise: Bikram yoga, massage, foam roller, Trigger Point therapy, Active Release Therapy.

About the author:

Tammy Metzger is a multisport coach, and owner of Tempo Multisport LLC, an endurance sports coaching company in Austin, Texas.  Tammy holds a Master of Education in sport and exercise psychology, with a concentration in sport science and nutrition, from the University of Texas at Austin.  Her Bachelor of Science was obtained from Bastyr University in Seattle, WA.

Now that we’ve released TSS/IF (Training Stress Score/Intensity Factor) and the PMC (Performance Management Chart) on the web, I thought I would outline a few tips on how and where to take advantage of these great training metrics within TrainingPeaks.com.

What’s all the fuss about?  Well, it’s about the Performance Management Chart. The PMC is based on Training Stress Score (TSS) and is literally a picture of your fitness, fatigue and overall form.  You can use it to track your training, and even plan to peak for specific events.   The PMC uses the TSS calculated for every workout to build a long term picture of your fitness. The TSS algorithm has direct physiological correlation to how much stress your body has gone through during a workout.  It literally takes the qualitative “how hard was my workout” and computes it into a number.  100 points is the equivalent of going as hard as you can for 1 hour.  Because it is based on an individual’s thresholds for  heart rate, power and pace, you can compare your workout score to your friends, and across workouts.

Watching this number over time lets you track fatigue,  fitness, and your form, and that is exactly what the PMC does and it’s why the PMC is so powerful. It boils everything down to one single chart on your Dashboard. We’re all in search of that elusive “form” on race day, the PMC helps guide you to that great result at your next race or event.

OK, sounds good, how do I get all this cool stuff set up in my TrainingPeaks.com account?  There are a few steps, but it’s really not that hard, in summary:

1. Set your threshold values for power, pace and heart rate
2. Add the TSS/IF pod and the PMC pod to your Dashboard
3. Use the TSS backfiller tool to compute TSS values for your historical workouts
4. Enable your Calendar’s summary column to show weekly TSS
5. Enable the intensity and TSS score columns on the Spreadsheet

First, you must set your thresholds for power, heart rate and pace.  Because TSS is always relative to your physical capabilities, setting your threshold accurately is paramount.  We can calculate TSS for different sports, like running, cycling, even swimming.  So, go to My Settings, Zones, and set your zones and thresholds for heart rate, power and pace. If you don’t have a power meter, don’t worry, just set the threshold and zones for whatever makes sense. You may need to perform a threshold test workout and we’ve provided some instructions.

Ok, step 1 done and you’ve now set your zones and entered your thresholds.  Next, lets add the TSS/IF Pod and the PMC pod to your Dashboard. Click on the Dashboard tab in the upper right of your account, then click the small “pods” icon on the left navigation  which will open the Pod Library. Drag on the TSS/IF and PMC pods (you’ll need to be a premium subscriber to access these pods). The PMC looks like this:

The TSS/IF pod looks like this:

If you don’t see anything after dragging these out, don’t worry, you’ll simply need to use our backfiller to back-calculate TSS values for your workouts in the past. Because we just introduced this functionality, older workouts never had a TSS value assigned to them, fear not, we’ve got you covered. On the PMC pod, click the “Options” button on the top right. You’ll get the back-side of the PMC pod, then click the button for the Backfiller, it will bring up a panel that looks like this:

The key to using this is to enter your Threshold values, remember I said they were important!  Enter a date range, maybe go 1 year back in time, then enter your threshold values and click “OK”.  After a few seconds, you’ll get a confirmation that it’s finished and viola, your PMC and TSS pods will come to life! There are several places where you can see the TSS values besides just the TSS/IF pod and the PMC pod. For example, on the Calendar, you can add Score to your weekly summary:

On the Spreadsheet, you can add the Score and Intensity columns too, just go to My Settings, Spreadsheet and drag these two items into your “selected” column, it will show up like this:

You can also see the values right on the QuickView, using the Stats tab. If you don’t have the Stats tab on your QuickView, then, while on the QuickView, click Options, Configure this view, then drag the Stats tab to your selected column. It will appear immediately and look like this:

Here you’ll have Score (TSS), Intensity (IF), Normalized Power (if you are using a power meter) or Normalized Pace (for running if you have a GPS device). We have a lot more documentation on TSS/IF the PMC and beyond if you are interested in the “why” behind the “what”.  You can get started with these tips for tracking TSS and you’ll be part of the “yellow line club” as you monitor your Training Stress Balance (TSB) to peak performance, resulting in a great event in your near future!

Good luck with your training and racing!

Now on TrainingPeaks, the workout analysis tools many of you have enjoyed for years in our desktop WKO+ software are available online:  find out just how hard your workout really was with new online Training Stress Scores (TSS) and track your fitness over time with the Performance Management Chart (PMC).

Based on the gold-standard analysis system that has been available on our advanced WKO+ desktop software for half a decade, online workout scores can be calculated based on power, heart rate, and more, allowing athletes to earn a score for a variety of different workouts and compare many different types of training.

Scores can even be calculated based on data that you already have recorded in your account: click here to learn how to use our back-fill calculator tool to instantly update your charts with all your past data, and make sure you have set your threshold values correctly to ensure accurate scores. Learn how to add the Stats tab to your workout Quick View to view TSS here.

These workout scores can be tracked over time in a new online graph called the Performance Management Chart (PMC), now also available on TrainingPeaks, to give you a good idea of how your training is progressing over time. The same system used to track the fitness programs of many of the Tour de France cyclists and other elite athletes for more than 5 years is now available to you.

You don’t need an expensive power meter like the pro cyclists use either. In fact, TrainingPeaks can now calculate a TSS value for any workout that contains heart rate or pace data. In fact, no device is needed at all: once you understand the simple scoring system you’ll be able to reward yourself with a daily score through perceived exertion.

By tracking your daily TSS, no matter what your preferred workout type may be, you will be doing the same thing many professional cyclists have done for years. Understanding these simple concepts can help you estimate your daily workout score even if you don’t have a training device file to upload.

• Cyclists and runners can earn 100 TSS for an all-out 60-minute workout. Now of course most workouts are not completed at an all-out intensity level so you will probably accumulate less than 100 TSS per hour on most days.
• Think of intensity on a scale of 1-10, “10″ being the hardest. If you exercised at a level 5 for an hour then you would accumulate 50 TSS, no matter if you were training for the Tour de France or to simply lose weight.
• You can earn more than 100 TSS within a single workout, but never more than 100 TSS per hour.
• No matter what your sport may be, you know what a maximum one-hour effort feels like. This equals 100 TSS. Now you can relate every workout to that gold standard. So for example if you walked the dog for an hour at an easy to moderate pace you might reward yourself with a score of 30 TSS.

Performance Management Chart: Training Score Over Time Shows Fitness Trends

The really powerful benefit of tracking your daily TSS is you can now leverage the TrainingPeaks Performance Management Chart to easily track your fitness progression over time. TrainingPeaks’ advanced formulas will accurately calculate your fitness (known as Chronic Training Load or CTL), fatigue (known as Acute Training Load or ATL) and finally your freshness or form (known as Training Stress Balance or TSB).

There is no need to remember CTL, ATL and TSB, just remember the blue line represents your fitness, the pink line shows your fatigue, and the yellow line shows how fresh you are. Now that you understand these basic principles you can spot the trends over time an set realistic goals for yourself. We all know that health and fitness aren’t created through occasional exercise. Consistency and progression over time are the real secrets to long-lasting fitness and health.

Learn more about Training Stress Scores and the Performance Management Chart.

Along with our new online workout scores system, we have also added other great features to TrainingPeaks, such as pace and speed zones to make planning and recording your workouts easier than ever. To set up your new zones, just click on My Settings and select the Zones tab.

Learn more about what’s new here.

Tour de France Review: Comparing Race Files for 2009 and 2010 from Team Saxo Bank’s Chris Anker Sorensen

A rare view into what it takes to compete in the world’s hardest bike race, by Dirk Friel

Team Saxo Bank’s Chris Anker Sorensen recently completed his second Tour de France, and for the second year in a row he was a major contributing factor in the success of his teammate Andy Schleck, who placed 2nd overall. Chris has had a very successful season and continues to notch up impressive results despite suffering a broken collar bone just 7 weeks before the start of this year’s Giro d’Italia. In fact, Chris went on to win stage 8 of the Italian tour by riding away solo from a long breakaway.

As in 2009 Chris was again recruited to ride the Tour de France in support of Andy Schleck, where he has proven to be a very valuable helper when the race heads into the crucial mountain stages. Chris plays a much-needed role within the Saxo Bank team as his duty is to be one of the final two Saxo Bank riders remaining alongside Andy Schleck when it gets tough in the mountains. Chris regularly sets a blistering pace which can only be matched by a handful of contenders. This strategy isolates the remaining elite team leaders and serves as a launch pad for Andy to attack from in the hopes of riding away from Alberto Contador.

The Numbers Behind the Dramatic Stages

The above two charts display Chris Sorensen’s daily Training Stress Score, Daily Max 5-minute, 20-minute, 60-minute and 240-minute power output for the 2010 and 2009 Tour de France.

Just like in 2009, Chris was gracious enough to share his daily SRM power files with TrainingPeaks and allow fans everywhere to download his actual power data. This is a rare view into exactly what it takes to complete the world’s hardest bike race. However, in the case of Chris we not only get to see what it takes to finish the Tour de France, but in one particular stage we even get to see what it takes to beat the top riders as Chris did within the final 52km time trial.

Before you dive into the race files you should keep in mind a few important concepts. Cycling is a sport where an athlete’s power to weight ratio is in almost direct relation to the finishing results. This is very evident when the road tilts upwards and the rider with the best sustainable power, and lower body weight, tends to win. This is commonly expressed as watts per kilogram of body weight (w/kg).

In the case of Chris he weighs 141lbs, or 64kg, and is just over 6ft tall. That is one slim cyclist and certainly a big key in his success as a successful pro cyclist. Chris also has the ability to crank out a lot of watts for a long period of time. This allows him to outlast the competition and be one of the last few riders to get dropped in the mountains.

So what are his actual numbers? Check out the stats below, listed for 2009 and then 2010:

Peak 5 minutes:  433w  vs 462w

Peak 20 minutes:  388w  vs 393w

Peak 4 hours:  259w  vs 288w

Hardest Stage (highest TSS):  372 TSS (Stage 7) vs  370 TSS (Stage 17)

Easiest Stage (lowest TSS) :  127 TSS (Stage 21) vs  113 TSS (Stage 20)

TSS Total: 4,640 TSS  vs  5,172 TSS

Those are impressive numbers! See how well you stack up: if you weigh 180lbs you’d have to ride at 499w for 20 minutes in order to be at Chris’s level (oh, and do that in hour 5 of a long hard bike race). If you don’t own a power meter head on down to your local gym and see if they have any stationary bikes which display watts. You can also inquire at sports medicine facilities and while you’re there ask for a lactate threshold test to see how many watts you can pump out at lactate threshold. If you’re Chris Sorensen it would be in the neighborhood of 380w.

Read more in the full article to see numbers from several key stages of the race, including in the time trial when Chris beat both Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador!

This article was originally published in the American Council on Exercise’s (ACE’s) Get Fit blog. Visit the American Council on Exercise for free health and fitness information, and read on for an excerpt from the article below.

The two major players in the weight-loss battle are diet and exercise. But can the battle be won using only one of these tools? Many people opt for the easier route, which they believe is dieting. But when you consider how poor the statistics are for long-term weight loss through diets, you need to consider a combination of both. Normally, only about 5% of dieters are successful in keeping weight off, and weight cycling is very common. Usually one-third of weight lost is regained within one year and almost all is regained within three to five years.

How Weight Loss Works

The mechanism of weight loss is simple. It is encompassed in a concept called energy balance. When you burn more calories than you consume, you lose weight. Therefore, to lose weight you need to burn more calories and/or consume fewer calories. The combination of both of these methods is the best way to lose weight and improve your health.

How the Pros Do It

Members of the National Weight Control Registry are people who have lost weight and kept it off successfully for a minimum of one year. Of these people, 89% use a combination of diet and exercise, although 10% have had success using diet alone and 1% used exercise alone. However, research shows that the combination of exercise and diet is more effective than diet alone. Furthermore, while diet alone helps you lose weight, it is exercise that improves your physical fitness.

Getting Started

Combining diet and exercise can be tricky when you’re trying to cut calories. It is important to make sure that you eat enough so that you have energy to get through your workout, but not so much that you tilt your energy balance back to the weight-gain side.

While guidelines suggest 1 to 2 pounds of weight loss a week, you should set a goal that is both realistic and manageable for your lifestyle and fitness level. Overly aggressive goals often lead to attrition and failure.

Read more in the full article, and track your own nutrition and workouts in TrainingPeaks!

This year’s Tour de France has certainly been dramatic, both for the riders and the fans. While the cyclists were out on the road dealing with headbutts, attacks, crashes and more, the fans were busy devouring the race commentary and analysis that goes with the sport. As part of the excitement this year, TrainingPeaks shared daily power files from Team Saxo Bank as well as the opportunity to win the same SRM power meter that the team uses along with other great prizes!

The race and the sweepstakes are now over and joining the Tour winners, we have several lucky sweepstakes winners as well: Justin Andrews is the recipient of a brand new SRM power meter and PC 7 head unit, Trent Simmons won an SRM racing jersey and shorts along with free coaching from Hunter Allen, and several others will enjoy free WKO+ 3.0 licenses and TrainingPeaks subscriptions. Congratulations!

Thanks to everyone who entered and followed along with our coverage of the race this year! We hope you enjoyed our daily analysis – stay tuned for a final article by Dirk Friel and Hunter Allen comparing the 2010 Tour de France to last year’s race and find out which one was harder.

Chapeau to all the riders who participated in this epic race, one of the toughest in the world!

Although the pro riders in the Tour de France don’t exactly have the opportunity to taper before tomorrow’s super important time trial, the rest of us should definitely take advantage of the tapering luxury that we have before any big event!

Not only is tapering fun and relaxing, it’s one of the most important elements of training for a race. Read on in this article about tapering from Amby Burfoot of Runner’s World and make your next race your best ever with a great taper!

By Amby Burfoot

If there’s a more important part of your training program than the pre-race taper, I can’t imagine what it might be. Without the right taper, all your hard-earned fitness can go down the drain faster than spoiled milk. None of us are that wasteful. We want to train, and then we want to see our training pay off with a strong race effort.

That’s why we taper before our races. Runners have always tapered—that is, they have always decreased training for a period prior to big races with the hope of freshening up and boosting race performance. We let our mind and muscles recover; we stock up on carbohydrates (glycogen); we store our energies as we focus on the upcoming event.

Problem is, we’ve never known exactly how to get the taper right. Or which physical systems we’re building. Or how to deal with the thought that every tapering runner has had: “What if I’m getting out of shape?”

Recently, Ball State (Muncie, IN) researchers led by muscle expert Scott Trappe, Ph.D, have been digging into the taper question and producing helpful new findings in a paper presented these results at the recent American College of Sports Medicine meeting, and Trappe discussed them with me.

Trappe and colleagues did measurements on cross-country runners at Taylor University, coached by Ted Bowers. They performed an identical series of tests on the runners before and after a three-week tapering period. One of the tests was an actual 8-K cross-country race. At the height of their midseason training, the harriers ran six days per week for a total of 45 miles per week.

During the three weeks of tapering, the runners logged 73%, 73% and 50% of their normal training miles. They achieved this cutback almost exclusively by limiting “moderate” miles. In other words, they kept doing many of their easy runs and intervals but stopped doing stuff like tempo runs. After the three week taper, their average race times dropped from 27:42 to 26:12 (if you include the fact that the second 8K course was 200 meters longer than the first. Conditions were gauged to be similar). “The results were quite convincing,” says Trappe. “Every one of our subjects improved after the taper. They didn’t lose any of their cardiovascular fitness, and they gained a lot of muscle strength.”

Adds Bowers: “My kids used to worry that they’d lose something in a three-week taper. This research and the results have reassured them. We’re very comfortable with the taper plan. It’s easy to explain, and it works.”

Why does it work? That was Trappe’s main interest. His finding: “The runners’ leg muscles [gastrocnemius, in the calf] got bigger, stronger, and more powerful during the taper period. These things can change, and they are fine-tunable in a short period.”

While the athletes’ Type IIa muscles (the so-called “fast oxidative” or “fatigue resistant A” fibers) got stronger (in part through a gene response), their VO2 max and running economy remained the same throughout the taper. In other words, they didn’t lose any oxygen-processing ability. They just got stronger and fitter in the leg muscles.

Trappe believes the same general taper strategy would work for distance runners all the way up to the marathon. “It gets you to the starting line with that light, speedy feeling in your legs,” he says. He observes that many Type A distance runners have a tendency to “overcook” themselves during a taper. They want to keep their mileage relatively high, and when their legs start to feel a little recovered, they do too much medium and hard running to compensate for the decreased mileage. Down that path lies a train wreck.

“When we added the third week to our taper, I was worried my guys would go a little crazy,” says Bowers. “But we held them back, and they got faster. It’s a fact. You can see it in the results.”

Scott Trappe Taper Principles

*** 3 weeks before race: Do 75 percent of normal “midseason” training. Eliminate most medium-hard runs. Do usual interval training.

*** 2 weeks before race: Same as above.

*** Last week before race: Do 50 percent of normal training. Eliminate virtually all medium-hard runs. Do 50 percent of usual interval training.

About the author: Amby Burfoot, Runner’s World Editor at Large and winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon, has run more than 100,000 lifetime miles.

Check out training plans from Runner’s World, the most trusted source for running information for more than four decades. There’s a full  selection of training plans for 5-Ks, 10-Ks, half-marathons, marathons, and more for sale in the TrainingPeaks store. Plans are built according to the principles that have proven to be most effective by millions of runners, and they include Runner’s World’s best tips on training, nutrition, motivation, and injury-prevention.

The final mountain stage of the 2010 Tour de France was already designed to be incredibly challenging, with 3 high mountain passes in the Pyrenees, each one harder than the last. Add in the fact that the top two riders in the race were separated by only 8 seconds at the start of the day, and Stage 17 became one of the hardest rides the Tour has ever seen.

As expected, Team Saxo Bank put all their cards on the table riding in support of Andy Schleck, who did his best to attack Alberto Contador in an effort to reclaim the yellow jersey. Launching Andy into that attack on the Tourmalet, his team mate Chris Anker Sorensen set a new record for sustained power output, cranking out 6.6 watts per kilogram for 10 minutes before peeling off – and watching Andy ride even harder from there as he took off towards the summit finish with Contador on his wheel.

In his analysis of the today’s power file, Hunter Allen explains how Chris timed his effort perfectly as part of the overall team strategy to help Andy make a bid to reclaim the yellow jersey before Saturday’s time trial. “It was Team Saxo Bank’s strategy to go all out and make the race as hard as possible today, and Chris was definitely helping to make that happen. He spent more time in his threshold zone today than any other day in this year’s Tour de France.”

“On the final climb of the Tourmalet, Chris was the second rider in line to lead out Andy Schleck. Fabian Cancellara was having one of his best mountain days ever and started the lead out at the front on Tourmalet. When he swung off, Chris took over and knocked out his best 10 minutes of the Tour at 415 watts or 6.6watts per kilogram! His effort came to an end when Barredo made the first attack and then Andy Schleck attacked and only Contador could stay with him.”

In the brutal duel that ensued up the final kilometers of the climb, we can only imagine how many watts Andy and Alberto were cranking out as they battled through the fog to the finish line. Each rider eyed the other warily, attempting attacks that never quite went anywhere as in the end Alberto stayed glued to Andy’s wheel and they crossed the finish line with the same time, evenly matched on the climb.

Compare today’s power data to the other stages of the Tour, check out a video from Velonews to see Dirk Friel explain more about power meters, and stay tuned for the final showdown in the time trial on Saturday!

As the 2010 Tour de France enters the final few days of racing, overall success may depend less on a rider’s sheer skill and strength and more on the ability to recover and cope with fatigue, both physically and mentally. Being able to ride away from the group on a climb or hammer it on a time trial at the end of 3 long weeks of hard riding is a bit different from accomplishing the same feats with fresh legs and a clear head. The conclusion of this year’s epic battle between Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck may come down to which rider has a higher fatigue tolerance in both mind and body.

How can we apply the lessons learned from these riders to our own training?

By Gordo Byrn, Endurance Corner Coach

When I listen to athletes talk about the Tour de France, the conversation often gravitates towards fitness, body weight and ability to endure pain. We marvel at the top end speed, low body fat and mental toughness of our cycling heroes.

Having done some big training cycles in my time, what’s most impressive to me is how well the top contenders cope with fatigue. Personally, I’m good for about 8-12 days of drilling it before I start to fall apart. For athletes to keep hitting it for three weeks is truly impressive.

What are the lessons that we can take from the Tour for our own big training cycles?

Keep Score: while there’s only one overall leader, by turning your training into a game, you can give motivation for competitions inside the main event.

Give Everyone A Chance To Be Strong: the Tour has a wide variety of stages, and finishes, that suit different types of riders.  If you’re organizing a training camp then figure out how to create situations where each athlete can share in some success.

The Power of Teams: a game that we play at our camps is a group TT where we mix the abilities of riders.  The team must finish every rider to stop the clock.  It’s a great session that gets the absolute most from the team.

Point To Point: I’ve endured some truly awful conditions at training camps because I had to get to the motel at the end of the stage (and was too stubborn to quit).  I always ride stronger, and longer, when the camp is structured point-to-point.

Goals: before I enter each big cycle, I think about what I want to achieve from the block.  When things get tough, my big picture goal gets me out of bed in the morning.  I’ve used this tactic to ride across the US as well as New Zealand – great base training by the way!

It takes a long time to get good and the tactics above will help keep things fun while you endure the trials of miles.

See you at the races,

Gordo

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Gordo Byrn is hosting the Tour of Utah with Robbie Ventura in September 2010.  He’s the founder of Endurance Corner LLC, which organizes cycling-focused camps in the Rockies and desert Southwest. Find more information on Endurance Corner’s training camps here.

On a stage where the first big climb began just a few hundred meters from the starting line, the hard work started right away and didn’t stop all day. After a short neutral roll-out from Luchen, the 0 KM sign signaling the start of the race was posted right next to the KOM sign signaling the start of the 11km Col de Peyresourde. Attacks began almost immediately, with Lance Armstrong riding aggressively the whole way in a bid to take the stage win, splintering the peloton so severely that at one point the “main group” was down to just 14 riders!

Saxo Bank’s Chris Anker Sorensen also started up the first climb aggressively as the bunch tried to keep up with the blistering pace set by Armstrong, riding at 6 watts per kilogram for over half an hour – a start that EQUALS his hardest effort of the Tour so far.

After the devastating start, the chasing continued for many riders, but Chris took the rest of the stage a bit easier following his huge effort riding for Andy yesterday. “Thankfully, the Col d’ Aspin was a more sane 5.5 w/kg for 35 minutes and the pace slowed from there with the hour-long Tourmalet climb at 4.7 w/kg,” explains Hunter Allen in his analysis of the SRM power file. “It’s hard to tell where Chris was dropped from the leading peloton of 49 riders, but I suspect it was pretty early on, on the Col D’ Aspin. If you notice the last 8 minutes of the Col d’ Aspin, his power really drops off down to 335-340 watts and I would guess this is when he got dropped and then brought the effort down. On the Tourmalet, he really scales back his effort in an attempt to conserve energy, which would also point to the fact that he was no longer in the front group of riders. I am not surprised as he put in a huge, huge effort yesterday for Andy Schleck, so would expect him to be hurting today.”

With today’s brutal stage following what was already a very difficult day yesterday, Chris and the rest of the riders will certainly enjoy the brief respite they will get from tomorrow’s rest day before the final mountain stage on Thursday and the ultimate battle in Saturday’s time trial. Stay tuned for more commentary from Hunter Allen, and sign up for his free webinar today at 8pm EST to learn even more about power analysis!

In what Velonews is calling the Great Chain Debate, controversy is swirling around Alberto Contador’s decision to attack at the end of the final climb today while Andy Schleck was struggling with his chain. After so much hard work from both Andy and his team mates, losing the yellow jersey to an unlucky mechanical failure and an attack of dubious character has without a doubt left a bad taste in many people’s mouths.

Before the trouble with the chain began, Andy had been launched into a break that included just 5 of the top riders by his team mate Chris Anker Sorensen, who set such a fast pace at the beginning of the climb that only 15 riders were left before Andy set out on his own. Chris pumped out 6 watts per kilo for over 20 minutes on this effort, so just imagine what Andy must have been doing when he rode away from Chris!

Just 3km from the top of the climb, Andy began an attack that was designed to leave Contador and the other 3 riders behind – but unfortunately backfired when he dropped his chain just as the others launched a counter-attack, leaving Andy frantically struggling to repair the damage while Contador and the rest rode ahead over the summit.

Attacking the yellow jersey during a mechanical failure is generally considered poor Tour de France etiquette, especially if the one doing the attacking happens to be in second place. However, there has been some debate over whether or not Contador realized what had happened to Andy, as well as the question of whether or not the other riders would have stopped and waited with Contador since the race for the summit was really on at that point.

Whether or not Contador should have attacked, the new yellow jersey rider will need to watch out for Andy and the rest of Team Saxo Bank during tomorrow’s stage, which promises to be one of the toughest in the Tour. It crosses all four of the most famous passes in the Pyrénées — the Cat. 1 Peyresourde and Aspin, and the hors categorie Tourmalet and Aubisque — and includes 15,000 feet of actual climbing.

If Andy can take the jersey back before the final rest day on Wednesday, he will have just one more day of climbing to defend it before the last showdown in the time trial on Saturday, where Contador is almost certain to finish ahead Andy. How much time Andy would need to gain against Contador before the time trial is anyone’s guess, but without at least a small cushion his hopes of finishing at the top of the podium in Paris may be over for this year.

Stay tuned during these finals days of racing for more commentary and analysis!

So far in the 2010 Tour de France, we have seen plenty of drama including crashes, cobbles, hills, and headbutts. Some of the favorites have left the race, and others have seen their dreams of a podium finish fade away. As the second week of this epic event draws to a close and we look forward to a final showdown in the Pyrenees, the question arises: going into this last week of battle on the bikes, are the riders generally more or less exhausted than they were at this point in the race last year?

Of course, the story is different for each rider, but one good way to get a general idea of the overall toughness of this year’s Tour compared to 2009 is to compare data from the same rider doing the same job on the same team in both years. We have been following “super domestique” Chris Anker Sorensen of Team Saxo Bank this year in the Tour de France and we had the chance to follow him last year as well. He is the right-hand man for Andy Schleck and is really the only guy on the Saxo Bank team that can ride in the high mountains with Andy. Chris is also a winner in his own right with a mountain stage win in the Giro D’ Italia this year and the queen stage win in the Dauphine Libere last year, so getting the opportunity to review his power files and see how many watts he can put out is a true insight into one of the worlds’ best cyclists.

So far in the 2010 Tour, Chris has had nearly the equivalent amount of training stress, or overall fatigue caused to his body by riding, as he did in 2009. This year Saxo Bank has had the yellow jersey longer than last year, first with Cancellara and now with Andy Schleck, and as a consequence Chris has had to ride near the front. However, with Chris being the main supporting mountain climber, he has been fortunate that he did not have to do too much work in the early stages of the Tour this year even though Saxo was defending the jersey. Once the mountains started though, Chris was always seen at the front.

An excellent example of how much power Chris can bring to the front of a climb was in Stage 9, when Chris played a large role in launching Andy Schleck off the front of the Col de la Madeleine climb from an elite group of 10 or so riders. Chris started setting a hard tempo at the bottom of the hour-plus-long climb and rode at an average of 410 watts, or 6.4 watts per kilogram, in the first ten minutes of the climb: an extremely impressive power output that essentially doubles what most Cat 4 recreational riders would be able to sustain.

After such a hard effort, Chris peeled off and rode at a slightly lower pace to recover, putting out 5.6 w/kg for the next ten minutes. This effort still kept him in the top 15 riders and he was then able to catch back up with Schleck and Contador briefly, when he went straight to the front again to set tempo just one more time before Schleck and Contador attacked and dropped the rest for good. This last pull was almost 3 minutes long and he averaged 432 watts or 6.75w/kg for that effort.

This 2010 Stage 9 effort from Chris actually compares very closely with his performance on Stage 9 last year, which saw the riders go over the Tourmalet and Andy Schleck suffer a very unfortunate flat with just 4 miles to go. Chris waited for Andy and paced him back in the final stretch of the race, averaging 400 watts during this 3.5 minute stretch which included several technical corners where he actually coasted at zero watts with 9 all-out efforts well above 600 watts.

One of the easiest days in the 2010 Tour so far was Stage 11 and although Chris did have to be attentive and help at the front a bit, he really had a mellow day along with most of the other riders in the peloton. Over 72% of the ride was done in his active recovery zone with his normalized watts for the entire day at only 224 and an average heart rate of 115bpm. In the last few miles, Chris did have to go to the front and ride right at his functional threshold power (390-395 watts) for about 12 minutes in order to help keep things together and Andy Schleck out of trouble. This was no different than the effort he did on the climb in Stage 9 and in this case, he ‘blew up’ for good and rode in to the finish relatively easy without caring about any time losses.

Last year’s Stage 11 was a similarly easy day for Chris, as Team Saxo Bank was able to focus all their attention on simply riding steady to keep team leader Andy Schleck safe and rested on a relatively flat course that saw Team HTC-Columbia do all the work for their sprinter Mark Cavendish. Chris did everything possible to make sure his team leader entered the Alps as fresh as possible. His SRM data shows he expended the most energy within the first 20 minutes of the stage where he averaged 297w, which is a very manageable effort for Chris. His average watts for the stage of 218w were also very low considering his threshold power in 2009 was near 380w.

Although there are of course many more details to discuss when it comes to comparing these first two weeks of riding with the 2009 lead-in to the final week, it is safe to say that in general so far this year’s race has been almost exactly as hard as last year. When you look past all the excitement of crashes and headbutting, it becomes clear that the race organizers really do make a great effort every year to design a course that provides just enough challenge to keep the riders on the edge and the fans fascinated. For fans who want more analysis to get even greater insight into this year’s race versus last year’s Tour, view commentary from all of the stages of the 2009 Tour de France here and all of the stages of the 2010 Tour so far here.

To learn more about how to analyze riding efforts so you can compare your own training and racing over the years and with your friends, join us for a FREE Tour De France webinar next Tuesday, July 20th at 8pm EST presented by Hunter Allen, author of Training and Racing with a Power Meter. Not only will Hunter be doing more power analysis of real Tour de France files, he’ll also be helping you to learn how to use all the great features in the new Version 3.0 of TrainingPeaks WKO+ desktop software. Register now for this FREE webinar, and don’t forget to enter our Tour de France Sweepstakes for your chance to win an SRM power meter and more!

Another day for the sprinters saw a dramatic finish after a relatively straightforward stage exiting the Alps and cruising through the foothills of the Drôme region. Although Chris Anker Sorensen of Team Saxo Bank took a few hard pulls at the front, he also had the opportunity to rest a bit, spending over 70% of the day’s ride at active recovery pace. Read on to find out what an “easy” day at the Tour de France feels like, and check out Velonews for more on the dramatic sprint finish that ended with Cavendish lead-out rider Mark Renshaw of Team HTC-Columbia being ejected from the race!

After the only climb of the day, the Category 3 Col De Cabre, Chris got to sit in a bit and you can see in his power file that he took advantage of that with 2 hours 15 minutes at an average normalized power of 167 and average power of 122. That will probably be some key rest for him in hopes of a good day tomorrow.

Near the end of the stage Chris had to ride harder and harder at the front and ultimately rode for 12 minutes right at his FTP before he got dropped. This was a seriously hard effort, no different than we saw Chris do two days ago when helping Andy Schleck on the mountains. Once he was dropped, that was it and he rode it in easy.

The entire ride was 5 hours with a TSS of only 163 points and intensity factor of .575, which means that over 72% of todays’ ride was done at active recovery pace. That may be a new record low for a stage in the Tour: normalized power of 224 watts with his average heart rate at only 115bpm!

Tomorrow’s stage should be a bit harder, as it includes two Category 2 climbs, the second of which features the steepest hill of the entire Tour! The climb up Croix-Neuve rises up for 3.1km at 10 percent, with 14-percent pitches on its three switchbacks. Stay tuned for the power numbers on that one coming up next!

By Mike Ricci, Head Coach – D3 Multisport and USAT Level III Certified Coach

Across North America, racing in July, August and early September can be challenging due to the temperature. Racing during these months usually means you are performing in hot and humid conditions. Certainly training in this type of environment is optimal for conditioning your system to the stress. However, for those of us coming from a milder climate there are a few things we can do to prepare to race our best.

The most important thing you can do is learn your sweat rate. Before you run, weigh yourself without any clothes. Then go run for a one hour, take in whatever water you need, and then come back and re-weigh yourself. Your difference in weight, plus the addition of the weight of the water or fluid you drank will give you how many pounds you lost during your run. Divide that number by the number of hours; then multiply by 3.79 to get your sweat rate in liters per hour. By doing this test regularly in different temps, you will start to see how your body reacts with varying temperatures. Knowing that on a hot day you lose 2% of your body weight would be a big advantage over others who don’t keep track. You will know you need to take in ‘X’ ounces of water, which will eliminate your chance of dehydration. Of course don’t drink too much as that can cause hypnotremia – and that can be deadly.

Another idea is to hit the sauna. A convenient time is after your swim practice or weights. Just get in there two-three times per week and get used to the heat. I know athletes that ride their trainers in the sauna but I don’t think that is necessary. One more option is to train indoors, with a long sleeve shirt on, no fan and with the doors and windows closed. If you want to take it to the next level, throw some wet clothes in the dryer and voila, you have humidity. Training with long sleeves is something I have done with success for a number of years. Lastly, in order to prepare yourself to race in a hot and humid environment, make sure you are properly hydrated and even add a little salt to your meals to help you retain more water. You can train with salt tablets or electrolyte pills too. These have been used successfully for years by many athletes in longer, hotter races. Whatever you do, try it in training before you try it in a race.

Just like preparing for a hilly course, we train in the hills. So, to race well in a hot environment, we need to simulate those same conditions. Don’t get caught unprepared. Use the tips listed here to help you overcome the more extreme conditions you may be faced with racing in this hot season.

Read more from the experts at D3Multisport and search TrainingPeaks for a coach of your own to help you train right for your event!

In another exciting day at the Tour de France, Team Saxo Bank’s Andy Schleck rode his way to the yellow jersey in a dominating performance that included amazing support from team mates like Chris Anker Sorensen, who rode at an average of over 300 watts for 6 hours. With numbers like that for Chris, just imagine what Andy did! Will this be the hardest stage of this year’s Tour? Check out power data from Chris and analysis from Hunter Allen here, and read on for more details below.

Team Saxo Bank’s Chris Anker Sorensen with Dirk Friel of TrainingPeaks, Stage 9

Saxo Bank’s plan for the day went perfectly. “The plan was to put on huge pressure if Andy [Schleck] was feeling alright and thankfully, he was flying,” said team owner Bjarne Riis, . “Jens [Voigt], Chris [Anker Sorensen] and Jakob [Fuglsang] put in a world class effort and they actually started the massacre on our opponents.”

As the peloton started up the biggest climb of the day, the hors categorie Col de la Madeline, Team Saxo Bank took control for their leader as described on Velonews: “Chris Anker Sorensen came to the front and Saxo Bank began drilling it for Schleck, shedding first the classics riders and sprinters like Fabian Cancellara (Saxo) and green jersey Thor Hushovd (Cervélo TestTeam), and then stage racers like Amgen Tour of California champion Mick Rogers (HTC-Columbia) and Critérium du Dauphiné winner Janez Brajkovic (Team RadioShack)… Evans had one teammate setting tempo in the yellow-jersey group. Then Saxo Bank’s Sorensen came to the front once more and put the pressure on.”

“Chris went right to the front at the base of the climb and began setting the highest pace he could set for the climb in order to burn off as many riders as possible, thus launching Andy Schleck in a breakaway,” explains Hunter Allen in his analysis of the day’s data. “Chris’ effort was highly effective as when he did pull over from the pace making at the front, there were hardly 15 riders left in the front group. In that 10 minutes that he was on the front, he averaged 410 watts, or 6.4 watts per kilogram! This pace was clearly above his Functional Threshold Power, as he could only maintain it for 10 minutes and when he pulled over, he rode at 358 watts for the next ten minutes in order to recover. For Chris, the entire Madeleine climb was 1:16 minutes long at an average normalized power of 334 watts.”

“All in all, an outstanding performance by Chris Anker. We have seen this from him in last year’s Tour as well, when he did roughly the same effort on Stage 20, leading out the Schlecks at the base of Mt. Ventoux,” continues Hunter. “Chris has the ability to climb with the worlds best for sure and today was one of them. Had he been on his own, I would venture to guess that he could have climbed with Levi Leipheimer in that group and finished in the top 15. Team Saxo bank has one of the strongest well-rounded teams in the tour this year and Chris Anker is without a doubt one of the most important riders to help Andy in the mountains.”

View more power files and analysis from the 2010 Tour de France and don’t forget to enter to win an SRM power meter!

By Gear Fisher

Today was a well-deserved first rest day for the 2010 Tour de France. After a week that included the cobbled roads of the Netherlands and the mountain top finish at Avoriaz, the ski area just outside Morzine, France, you can bet some sore bodies and legs relished the relaxing day off.

Lance ran into some bad luck yesterday after falling in a roundabout traveling around 65kph, then simply couldn’t match the pace set by Contador and Schleck. He was shepherded to the stage finish by teammate Jani Brajkovic.

Dirk and I got the opportunity to chat with Jani in the Team Radioshack hotel where they were staying for the rest day.  He remained upbeat and eager to rally behind new team leader Levi Leipheimer. Jani mentioned that Lance is ready to fight on, and simply was dealt bad luck from yesterday’s stage, something he’s rarely had to deal with, but was taking it in stride.

We started the day in Talloires, on the shore of Lake Annecy with the USA Cycling Champions Club. We rolled out around 8:30am for a 45 mile, 4000′ climbing day headed to a ski area just west of Lake Annecy. Though hard, it was a perfect ride and we took in the amazing sights of the French Alps, including a view of Mont Blanc from the top of the 5,600′ climb. Check out Dirk’s route and power data  from the ride.

After the ride, we took a quick dip into Lake Annecy to cool off, then headed out on a 1.5 hour drive to Morzine, where the tour was taking their rest day.

Tomorrow will bring more fireworks as the riders are set to face the daunting Col de la Madeleine as well as 3 other rated climbs. Look for Lance to go for a stage win or help Levi find a podium spot in a couple weeks to come.

Stage 8 was supposed to be an important day in the 2010 Tour de France, and it certainly lived up to expectations. In an extremely eventful stage, the main contenders saw a dramatic shake-up in the standings as Lance Armstrong suffered several crashes, losing almost 12 minutes against overall leaders Cadel Evans, Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador. Despite strong support from Radioshack team mates Jani Brajkovic and Chris Horner, Lance lost contact with the main group of riders, making Levi Leipheimer the new team leader.

Team Saxo Bank members also rode hard in support of their leader Andy Schleck, who was able to out-sprint Samuel Sanchez of Euskaltel – Euskadi for the stage win. For a better idea of what it takes to get through a tough couple of days of climbing at the Tour, view power data from Saxo Bank’s Chris Anker Sorensen, who rode hard at the front of Ramaz to set the pace on Sunday after riding with Andy Schleck in the main group of contenders on Saturday. Chris is riding very well and proving to be a huge help for Andy in the mountains.

With Cadel in yellow, Andy winning the stage, and Contador lurking just a minute behind, there is still plenty of excitement to come in this race, although it appears that the 7-time champion is now out of contention for the overall win and will ride the rest of the race in support of his team mate Levi Leipheimer. Tomorrow’s rest day should give everyone a much-needed chance to recuperate before another big day of climbing in Stage 9. Stay tuned, and don’t forget to enter for your chance to win an SRM so you can find out what your own power numbers look like!

As arguably one of the fittest and most fiercely determined humans on the planet, Lance Armstrong could fairly expect to do well when he first decided to run the New York City Marathon. Some predictions of his performance based on his VO2 max even came close to the 2 hour mark, a feat achieved by only the most elite marathon runners.

In reality, Lance managed to stagger across the line in just under 3 hours – still a very respectable time to be sure, but certainly not a record-breaking performance. He also was heard describing the race as “without a doubt the hardest physical thing I have ever done.” Should we have been surprised by this result from a man who still holds the record for the most consecutive victories in another one of the world’s hardest races?

In fact, such an outcome was easily anticipated by none other than his coach Chris Carmichael, who was quoted in Runner’s World Magazine as saying, “Lance will probably rip me when he hears this, but I don’t think he’d run faster than 2:30 to 2:40.” The reason for this is that as important as aerobic capacity may be, it is only part of the equation when it comes to performance. Another important component is training specificity, or making sure that your workouts are appropriate for your racing goals.

Sure, Lance can hop on a bike and ride for more than 2,000 miles in variable conditions over a 3 week period faster than almost anyone else, but pounding along the pavement for 26.2 miles is a whole different ballgame, so to speak. “Running and cycling might seem similar,” says Carmichael in the Runner’s World article, “but there are distinct differences. And they require different kinds of animals to perform well.” For one thing, explains Runner’s World, the top Tour riders weigh 30 to 40 pounds more than the top marathoners; Armstrong checks in around 165 pounds. That’s a lot of extra weight to run around with for 26.2 miles, but it’s also muscle mass that comes it quite handy if you happen to need some extra power for a time trial stage at the Tour.

“A marathoner simply has to get his skinny aerobic butt to the finish line as fast as possible,” explains Amby Burfoot of Runner’s World. “If he encounters hills along the way, that doesn’t much change the physics involved. A Tour winner has to mesh colliding worlds. He needs to be fit, lean, and strong. The five- to six-hour peloton rides demand a high level of aerobic fitness. The mountain climbs require serious pedal pushing, but from a lean frame. If you carry too much weight, gravity pulls you backward. A Kenyan 10,000-meter runner on a bike might perform quite well in the Pyrenees. But the same Kenyan would get crushed in the time trials, which demand brute power.”

So what’s the moral of this story? If you’re training for a marathon, or any other event, it’s probably a good idea to get a training plan that is actually designed to prepare you for the specific demands of the event. Even Lance can benefit from a plan: with some training for the next New York City Marathon, he was able to improve his time significantly. Find a plan that’s right for you from among the hundreds available on TrainingPeaks, such as plans from Runner’s World, plans from the New York Road Runners, and plans from Rock ‘N Roll Marathon, as well as workout libraries from Running Times Magazine.

This year’s Tour de France really has gotten off to a dramatic start, with crashes and cobblestones shaking up the leaders in unexpected ways even before the big climbs start on Saturday. Team Saxo Bank’s Fabian Cancellara is still in yellow, but his teammate Frank Schleck has crashed out of the race with a broken collarbone, leaving his brother Andy as the team’s best hope for the mountain stages and the overall win.

Prologue and Stages 1-4 TSS and Critical Power Values from Chris Anker Sorensen

Commenting on Frank’s crash in an article on Velonews, Saxo Bank rider Jens Voigt expressed frustration with the cobblestone stage, declaring it a “stupid” choice by the race organizers and asking for a public apology. With Frank gone, other Saxo Bank riders such as Chris Anker Sorensen will have even more work to do getting Andy safely through the rest of the race. Although Stages 4 and 5 were relatively easy stages, there are big climbs ahead, so the riders will need to save all the energy they can. View Stage 4 and 5 power data from Chris here to get a better idea of what an “easy” day at the Tour de France really looks like.

Saxo Bank was not the only team that had a tough start to the race – Mark Cavendish of HTC Columbia also lost one of his best lead-out riders in Stage 1 when Adam Hansen crashed out, and Radioshack’s Lance Armstrong lost time to Alberto Contador with a flat tire on the cobblestones in Stage 3. Without his dominating lead-out train, Cavendish has been struggling a bit to sprint to the line with the notable exception of Stage 5, and Armstrong was hoping to gain time against Contador on the cobbles rather than lose it. With Cadel Evans now the leading GC rider, Schleck, Contador and Armstrong will have their work cut out for them in the big hills ahead.

Stay tuned for more data and analysis as the race leaves the flats behind for the mountains, and be sure to sign up for our free SRM sweepstakes!

By Coach AJ

As an Ironman triathlete the goal during the bike is to put the power down evenly, not to go hard then blow up. This means working on steady output and learning to pace properly. However, if all you do is focus on long steady riding you will eventually plateau, just like I did.

When I first stared using a power meter and WKO+ my vision was fixated on one metric: average power for the entire ride. I reasoned average power was the key to going fast on race day since I would be going steady all day. So that is how I trained, putting out steady watts with no real intervals. The few intervals I did were long, twenty to thirty minutes. The problem was that I wasn’t seeing any improvements. I would go out and try to hold a higher wattage, but it wasn’t there.

So I hired a cycling coach, who instantly told me I needed to work on my top end speed. He told me that by increasing my top end wattage this would give me more overall power to work with, thus increasing my one hour wattage. As a runner I had understood this simple idea. If I could run flat out at a 6:00 per mile pace than at 80% I would be roughly at a 7:00 per mile pace. If I could lower my all out pace to 5:30, than at 80% I would be around a 6:40 pace. As your top end speed increases, so does your speed at a given effort percentage. For some reason I didn’t register the same concept for my bike training.

He then said there is only one way to increase your top end wattage, and that is to go hard, which is true in running too. Since I had plenty of base miles from all of my steady riding, he had me doing intervals and we even did some motorpacing. After one interval session I lamented about how low my average watts were for the entire ride. He asked me why I cared, and I told him that even during interval training, I still looked at my watts for the entire ride.

Being a good coach, he explained that what he cared about was the work being done for each separate interval, not the overall average. He was looking at the Intensity Factor, my one and five second and one minute power outputs, and my heart rate at those intervals. He showed me how high my Training Stress Score was for a ride that lasted under two hours, and how my Intesity Factor showed I was working where I needed to. It dawned on me then that he was right, that I had arbitrarily picked out a metric and a number to gauge my success. I needed to gauge my workout’s effectiveness by my ability to accomplish the goal of the workout, which may have nothing to do with overall average watts.

I had focused on one metric of my training and become stagnant. When I was shown the error of my thinking I was able to use WKO+, and plenty of hard miles, to break through. The beauty of WKO+ is that you can track so many different elements of your training, so look at all of them with a purpose. Before you go out the door, know what you want to accomplish with that ride. If you need to work on your base, then keep it steady and note your overall average wattage. Once you have that base, it’s time to work on that upper end output through hard interval work: even an Ironman athlete benefits from very hard, but very short efforts. Note your average power for each interval, your Intensity Factor and your Normalized Power. Review your average wattage for 30 second and 1 minute. As these values go up, so will your power at longer intervals. Using WKO+, you can make sure that you have all you need to be successful.

Remember to enter in the TrainingPeaks Tour de France Sweepstakes and you could win a free SRM power meter, WKO+ software, and more!

About the author:

A.J. Johnson is a U.S.A. Triathlon and U.S.A. Cycling Certified Coach and works with D3 Multisport to help all athletes reach their goals. He has been an endurance athlete his whole life. While he started with running, he focused on Ironman triathlons for 5 years. During that time he raced 13 Ironmans, including 3 Hawaii Ironmans. After racing professionally in 2007 and 2008 he “retired” to focus on coaching and racing other endurance events.

He lives at 9,000 ft. in the mountains of Colorado and enjoys riding and running the trails that run through his backyard. He can be reached at aj@d3multisport.com.

Record your workout on your iPhone, iPod or iPad with Digifit apps to track heart rate, speed, distance and more, then instantly upload all of the data from the app to TrainingPeaks. And, from now until the end of July, TrainingPeaks members will receive special discounts on Digifit Connect and associated hardware such as heart rate monitors and foot pods: just visit the Digifit store and use promo code TPMOBILE.

Digifit’s apps for iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad are the only apps that integrate heart rate monitoring with other fitness and health sensor tracking in one central repository. For example, iRunner works with ANT+ foot pods and heart rate monitors to track pace, distance, speed and heart rate while running indoors or out. Garmin and Adidas are two leading brands that sell ANT+ foot pods and heart rate straps. Watch a short video on how Digifit works here.

“Tracking fitness and training on TrainingPeaks is easier than ever with the simplicity and convenience of Digifit’s apps,” said Donavon Guyot, CEO of Peaksware. “Now members can track their fitness and health data on their iPod touch, iPhone and even iPad, then upload their data to their TrainingPeaks account with little more than the tap of a button.”

With TrainingPeaks mobile included in all of the Digifit apps, members can upload workout and health data and access TrainingPeaks’ mobile site from within the app. The mobile site, available to all members for free, was designed to allow a member to view their scheduled workouts and meals and record their workouts, meals and daily metrics. It is not intended to be a full replacement of TrainingPeaks.com, but rather a “just enough” tool that gives you access to your account and lets you keep schedules and updates while on the go. Watch a short video on TrainingPeaks mobile here.

The enabling technology for Digifit to work with ANT+ sensors is Digifit™ Connect, an accessory for iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad that receives signals from up to eight ANT+ sensors simultaneously. Like the popular Nike+ iPod receiver in the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit, Digifit Connect is a receiver that uses the dock connector to connect and transmit data. In contrast with iTMP’s first-generation wireless bridge known as SMHEART LINK™, a Wi-Fi device that needed recharging, Digifit Connect is exclusively ANT+ and pulls power directly from the iPod touch, iPhone or iPad. Because ANT+ is ultra-low power wireless, drain on the battery with proper power management is negligible so users can ride a century and still have plenty of talk time left over at the end of the ride.

“We are honored to be working with TrainingPeaks, the industry leading software for workout data recording and analysis,” added Michael Williams, CEO of iTMP, makers of the Digifit Ecosystem. “By providing the easiest and fastest upload of a wide variety of training and fitness data, with Digifit, TrainingPeaks is more readily accessible to everyone.”

Visit the Digifit store today and get started with 15% off for TrainingPeaks members!

With rain slowing down the Prologue and several crashes shaking up Stage 1, the 2010 Tour de France is off to a dramatic start! Fabian Cancellara of Team Saxo Bank is in yellow after a dominating performance in the Prologue, but several high profile riders have already suffered setbacks, such as Mark Cavendish who crashed in stage 1.

View power data from Team Saxo Bank’s Chris Anker Sorensen, enter to win an SRM, and stay tuned for more exciting racing as the Tour enters the hilly Ardenne region of Belgium followed by the cobblestones of northern France on Tuesday. Stage 2′s climbs should be particularly challenging for the sprinters, and the hazards of the cobblestones pose a risk for every rider, but especially for those dreaming of a podium finish in Paris.

SRM power files have been posted for the first two stages and there are three more weeks to go! Stay tuned to TrainingPeaks to see exactly what it takes to finish the Tour de France.

The 2010 Tour de France starts tomorrow! Get ready to view some incredible efforts from the pro riders and enter to win the same power meter that the pros use by downloading a free trial of WKO+ now, and listen below to predictions from Team Saxo Bank Rider Development Manager Bobby Julich about the Schleck brothers, Fabian Cancellara, and more.

Bobby Julich has high hopes for the Schleck brothers, who are strong contenders for the overall win in the Tour de France along with Contador, Armstrong and others, especially after their final big preparation ride in the Tour de Suisse. “One of the best things that I think could have happened in the Tour of Switzerland is that Frank confirmed in the time trial that he could win a pro Tour event and that Andy got beat by his brother. I think that lit a fire under Andy’s butt a little bit!”

Regarding Fabian Cancellara, Bobby thinks that the Tour of Switzerland was also good for him. “Again, going back to the Tour of Switzerland, I think the best thing that ever could have happened to Fabian was that he got beat in that time trial, on home soil, by Tony Martin… I think it really stoked his fires as well. Fabian will be the first to tell you that he’ll be absolutely gutted if he’s not in yellow at this time tomorrow evening.”

Listen to the full interview below including more about Fabian Cancellara and Jens Voigt riding with the Schleck brothers on the Stage 3 cobbles, as well as the overall strength of the entire Saxo Bank team, and stay tuned for results from the Prologue tomorrow!

During this year’s Tour de France, follow along with TrainingPeaks expert race coverage and you could win prizes including an SRM power meter and a free coaching consultation with Hunter Allen, plus free TrainingPeaks subscriptions and WKO+ 3.0!

To enter, sign up for a free special edition Tour de France TrainingPeaks account and download a free trial of WKO+ 3.0. Existing members are still eligible for this special edition offering on top of their current accounts.

Grand Prize: Win an SRM power meter and head unit, a nearly $3,000 value. We need at least 1000 people to enter for this prize to become available so tell all your friends!

First Prize: An SRM racing jersey and shorts, a free WKO+ 3.0 license and a year-long subscription to TrainingPeaks.com Premium Personal Edition, PLUS a free consultation from Hunter Allen for you and your friends, team members, or entire club! Only those who enter will be eligible to participate in the consultation so tell everyone on your team!

Second Prize: A free WKO+ license and a year-long subscription to TrainingPeaks.com Premium Personal Edition. This prize will be given for one out of every 300 people who enter so share the news: more entries means more winners!

EVERYONE will be registered to attend two free webinars with Hunter Allen reviewing data from the pros: one mid-way through the Tour de France, and the second a week after the race.

To qualify simply sign up for a free account and download a free trial of WKO+ here!

By Melissa Field

Running is a sport for the liberated. If you’re looking to avoid complication and hassle, equipment and expense, take up running, right? Well, not so fast. Turns out, running is not as simple as one might suspect. Many runners won’t leave the house without an ipod, but will gladly forego sunscreen, water, proper shoes, and any form of identification. Many runners will also sign-up for a race without consulting a training plan. They will start too fast, cover too many miles, and wonder why that nagging running injury won’t go away. The bad knees may be genetic, but poor experiences with running often have much more to do with nurture and a lack of preparation than with nature.

The things runners so often don’t carry are the very things we need the most. And that ipod most of us can’t live without? That’s the one thing we should probably ditch. Music, especially loud music, prevents us from noticing bikes, cars, and other runners. It allows our pace to follow the sound of the beat instead of our own natural running rhythm. It causes us to slow down and fiddle with a song selection instead of focusing on the road ahead. There are reasons why ipods have been banned from so many races, and if you can’t take it with you in a race, it’s not a good idea to depend on it while training.

The secret to becoming a good runner is all in the things you carry. Prepare yourself for a comfortable experience and that is exactly what you will have. Reconsider what you pack as essential running gear and add the following things to your list:
- A training plan (TrainingPeaks offers a variety of training plans for runners of every level from experts in the field)
- Water (especially for distances longer than 5 miles)
- Sunscreen (even in the winter)
- A road ID bracelet, or some form of identification
- A twenty-dollar bill (just in case you get stuck somewhere)

Different seasons demand various additions (such as hats and gloves) but it is important to know that while you can live without your ipod, you can’t risk living without water.

This article was originally published in the American Council on Exercise’s (ACE’s) Get Fit blog. Visit the American Council on Exercise for free health and fitness information, and read on for an excerpt from the article below.

If increasing muscle mass is one of your goals, then think twice before you go out for a night of heavy drinking. Consuming alcohol in large quantities has a direct effect on your metabolism, causing fat to be stored instead of being utilized as an energy source. Alcohol contains seven “empty” calories per gram, meaning that these calories don’t provide you with any of the essential nutrients you need to build that muscle mass you desire.

Effects of Excessive Alcohol Consumption on Your Body

• Muscles—Reduces blood flow to the muscles, causing weakness and deterioration
• Hormones—Reduces testosterone in your blood and increases conversion of testosterone to estrogen, causing increased fat depositing and fluid retention
• Liver—Creates imbalances that can cause hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), fatty liver and hyperlipidemia (build-up of fats in the bloodstream)
• Brain—Cuts off the supply of oxygen to the brain, resulting in a “blackout” caused by a lack of oxygen supply to the brain that can kill tens of thousands of brain cells

Effects of Excessive Alcohol Consumption on Physical Performance

Alcohol is a known depressant that suppresses the brain’s ability to function. Even though you may feel a “high” after several cocktails, the truth is that your reaction time, accuracy, balance, hand-eye coordination and endurance all decrease dramatically. Furthermore, the after-effects of a night of excessive drinking can be detrimental to your fitness goals. Alcohol is a diuretic that may result in dehydration. This dehydration is known to decrease physical performance, so that previous night of drinking will continue to affect you the following day.

Alcohol and Sleep

Alcohol consumption can cause sleep disorders by disrupting the sequence and duration of sleep states and by altering total sleep time and the time required to fall asleep. It is popularly believed that a drink before bedtime can help a person fall asleep. However, alcohol’s affect on sleep patterns results in increased fatigue and physical stress to the body. Therefore, alcohol consumption indirectly affects a person’s strength-training ability due to increased fatigue and a lack of healthy reparative sleep.

Alcohol and Nutrition

Alcohol inhibits the breakdown of nutrients into usable substances by decreasing the secretion of digestive enzymes from the pancreas. Regular alcohol consumption also impairs nutrient absorption by damaging the cells lining the stomach and intestines and disabling transport of some nutrients into the blood. In addition, nutritional deficiencies themselves may lead to further absorption problems. For example, folate deficiency alters the cells lining the small intestine, which in turn impairs the absorption of water and nutrients, including glucose, sodium and additional folate. Such interference of nutrient breakdown and absorption may impair the physical performance and recovery required to build and maintain muscle mass.

Putting on the Pounds

Many people under the influence experience “drunk munchies” that can result in the consumption of several hundred extra calories for the day. A study examining how alcohol affects caloric intake found that subjects who drank wine with their lunch consumed an additional 200 calories and did not compensate for those calories by cutting back at dinner.

Read more in the full article

In an interview by Michael Rucker of Enhanced Kinetics, Gear Fisher of Peaksware discusses the history of fitness and technology as well as the future of how data monitoring systems designed for athletes could be used to track and improve overall health and wellness for everyone. Read on for some excerpts from the interview below and click here to view the entire discussion.

The acceptance and understanding of downloadable training devices like heart-rate monitors, GPS, and power meters has changed how people train and their expectation of what to expect when buying these sorts of devices. From a high level, we’re seeing the formation of a “consumer health data warehouse” that previously only doctors, hospitals and maybe professional athletes might have had access to. We are seeing the landscape for an interconnected health management system affordable by the masses beginning to take shape. This will truly be the major game changer in the next 10 years as the world struggles with the changing health care system.

As I mentioned above, we’re seeing a changing health care system, one that is moving from a 3rd party managed system, to a self-managed, self-informed system. We look at what we’re doing at Peaksware as the top of the health care pyramid. Our customers have taken control of their health, are self motivated and looking for fitness and performance. This will trickle down to the masses as health insurance, doctors and hospitals begin to adopt a more wide-ranging care system beyond the walls of the doctor’s office and hospital. Let the people manage the data collection, provide easy access to it by professionals, then make decisions based on data and consultation with experts. Right now, we are performing this feedback loop in the performance realm, but it makes sense to translate this to general health as well. We often refer to it as the “monitor, analyze, and plan” cycle.

I think there is a long way yet to go with data collection. The easier and faster we can get data to the cloud, the better, faster, more intelligent we can become with regard to making decisions on our training or on our general health. Lots of people recognize this and we’re seeing some great innovation in this area. I would love to see more integration with Wi-Fi and cell networks to enable easier data transfer from device to the cloud. The Withings Wifi Body Scale is the first Wi-Fi device I’ve seen that really works. You stand on the scale, it sends your weight and body composition data directly to the cloud instantly. Nothing to write down, no “work” to save and store, it just gets saved right in your TrainingPeaks account. I want to finish a bike ride, roll into my garage, have the bike computer recognize my wi-fi network and beam the ride’s data to my TrainingPeaks account. Garmin and Dynastream have done some great work in this area too.

By Coach Jen Van Allen of Runner’s World, the most trusted source for running information for more than four decades now with a full selection of training plans for 5-Ks, 10-Ks, half-marathons, marathons, and more for sale in the TrainingPeaks store. Plans are built according to the training principles that have proven to be most effective by millions of runners, and they include our best tips on training, nutrition, motivation, and injury-prevention.

Don’t be surprised if you feel a little extra sluggish when temperatures soar. When it’s hot outside, the brain tells the muscles to relax in order to keep the body’s core temperature low, and the process of sweating to stay cool diverts blood away from the muscles. Add allergies, dehydration, and longer daylight hours to the equation, and it’s tempting to take a vacation from training until cooler temperatures prevail. But your performance doesn’t have to suffer just because the mercury’s on the rise. Here are Runner’s World’s best tips for beating the heat.

Run before the sun. Head out before sunrise; it’s the coolest time of day. Your body’s core temperature is at its lowest right after you wake up, which means it takes longer for your body to overheat. If you can’t run in the morning, work out as late in the day as possible. Although the sun is highest in the sky at noon, the earth’s surface heat peaks between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. For a cool long-run adventure, get some friends together and do your long run after dark.

Check the heat index before you go out. It’s not just the heat; the humidity will take a toll, too. Moist air slows down your body’s ability to cool itself through sweat. The heat index combines temperature with relative humidity to determine the apparent temperature—how hot it actually feels—and the National Weather Service issues a heat advisory when that hits 105° F. Be sure to check the temps and the heat index before you go.

Wear the right gear. Go for light-colored, loose-fitting technical clothing and a visor. Unlike cotton, technical fabrics wick away sweat and dry quickly, meaning you won’t feel weighed down by your sweat-soaked T-shirt. Light-colored clothing reflects heat, and a loose fit lets air circulate. Hats trap heat; visors will keep your head cooler while still shading your face from the sun. Wear apparel with a UPF-rating (ultraviolet protection fabric), which means it shields skin from UVB and UVA rays. For tips on what to wear in any weather, check out our “What Should I Wear?” tool here.

Read more about calculating your sweat rate, resetting your race goals, and many other tips in the full article.

In addition to the many tools available for tracking and analyzing workouts on TrainingPeaks, there are also a lot of ways to track and analyze nutrition, calories consumed, and weight loss. Aside from an expansive and constantly growing nutrition database of thousands and thousands of foods, TrainingPeaks also offers compatibility with the fitness industry’s latest device for easily tracking weight and body fat, the wireless Withings scale.

All of the nutritional and body composition data recorded in TrainingPeaks can be comprehensively analyzed and tracked over time with various graphs and charts available in the Dashboard view. Learn more about recording and analyzing your nutrition in TrainingPeaks with the following helpful tips and how-to videos.

Recording a meal in TrainingPeaks is easy: simply search for the foods you ate in the Nutrition Library on the left hand side of your account and then drag and drop them over into your Calendar. Watch this short video on recording a meal to get started tracking your nutrition now.

Once you’ve started recording your meals, you can start to analyze trends in your nutrition by using pods in the Dashboard that display information on macronutrients, micronutrients, and calories burned versus consumed. There are several options available for customizing these charts and graphs. Watch a quick video on using the daily calories pod to track calories burned versus consumed over time.

Finally, in addition to nutritional analysis, you can also track your weight and body fat over time by configuring the daily metrics pod in the Dashboard to display these details. Enter your weight into the daily metrics on your calendar manually, or use the Withings wireless scale to automatically upload weight and body composition details into your TrainingPeaks account.

Learn more about managing your nutrition and workouts in TrainingPeaks with our other how-to videos, and happy training!

By Melissa Field

The shift from flat and paved to rocky and steep can be difficult and disheartening.  There is a reason trail runners are so revered in the running community.  If you’re used to running on a flat sidewalk or track, your first experience with trail running will feel a bit like treading water.  Depending on the incline, you might find yourself struggling to run, or possibly even forced to walk.  This doesn’t mean you’re in bad shape!  In fact, most trail runners are in phenomenal shape, so do not let their slower pace time fool you.  If you live near a trail and are looking to improve speed and fitness, add regular trail running to your training schedule, particularly for your shorter and slower recovery runs.  A well-placed trail run can do wonders for a regular roadrunner looking to improve race times.

Trail running offers countless benefits but it can also be dangerous.  To maximize the advantages without injury, follow these well-practiced tips:

1. Research. If you get lost or tired on the road, it’s easy to flag a cab, jump on a bus, or call a friend.  Not so with trail running.  You need to know exactly where you’re going and precisely what the weather and terrain will hold.  Any TrainingPeaks account will allow you do to an advanced search to locate trails in your area. Search results will provide you with a map, in addition to a description of the surface, elevation gain, and distance.  You can even post a review of the course and read reviews posted by others.  Study the map so you understand where you are and have a good sense of the level of trail difficulty.

2. Start Small. A 3-mile run may seem easy on the roads but it will feel much different on a trail.  Your first trail run should be no longer than 3-miles.  Good trail runners and good training plans have one vital thing in common: they build slowly.  Let yourself gradually adjust before you declare expertise.

3. Take Water and Essentials. You might not normally drink water when you run, but it’s a good idea to take a full hydration backpack on a trail run.  While you’re at it, throw in a few essentials like a snack and a cell phone for a shorter run and matches, a compass, and extra clothing for a long run.  Never underestimate trails and mountain running.  It is always better to be over-prepared in case you get injured or lost.

4. Gear-Up. If you’re not going to invest in a trail running shoe, be sure to at least wear a sturdier running shoe.  Light racing flats belong on the track, not on the trail.  You might also consider a shoe with a little extra room in the toe area so you don’t jam your toes against the front of your shoe on steep declines.  You should also consider insoles and shoes with a wider base to help keep your foot steady and prevent ankle rolling, a common injury in trail running.

5. Slow Down. You will quickly find that, depending on the trail, you might have to switch to a brisk walk or stop to catch your breath on the uphill stretches.  Do not be discouraged.  If you keep at it, you will find that your brisk walk will eventually turn into a slow, short stride climb.  At the same time, do not be tempted to fly downhill.  Again, keep your strides short and controlled during the downhill portion.

Trial running is the perfect addition to any training plan.  Hills are often referred to as speed work in disguise.  Even though you have to slow down for a trail run, you will actually be improving your overall fitness and form by learning how to manage hills with a short stride and controlled pace.

By Coach AJ

As an Ironman guy, I’ve got a pretty big aerobic engine on the bike. Most people assume this means I am fast on the bike and call me a sandbagger when I tell them I am racing the Cat. 4’s now and trying to upgrade. I tell them two things. One, I haven’t done enough races to earn the points and two, there is a big difference between riding solo for 5 hours and punching it hard from the start for less than an hour. My physiology is geared towards a steady output, not the yo-yo efforts of a crit or road race.

I raced an Omnium on the 11,12, and 13th of this month and afterwards I started to think about changing one’s physiology. I had a good event, but it showed clearly how different training yields different results. As always, a key to training is to train the right system for what your race will demand of you.

The racing started with a 10 mile time trial Friday night that hurt a lot! I have little experience pinning it from the star, and I usually take some time to warm up. The 23 minutes it took me were painful, and I still placed 12 seconds out of first place. The crit was held under rainy conditions, so we basically hammered the straights and took the corners like a grandma in a Cadillac with her grandkids on board. I placed 6th in a bunch sprint, though if I had been more aggressive I could have gotten a few more spots. The last day was a road race of about 35 miles. Myself and a few other riders tried to get away but were brought back each time. Again it was a bunch sprint and I was ninth. Overall it was a good three days, but I realized that to be more successful I would have to change my physiology.

So the first thing I did was look back at my training. Using WKO+ I could easily see the pattern I had followed. Lots of steady riding in zone 2, lots of climbing and the occasional foray into zone 3 and 4. I had even done some motorpacing to help improve my top end speed. This is great for Ironman, but not for crits. So I know I have the base miles in my legs, but I don’t have the pure speed or anaerobic capacity it takes to do well in crit races.

The next step was to determine a change in the training. I will need to simulate the demands of crit racing training on the roads. The change is obvious and simple; to increase my top end power and anaerobic endurance I need to be doing short, all-out intervals with limited rest. Using my powermeter and WKO+ I will easily be able to track my progress, a key to making sure your plan is effective. I will start to do more structured sprinting and high end work. This means short intervals, hill work and maximum sprint effort. Using my powermeter and WKO+, I will be looking at my 30 second and 1 minute power output as well as maximum watts during these rides. The goal will be to see an increase in my sheer watt output, my ability to sprint at the end of a race, and my ability to recover quickly from these super hard efforts.

So while genetics and physiology are large determinants of whether you are in the rec division, or racing for a paycheck, training specifically for the demands of your race will help you race to your potential.

As an aside, I believe I have enough points to upgrade to Cat. 3 racing, so it’s going to even harder from now on!

About the author:

A.J. Johnson is a U.S.A. Triathlon and U.S.A. Cycling Certified Coach and works with D3 Multisport to help all athletes reach their goals. He has been an endurance athlete his whole life. While he started with running, he focused on Ironman triathlons for 5 years. During that time he raced 13 Ironmans, including 3 Hawaii Ironmans. After racing professionally in 2007 and 2008 he “retired” to focus on coaching and racing other endurance events.

He lives at 9,000 ft. in the mountains of Colorado and enjoys riding and running the trails that run through his backyard. He can be reached at aj@d3multisport.com.

Now available from Running Times Magazine, new workout libraries designed by expert coaches and powered by TrainingPeaks online training and nutrition software allow runners to create customized training plans for 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon events. Members can select a library that suits their needs and then drag and drop workouts into their interactive online TrainingPeaks calendar to build out an individualized workout schedule that fits their busy, active lifestyles and prepares them for the event of their choice.

In addition to receiving a customized library of workouts bundled with a TrainingPeaks Premium subscription account, Running Times members will be able to map routes, track shoes, record nutrition, monitor weight, sleep and stress, and upload heart rate, GPS and pace data.

“At Running Times, we realize that every runner and every training season is unique, so for many people cookie-cutter plans just don’t cut it,” said Running Times editor Jonathan Beverly. “Our online Workout Libraries packaged with a TrainingPeaks Premium account provide the instruction and tools to build a custom plan from a set of detailed workouts. Users also have the ability to assess and adjust the plan at any time from any computer or mobile device.”

“The team at Running Times pushed us to produce something totally new for their readers,” said Donavon Guyot, CEO of Peaksware, the producer of TrainingPeaks. “Interactive workout libraries give runners of all abilities the flexibility they need to achieve all of their training and racing goals.”

All Running Times workout libraries come with a complimentary 3 to 4 month premium TrainingPeaks subscription depending on the library, up to a $90 value. Libraries for 5k, 10k, half-marathon and marathon events are now available for purchase on the Running Times website.

Now in the TrainingPeaks store, Joe Friel’s workout library is available for free to all members, allowing everyone to access an extensive list of expert exercises that can be easily dragged and dropped into the calendar.

To load the library into your account, simply log in and click on the Store icon on the left hand navigation toolbar. Then, select exercise libraries and click on Joe’s library at the top of the list. You can then find the exercises listed under Joe Friel’s Classic Workouts in the Workouts Library at the top of the left hand navigation toolbar, and you’re all set to start dragging and dropping exercises into your calendar.

Exercises range from intervals to longer endurance workouts, and from swimming to biking. Search for the workouts that are right for you, and happy training!

Now available from Peaksware, the latest updates to WKO+ 3.0 and Device Agent 3.0 add compatibility with the CycleOps Joule, the Garmin Forerunner 110, and the Timex Global Trainer. The updates will also improve the speed of the WKO+ calendar view, add workout time to the calendar, and much more.

Get the most out of your training with detailed analysis of workout data. If you haven’t tried WKO+ before, download the free trial now, and if you’re still using an older version of the program, upgrade to WKO+ 3.0 now. If you’re already using WKO+ 3.0 and Device Agent 3.0, make sure to get the most out of your tools! Download the latest builds now, visit our complete list of what’s new for all the details, and read on for a few highlights and tips below.

WKO+ v3.0, Build 46

• Improved the performance of the calendar view, which effects the overall performance of WKO+.  Searching and filtering workouts will be noticably faster.
• Changed how QA and scatter graphs highlight selected and “eyed” ranges
• Added workout time to calendar
• When downloading workouts the workout title from TrainingPeaks.com is added to WKO+’s workout description

Device Agent v3.0, Build 33

• Added CycleOps Joule support
• Added Timex Global Trainer support
• Added Garmin Forerunner 110 support

If using Device Agent in conjunction with WKO+ 3.0 make sure to install the latest builds of both WKO+ and Device Agent to guarantee proper data transfer and analysis. Happy training!

By Lee Zohlman, USAT Coach

Swimming is a tough sport and is typically the Achilles Heel for most multisport athletes. Many athletes spend countless hours in the pool and many dollars on coaches and gear to improve their stroke. But how many of you test your swim fitness to quantify improvement and to set new training paces?

There are a few easy tests you can do every 8-10 weeks to see how you are improving. The first is a stroke count test. This is a good way to get a baseline number on how many strokes you take across the pool. You will want to do this in a pool that you are familiar with and able to repeat at easily. Ideally the pool will be 25 yards, 25 meters or 50 meters long.

Stroke Count test:

Warmup as usual 400-1000 depending on your level and include some kick sets as well

Complete 5 x 200 freestyle aiming for the most consistent and best stroke count you can.

Average the number of strokes per lap together and this is your Best Stroke Count. Example: 16 stroke average

Now if you want to reduce your stroke count you can do sets and aim for one or two strokes below your best. Example: 12 x 50 @ 14 strokes with thirty seconds rest.

Threshold (T) Pace Test:

Warmup as usual 300-1000 and then complete 6-8 x 50 at a hard pace with thirty to forty five seconds rest. Then swim an easy 100.

Test- depending on your level of fitness swim 400, 500 or 1000 as fast as possible taking your 100 splits. I like to have athletes wear their watch with the face on the inside of the wrist so as they push off the wall it is easy to hit the Lap button.

Cooldown as usual.

The average 100 split is now your T Pace. So if you swam a 500 and swam 10:00 your T pace is 2:00. Now you can set up swim sets depending on that T Pace. You T Pace will improve over time with good training and then you can retest and establish new paces.

You probably see where I am going with this. So you now have a way to improve your economy in the water by reducing your stroke count and a way to see where your speed is at and be able to track it. These types of workouts combined with good threshold and speed sets will have you swimming faster in no time.

About the author:

Lee Zohlman is a USA Triathlon Elite Level 3 Coach and USA Cycling Coach who owns and operates BodyZen Multi Sport Coaching. For more information please visit www.bodyzen.com or email him at info@bodyzen.com.

This article was originally published in the American Council on Exercise’s (ACE’s) Get Fit blog. Many ACE-certified personal trainers use TrainingPeaks to manage their clients online. Visit the American Council on Exercise for free health and fitness information, and read on for an excerpt from the article below.

Once thought to be the exclusive domain of the rich and famous, personal trainers have become increasingly popular among the general public. Today, personal trainers are riding the dot-com wave, making their services more accessible and affordable than ever.

Despite the obvious benefits of online training, cyber-training is most effective as a supplement to working one-on-one with a qualified trainer. Due to the complexity of many strength-training and conditioning programs, novice exercisers should begin with a hands-on trainer.

Making Your Choice

With new personal training sites springing up all over the Internet, it can be difficult to pick the best one. There is also the added danger of unqualified trainers with questionable credentials doling out potentially hazardous fitness advice.
With that in mind, consider the following tips for picking and utilizing a safe and effective online personal trainer.

• First and foremost, check the qualifications of the staff that will be training you. Sites should provide background information about their staff. Make sure the personal trainers have a college degree in an exercise-related field and/or are certified by a well-respected organization such as the American Council on Exercise (ACE) or another NCCA-accredited fitness certification organization (www.noca.org/NCCAAccreditation/AccreditedCertificationPrograms/tabid/120/Default.aspx). To check if a trainer is certified by ACE, call 800-825-3636. If the site offers nutritional advice, make sure registered dietitians are on staff.
• Inquire about the trainer’s experience with your age group or with your particular needs or health challenges (for example, specialization with older adults or weight management). Be wary of sites that rely on “celebrity trainers” or professional athletes to sell their services. It’s important to find out who will actually be designing your workouts, and always avoid sites that make exaggerated claims or guarantee fitness results.

Read more about choosing an online personal trainer in the full article.

In 1960, the U.S. had the 12th lowest rate of infant mortality in the world.  In 1990, we dropped to 21st.  In 2008, we plummeted to 43rd.  The U.S. has a higher infant mortality rate than most of the world’s industrialized nations.  The top three behavioral aspects of poor health are unhealthy diet, lack of exercise and smoking.  While most U.S. women don’t’ smoke or drink during pregnancy they still have a tremendous “blind spot” when it comes to food, diet and nutrition during pregnancy.

Preeclampsia is very dangerous and affects 5-8% (conservative) of all pregnancies.  It is associated with high free racial activity, elevated blood levels of lipid peroxidation (oxidized fats) and endothelium dysfunction.  The foods we eat reduce free radical activity (oxidative stress), reduce oxidation of lipids (and proteins) and improve endothelium function.  The endothelium is the thin layer of cells that line the interior surface of the entire vascular system.  In essence, the endothelium serves as the vascular regulator (dilation/constriction) of all blood flow and the placenta is highly vascular.  Science is quite clear that the food people eat impacts (up or down) vascular performance.

A colleague of mine, an OBGYN in the poorest state in the U.S., was compelled by his staff to do a retrospective analysis on a food intervention he was using with his expectant mothers.  His retrospective study compared his patients’ results to his partner’s patients’ results.  His partner did not use the food intervention but used a prenatal multi-vitamin, which represents the prevailing standard of care.  The food intervention was a brand name, fruit and vegetable concentrate.  The objective of the comparative study was to assess the effect of a food supplement vs. prenatal multi-vitamin regarding premature labor, pre-term birth, preeclampsia, birth weight and fetal growth.  The comparative results were striking (see below).  His patients’ results are the green bars (using the food intervention), his partner’s patients’ results are the red bars (not using the food intervention).  If you know ANYONE who wants to put the odds in their favor for a healthy pregnancy, they should know about this option!

These results support the timeless prescription that food is medicine and directly challenge the prevailing standard of care (the prenatal multi-vitamin).  Understandably, these results will not shift the prevailing standard of care in medicine.  But, what these results have done already is compel a very large clinical trial that is ongoing.  It is a gold standard study (randomized, double-blind and placebo controlled) that many believe will affirm a new standard of care.  This is tip of the spear, progressive and pioneering science.

The bottom line here is that this data suggests that an inexpensive intervention may help effectively address problems to a healthy pregnancy (i.e. healthy babies).  In closing, attending medical staff are anecdotally seeing, around the country, that the APGAR tests of newborns with the intervention is higher.  For more information, contact Jeff Olson wnwllc@gmail.com.

Now on TrainingPeaks, coaches and other fitness professionals can configure what pods clients see on their Workout Details view, Meal Details View, and Dashboard View. Controlling this view allows TrainingPeaks professionals  to only show heart-rate pods for clients that use only a heart rate monitor, for example, or create a layout that can be used for clients with power meters, GPS tracking systems, or no device at all. This feature is also useful for creating more basic layouts for beginning clients or including more advanced details for experienced athletes, guiding each client to the most relevant training and nutrition information for their needs and goals.

To create a pod layout to share with clients, fitness professionals should log into their TrainingPeaks account and follow these steps to customize the Dashboard, Workout Details, or Meal Details view.

Once a Pod Layout is created and configured, it can be easily shared with a client or a group of clients via the Manage Pod Layout tab under the My Settings link in the upper right hand corner. Under this tab, locate the Pod Layout to share and click the “Share to client” link for that Pod Layout.

Let us know if you have any questions at www.trainingpeaks.com/support

By Coach Jim Vance

In my previous article on WKO+, I discussed how we can use the software to monitor athlete fitness and performance, and use the data to drive our training decisions as a coach.

This concept really shines as the athletes begin to accumulate a larger database of data of years and seasons of training and racing. Many athletes think back to times when their fitness was very high, and try to recapture it, or even surpass it, but their mental vision of how the season went is normally clouded. It’s hard to remember specific details, but with a collection of data reviewed over a time scale, such as the PMC, (Performance Management Chart), you can get a clear idea of where the athlete’s fitness was, and more importantly, how their current fitness level compares directly.

One of my favorite charts in WKO+ is a modified PMC chart, where I extend the time line over a couple seasons:

In this PMC chart, I am comparing where the athlete is this season, compared directly with last year. Some important items we look at are how the CP values, (Critical Power), CTL and even biggest KJ rides, to see how the athlete is responding to the training. With a full season to compare to last year, we can be pretty excited when many of the 10 best CP values from the two seasons are found in the current season, and it is only early June!

If you’re only using WKO+ as a tool for individual workout analysis, you’re missing the best part of the software, which is performance periodization and data-based decision making for training sessions.

Best of luck!

Jim Vance is a USAT Level 2 and Elite Coach for TrainingBible Coaching. You can see many of his webinars on WKO+ at Performancewebinars.com and follow his writings and training advice at his coaching blog, CoachVance.blogspot.com. Questions or comments can be sent to jvance@trainingbible.com.

Did you know that TrainingPeaks offers an extensive library of how-to videos to help you get the most out of your account and your workouts? Whether you’re wondering how to download data from your PowerTap or build a route, we have resources designed to help you. Check out our full library of how-to videos and learn more about today’s featured video on using routes in TrainingPeaks below.

The TrainingPeaks route building feature provides members with a great tool for planning and recording workouts. If you don’t have a training device to track your workout distance and elevation, you can use the routes feature to create a map of the workout to see exactly how far you went and how much climbing you did.

You can also create a route from a workout GPS file and then save it to your library to drag and drop onto your calendar if you do the same workout later. Finally, you can even export route data as a file to use on your indoor trainer or as a guide on your Garmin so you don’t get lost on your outdoor workout.

Search our public routes directory to find great workouts to do in your area or even while traveling anywhere in the world, and share your routes on Facebook and Twitter to show your friends what a great workout you had. Learn more about using routes by watching the short how-to video and explore the other videos in our library.

Peaksware has an immediate opening in our Lafayette, CO office for a Customer Support Representative to join our growing team. We’re looking for an individual to fill a key role on our Customer Support Team, providing technical troubleshooting help, composing written technical documentation, as well as answering questions about our products and services for our current and future customers.  This is a full time position (40 hrs/wk).

RESPONSIBILITIES:

* Provide extensive technical support for current and future customers via email, phone, webinar, chat, and forums
* Compose clear and concise written technical documentation for the Peaksware support center website

QUALIFICATIONS:

* Very computer savvy (but programming knowledge is not a requirement)
* Strong Windows and Internet knowledge (additional Mac OSX experience a plus)
* Passionate about health, fitness, and endurance athletics
* Strong critical thinking and problem solving skills
* Prior experience with Peaksware software products
* Prior experience with downloadable training devices (like heart rate monitors, GPS devices, and power meters)
* Proven ability to follow direction, take ownership of assignments, multitask, and work well with others
* Proven ability to communicate with technical and non-technical people at various levels
* Proven ability to write clearly

ABOUT PEAKSWARE:

Peaksware develops software that helps motivated individuals and professionals achieve health, fitness and peak performance. The main products are TrainingPeaks.com and WKO+. TrainingPeaks.com is used to monitor, analyze and plan training and nutrition by coaches, personal trainers, athletes and general fitness enthusiasts around the world. TrainingPeaks WKO+ is a desktop based program that provides detailed analysis of downloadable training device data, from heart rate monitors, GPS devices, and power meters. In addition to direct to consumer software, Peaksware powers training and nutrition sites for Runner’s World, Outside Magazine, Timex, the New York City Marathon and others.

APPLY TODAY:

Benefits include annual salary, full medical and dental insurance, 401k, and gym membership. If you are looking for a great atmosphere, fun people, and the ability to make a difference in the health and fitness of people everywhere, we want to talk with you. Send a cover letter, your resume, and time-frame for starting to: hr-(at sign)-peaksware-dot-com. Plain text, PDF or MS Word format is ok.

We’ve been busy here at Peaksware, and Team TrainingPeaks has been growing! We’d like to welcome several of the folks who have recently come on board to help with everything from development to customer support and marketing. Without further ado, here they are, from left to right.

Barbara Kauffman has a background in Quality Assurance for both software testing and bio science.  A great fan and user of TrainingPeaks and WKO+ before she joined the team as a QA tester, Barbara has used TrainingPeaks to get through 3 Ironmans and is currently training for a fourth. When she’s not training or working, she likes to spend time with her family and dogs, ski, tool leather and generally play outside.

Brandon White is from Atlanta, Georgia and runs cross country and track at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He is FAST and regularly destroys anyone at the office who is brave enough to go on lunch time runs with him. He will graduate from college next May and this summer he is working as a development intern focusing on mobile development projects for Android and iPhone.

Trent Neimeyer moved to Boulder 2 1/2 years ago from San Diego with his wife Carrie. To replace surfing, he got more involved with triathlon and is currently on his 3rd season, hoping to qualify for Kona after having completed his first Ironman in Coeur D’Alene last year. Besides triathlon, Trent and his wife like to travel when they can, most recently to South East Asia where they backpacked through Vietnam and went diving in Bali.  They have 2 dogs, an old miniature dachshund, Buddy, and a trouble-making great dane, Adonis. One of Trent’s only vices is beer, so living a mile from Avery and other breweries is a blessing. His other vice is programming.

Lance Niles is a software engineer, competitive cyclist and recent transplant from La Crosse, Wisconsin.  He has experience creating software for variety of computer systems, and is perhaps best known for developing the PowerAgent 7 software for Saris Cycling Group. Lance is working hard to bring our current products into the Mac/iPhone marketplace.

Fonda Mueller graduated from Colorado State University and has lived in Colorado for the last 20 years, where she has spent most of her time in Breckenridge skiing, snowboarding, and enjoying the mountains in any way possible. Over the past 10 years, she has specialized in graphic design, web and user interface development, website traffic growth, and online marketing for a variety of companies from energy research to health care. She enjoyed a year in Costa Rica where she developed a website and marketing campaign for a real estate company while taking in the culture and traveling throughout the country, and she is currently excited to be the newest member of the TrainingPeaks marketing team.

Tammy Sadle is an equestrian turned Cat 2 road cyclist, and also enjoys climbing, hiking, running and yoga. With a background in health, nutrition and lifestyle consulting, she worked for the National Institutes on Aging doing longitudinal research involving psychophysiology and bio-mechanics. She is excited to be a part of the TrainingPeaks customer support team and especially honored to work at one of Outside Magazine’s Top 50 Best Companies for 2010.

David Kilmoyer grew up an avid skier and bike racer in Vermont and moved to Colorado in 1990 for the love of the mountains, where he spent the first decade in Breckenridge and the next one in Boulder. For the last 5-6 years he’s been very hooked on cyclocross, but continues to dabble in road and mountain bike races to fill the gaps. He’s excited to finally work in an industry that he’s passionate about at a company that promotes the culture he’s into, where he’ll be focusing on server-side development efforts.

As both a coach and an athlete, Josiah Middaugh enjoys using TrainingPeaks to manage his own training and to more effectively help his athletes achieve their goals. “I have been coaching on TrainingPeaks for about 4 years now and it has been indispensable for me as a coach and as an athlete. It has allowed me to communicate effectively with athletes and I am able to build individualized training schedules more efficiently.”

Currently, Josiash is in second place in the XTERRA pro point series behind Conrad Stoltz. Most recently, they both participated in the XTERRA South Central Championship in Waco, Texas on May 23rd. Josiah had a tough time leaving his home is Vail, Colorado to participate in the race because of a very recent new arrival: “It was tough to leave the family with a new baby girl only one week old. Her name is Larsen Stella Middaugh and so far she is  showing a lot of potential.”

“The race went well, but Conrad was on  another level that day. The river swim set me back out of the water and  although I had the second fastest bike, Conrad was faster and he started the run with an insurmountable lead. The bike course was like  no other with over 300 tight turns and very short steep climbs.  According to my power file I had over 110 spikes above 500 watts. It was hard to keep momentum through turns and hard to find a rhythm.”

View Josiah’s power file from Waco here.

Although he is a coach himself, Josiah also works with a coach of his own to help him evaluate his own training and racing. “This is what my coach Mike Durner at CTS had to say briefly about the power file: Normalized power for Waco was 349, 42 watts higher than your average, that is a significant difference and a pretty hard effort. And your normalized for the first 5 minutes was 396W, you might need to control that effort a little in the future.”

This season, Josiah is especially enjoying the experience of training and racing without any injuries. “This season I am finally injury free (after 4 knee surgeries in the  past 3 years) and my goal is to compete for the overall XTERRA USA title.  Living in Vail, Colorado, my specialty is sustained climbing, so this last race was not ideal for me, but interesting data nonetheless.”

The year continues for Josiah with a busy schedule of both racing and working towards his Master’s degree. “Next up will be the Teva  Mountain Games Ultimate Mountain Challenge on June 5th and 6th. I will  kayak and mountain bike on Saturday and trail run and road bike time trial on Sunday. Then it is off to Alabama and Virginia for back-to-back XTERRAs. Oh, and I finish the first semester of my Master’s in Human Movement next week.”

Good luck and happy training, Josiah!

The Athlete’s Secret Weapon

By Coach Matt Russ

Athletes are always looking for an edge. This may come in the form of a new supplement, gadget, piece of equipment, or training methodology. Many of these are of negligible or no value to performance enhancement. But the most effective ergogenic aid is actually readily available and free; it is sleep.

First and foremost remember this; you are weaker after a work out. Your body has been broken down and it will take some time to repair itself. You will only benefit from the work out if this process is not upset or delayed. Your body releases a slew of hormones as you sleep, and one of the most important for recovery is Human Growth Hormone (HGH). This wonder hormone produced by the pituitary gland repairs muscles and connective tissue, making them stronger and able to handle an even greater training stress load. It helps rejuvenate organs and bones as well. After a good nights sleep you wake up refreshed physically and mentally; ready to resume the training process. Name a supplement that can safely accomplish that!

Adapt and Overcome

We are creatures of routine and we like to follow plans and programs, but this can work against us. One of the first things I tell my athletes is that their plan will need to be adapted throughout the season. Adapting an athlete’s plan is as important as designing a great training plan. The pros can train, eat, sleep, and repeat. For the rest of us training is not our job; it is in addition to our job. It is easy to upset the training process and we have to realize family and work responsibilities come first. There may be certain key work outs throughout your training week. If you need to increase rest and recovery, you can minimize lost training time by performing these work outs over other less critical ones. Don’t feel you must follow the letter of your plan no matter what. A good coach will understand this as well. Don’t stack missed work outs on the week end either. This type of overreaching leaves you exhausted and burned out going into your next training week.

Read more about training volume, sleep, and stress in the full article.

About the author:

Matt Russ has coached and trained elite athletes from around the country and internationally for over ten years. He currently holds expert licenses from USA Triathlon, USA Cycling (Elite), and is a licensed USA Track and Field Coach. Matt is head coach and owner of The Sport Factory, and works with athletes of all levels full time. He is a free lance author and his articles are regularly featured in a variety of magazines such as Inside Triathlon, and Triathlete. Visit www.thesportfactory.com for more information or email him at coachmatt@thesportfactory.com

By Dirk Friel for Velonews

In the world of cycling the biggest race of them all is the Tour de France. The prestige, popularity and history of the race make it the penultimate cycling event for cycling fans and professional racers alike. The race has stood the test of time and is quite possibly the hardest sporting event in the world considering it lasts three weeks, forces the riders to race for up to seven hours a day, and covers some of the highest roads in Europe.

The Amgen Tour of California can’t compare in terms of legendary status, and with only eight days of racing the California tour is roughly only one-third the length of the Tour de France. However, the recent 2010 edition had many riders and team staff members saying it was too hard. In fact if you look at the results for just the sixth stage between Palmdale and Big Bear Lake (7,000ft above sea level) eleven riders didn’t make it to the finish line within the 9% cutoff time, and 17 starters simply decided to drop out. That makes 28 riders who never made it to the start of the stage 7 time trial in Los Angeles. Less than half (63) of the 128 starters actually officially finished the entire Tour of California.

Perspective from a Grand Tour Veteran

Team Saxo Bank’s Rider Development Manager, Bobby Julich, had plenty to say about the most recent edition of the Tour of California when asked how hard the Big Bear stage was. “The Big Bear stage was one of the hardest stages I have seen anywhere. It was solid climbing right from the start and then never let up. I think that the hardest part of the stage was that it was almost all at altitude and was over 220km long. That was truly a grand tour like stage, and perhaps even harder than most. I was a bit surprised to see a big group finish together at the end, but just goes to show that many riders were on form and motivated for the Tour of California this year.”

Ok so the Big Bear day was hard, but how hard was the Tour of California to finish? Was America’s most prestigious event simply too hard and if it continues to be as demanding will it be to the detriment of the event moving forward?

Julich provided his unique insight to this debate, “When you look at the way the race came down to the time trial, you would imagine that it was exactly the same type of race as years past, but I can tell you that the guys were already exhausted after the 3rd stage into Santa Cruz. The organizers elected to put some sort of climb into almost every stage, so there was never time to relax and recover in the race. With the date change, many US based teams were motivated and they wound up cancelling each other out on many of the difficult stages. Everyone did their homework and prepared well, but I was surprised to see such small time gaps at the end. I hope that this doesn’t make the organizers try to find an even harder route for next year or else it could scare away some of the European guys that were using this race to get started again after the classic season. Perhaps the organizers should think about making the final of the stages a bit more selective instead of having the real “teeth” of the race often far from the finish.”

Comparing The Tour of California to the Tour de France

It is hard to argue with an experienced rider such as Julich who himself has finished on the podium in the Tour de France. In an attempt to add some objective data to Julich’s opinion we might find some answers by simply comparing and contrasting the eight hardest consecutive stages of the 2009 Tour de France with power files collected from this year’s Amgen Tour of California.

In terms of reviewing Tour de France race data we chose to use power files collected during stages 2-9 of the 2009 Tour from Team Saxo Bank’s Chris Anker Sorenson’s.  Sorenson’s race files can be seen here http://home.trainingpeaks.com/races/2009-tour-de-france-files.aspx . As for 2010 Tour of California data we looked at power files from Darren Lille of team Fly V Australia and Jakob Fuglsang of Team Saxo Bank which can be found here http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles/cycling/2010-tour-of-california-team-saxo-bank-and-team-fly-v.aspx

To help determine how hard the Tour of California was we narrowed down the race data to look at five different categories:

1-The Hardest Stage as Measured by Most Kilojoules

2- The Total Kilojoules Measured for the Eight Consecutive Days

3- Duration (Hours) of Accumulated Winning Stage Times

4- Hardest Stage Measured by Training Stress Score (TSS) Value

5-Total Accumulated (Eight-Day) TSS Points

Read how each of these five metrics compare between the Tour of California and the eight hardest days of the Tour de France in the full article.

Legendary runner and author Hal Higdon visited the TrainingPeaks office today just outside of Boulder, Colorado and spoke with co-founder Dirk Friel about marathon training, tapering for different events, and much more. He also went for a run with several members of Team TrainingPeaks! Check out the video interview below and read on for some great tips for your own running.

Hal explains the basic theory behind his training plans, which have helped hundreds of thousands of runners to achieve their goals. “I’ve got various training programs beginning at the 5k all the way up to the marathon. You need about 8 weeks to prepare for a 5k or 10k, a half marathon maybe 12 weeks, a marathon 18 weeks seems to be the standard although I’ve got a few even longer than that.”

“All of the Mondays in my novice training programs are rest days, the Fridays in my novice training programs are rest days, and to a certain extent that trickles up to the intermediate and advanced… typically the novice runners go out for a long run on Saturday and follow up with about an hour of cross training on Sunday, and then we rest them. So basically you have the twin pillars of the workouts in the middle but you have rest going in and rest going out, with enough running in the middle to keep them healthy but the key is the long run that brings them up… 18 weeks later they’ll be standing at the starting line with a guaranteed finish line in sight.”

Listen to more in the full video interview, including the importance of tapering and the details of the first marathon in Greece exactly 2,500 years ago. You can also get an interactive training plan with daily emails from Hal Higdon on TrainingPeaks.com.

Drinking while running in the heat doesn’t keep your body temperature lower. It helps you run faster at the same body temperature.

A new study from the University of Exeter, England, found that fluid consumption did not prevent a rise in body temperature or improve performance in a half-marathon running event. This was the first study to monitor internal body temperature continuously throughout a real race, using high-tech sensors that runners actually ingested the night before the race, which took place in hot and humid conditions.

Runners consumed as much or as little fluid as they wished during the race, and there was a high degree of variability in drinking rates. Runners replaced between 6% and 73% of body fluid losses over the course of the run. Researchers found no correlation between the amount of fluid runners consumed and their body temperature or performance. Thus, they concluded that drinking fluid had no effect on body temperature or performance in this context.

However, there is another way to interpret these results. Evidence from other recent studies suggests that the nervous system regulates body temperature and performance during exercise in the heat through a mechanism called teleoanticipation. Essentially, the brain allows the body to work hard enough–and only hard enough–to reach his highest safe core body temperature, which is more or less the same in all humans.

Therefore, as long as they are working at maximum capacity–as one does during a race–runners competing in the heat will reach the same core body temperature whether drinking has a cooling effect or not, because inasmuch as it does have a cooling effect, the runner’s brain will simply allow him to run a little harder so that he still reaches the same body temperature.

But, if this is so, wouldn’t the authors of this study at least have observed a performance benefit to hydration? The answer is that they probably would have observed a performance benefit if they had looked for one within individual runners (by having each of them run the race twice–once without fluid consumption and once at the runner’s natural rate of fluid consumption), but instead they looked for a general correlation between drinking rate and performance in the general study population. Presumably, however, each runner inatinctively consumed fluid at the proper rate to maximize his individual performance.

In summary, whereas the authors of this study thought they had demonstrated that fluid consumption does not affect body temperature or performance in competitive running in the heat, they actually provided evidence challenging the traditional model of thermoregulation during exercise and supporting the new, teleoanticipation model.

Nutrition article courtesy of PacificHealth Laboratories, makers of nutrition tools such as Accelerade, Accel Gel, Endurox R4, Endurox Excel and much more. For product information or to purchase products, please visit www.pacifichealthlabs.com.

This article was originally published in the American Council on Exercise’s (ACE’s) Get Fit blog. Visit the American Council on Exercise for free health and fitness information, and read on for an excerpt from the article below.

For many moms-to-be, the news of a pregnancy is filled with excitement, anticipation, anxiety and a newfound commitment to do everything right for the growth and development of a healthy baby. The question of whether to continue or begin an exercise program to optimize health for both mom and baby often arises.

The first step to help answer this question is a visit to your doctor. While exercise during pregnancy is usually encouraged, under some circumstances exercise can be detrimental to both the expecting mother and the growing fetus. Only after a thorough clinical evaluation can a physician determine your exercise risks, if any.

Plenty of Benefits

Exercise during pregnancy offers many physical and emotional benefits. For example, a good exercise program may help relieve common problems associated with pregnancy, such as excessive weight gain, swelling of your hands and feet, leg cramps, varicose veins, insomnia, fatigue and constipation. You also can look forward to improved posture and circulation, reduced backaches, and increased mood and energy. Plus, you’ll feel better knowing you’re doing something good for yourself and your baby.

Listen to Your Body

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends that pregnant women who have been cleared to exercise by their physicians engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most, if not all, days of the week. Walking, swimming, cycling and moderate-intensity aerobics are highly effective and generally safe during pregnancy, even for beginners. Running, racquet sports, and strength training when done in moderation are safe for pregnant women who had been participating in these activities prior to pregnancy. While strenuous activity may be associated with intrauterine growth restriction, under physician guidance it may be safe for athletes to continue a vigorous program.

When designing your exercise program, take into account the changes you’re experiencing — new body alignment, different posture, reduced strength and endurance, and extra weight (up to 25 to 40 pounds), which places stress on your joints and muscles and makes your heart work harder. The key is to let your body be your guide. You know you’re at a good intensity when you can talk normally and not become exhausted too quickly.

Read more in the full article.

Australian rider Michael Rogers of Team Columbia-HTC managed to hang on for the overall win in California yesterday despite relentless attacks from both 3-time former champion Levi Leipheimer and runner-up Dave Zabriskie in a thrilling final stage of the race. Zabriskie’s teammate Ryder Hesjedal won the stage in a sprint to the finish line with George Hincapie, Carlos Barredo and Chris Horner. In addition to an Australia winner, riders on Team Fly V australia had a good race, including Phil Zajicek’s Top Ten finish. Phil was one of only two non Pro Tour riders to finish in the top 10 in the overall classification.

The final day of the Amgen Tour of California was relentless as the top general classification contenders knew the final results were still to be decided four times up the Rock Store climb. Very few riders had much left after such a long and difficult tour.  Those that did have fuel left in their legs quickly got to action once the flag dropped.

Darren Lill was one of those riders that animated the race right from the gun. In an attempt to help setup his Fly V australia teammate, Phil Zajicek, Lill took off in a 13-man break. You can see this within Lill’s Quarq power file as he had a normalized power of 349w the first nine minutes of the race. Immediately as Lill’s break was caught Zajicek countered along with Dominique Rollin (Cervelo Test Team). Zajicek was too much of a GC threat at only 2:49 behind Michael Rogers (Team HTC-Columbia) so this move was quickly brought back by HTC. That allowed lower placed GC riders to counter once again and this time HTC let a group of seven which was allowed a maximum of three minutes advantage.

Lill ended up riding to the finish within the second group that formed behind the 37 front runners. Unfortunately this group finished just outside the time limit and was subsequently not placed as official finishers of the stage.

The below image shows the daily KJ’s, TSS, CP5, CP20, CP30, CP60 for each day of the Tour of California.

Team Fly v australia’s Darren Lill was happy to finish the time trial stage having ridden below his max effort in hopes of saving his legs a bit for tomorrow’s final tough day in Agoura Hills. Darren finished 54th, 4:21 behind the winner Tony Martin.

Lill averaged 302w for the 46′ race. This is well below his estimated functional threshold power, but certainly to be expected after such a hard stage yesterday to Big Bear on stage 6. Most guys who are not in the top 20 of this race are simply riding through the trial at a 90-95% effort in order to have fresher legs for Sunday’s race.

The nice thing to see in Darren’s file is how well he paced the time trial. When you break the race down into thirds he rode a very steady even pace the entire race only deviating 7 watts between the three segments.

Besides the power data showing fatigue you can also be see signs of fatigue within the heart rate data. Lill only averaged 161 heart rate within the time trial compared to a 30-minute stretch of time at 170bpm within stage two.

The final stage is a tough day and I hope Lill has enough energy to help the team leader Phil Zajicek for at least half of the race on Sunday. It will be tough since the top general classification riders are sitting very close within just a few seconds of each other. Check back on our Tour of California Power Page later today for final results and race files, as well as time trial power data from Team Saxo Bank’s Jakob Fulgsang.

Wow, what a day of racing! The Palmdale to Big Bear stage 6 was a massive 213kms race straight up seven categorized climbs. Not only did the climbs take their toll but the elevation gain placed the riders near 7,500ft

Jakob Fuglsang rode off the front within the first 10 miles to join a group of 8 men that gained a maximum of 6:40. Jakob also had his teammate Andy Schleck in the break away plus big names such as George Hincapie (BMC) and Jason McCartney (TRS). Nearing the final 30km’s Jakob was wearing thin and came off of the break and was reabsorbed by the 25-man chase group before he lost contact again. All of this is in preparation for the Tour de France in July and the Tour of California is certainly helping him gain better fitness.

The course was in a nutshell two three-hour climbs with a descent in the middle, plus cross winds between the two mountains. This was an unrelenting stage. If it wasn’t the actual climbing that killed you, the wind and thin air at 7,000ft would.

This stage was by far the hardest of the Tour of California having produced Jakob’s highest kilojoules at 6364. He also set his highest average watts for a stage at 261watts (304np) and his highest average heart rate at 143bpm.

The real race will be to see who can recover the best as Stage 7 is a long time trial in downtown Los Angeles. Hopefully we see power data from Jakob. I’d expect to see his power to above 380w if he rides it strong and recovers well. Otherwise we will see a reading closer to 350w. Check back later today for data from the time trial.

Despite all of the cycling drama caused by accusations of doping from Floyd Landis yesterday and Lance Armstrong’s subsequent crash out of the race, the Tour of California does in fact go on for most riders! A few others were involved in the crash that took Armstrong down, including Fly V australia’s Jay Thomson. We have been trying to follow and post data from Jay Thomson after each stage but unfortunately Jay was forced to abandon the Tour with a sprained wrist and a bruised hip and back.

Fly V australia has now allowed us to post data from another South African on the team. Darren Lill is a rider you may have read about who won the final day of the Tour of the Gila just a few weeks ago. TrainingPeaks also posted his file from that stage and as a climber you might imagine Darren is a little guy. In fact he only weighs 129lbs.

Stage 5 was the hardest stage so far for Darren Lill of Fly V australia team. His job today was to make sure the breakaway didn’t get too far up the road so that his sprinters would have a chance of winning the stage at the end. This strategy was chosen despite the fact that FlyV also had Ben Day in the breakaway group of six.

For the middle hour of the stage Darren took turns riding on the front with a few other riders from Liquigas and Garmin. The effort took it’s toll on Darren as he averaged 286w for 60 minutes which is about 5w/kg! Pretty tough day for a little guy.

Read more about the race, including Stage 5 results from Saxo Bank’s Jakob Fulgsang, on our Tour of California Power Page.

In today’s episode of the daily podcast with Hunter Allen and Dirk Friel, our experts discuss Stage 4 of the Amgen Tour of California, analyzing race files from Team Saxo Bank’s Jakob Fulgsang and Fly V australia’s Jay Thomson. Listen to the podcast for the whole story on how this amazing race is unfolding, check back on our Tour of California page for updates, and read on below for a few excerpts.

“It was just a long, grueling stage,” said Dirk. “The Sierra Cat 1 climb came at 10km into the stage, and the break was already established when they hit that… the rest of the field just did it really high tempo, no crazy numbers, they didn’t race it, it was still a long day ahead of them so everybody just wanted to get over it with fairly fresh legs.”

“It looks like Jay was within his range, but coming that soon into the start of the stage, he probably had a little bit of soreness in his legs and had to push to stay with the group,” said Hunter. “For Jakob it was a little less stressful – only right at the very end of the climb there did Jakob really start to be stressed.”

View Jakob’s Fulgsang’s SRM file from Saxo Bank and check out Jay Thomson’s GPS file from Fly V australia here.

Withings, manufacturer of the world’s first WiFi body scale, is teaming up with Peaksware, the world’s leading human performance software company. The alliance between the Peaksware expert software and the Withings scale’s sophisticated hardware ushers in a new era of easy-to-use services for health and fitness enthusiasts.

For the almost 500,000 registered users of TrainingPeaks, Peaksware’s premier software product, recommended by professionals from around the world to monitor and analyze performance, the Withings WiFi Body Scale is an opportunity to easily benefit from expert advice. The Withings Body Scale allows users of TrainingPeaks to seamlessly upload their body weight, lean & fat mass, and calculated body mass index (BMI) to their personal account on TrainingPeaks. No longer will users need to login just to record their weight, all they need to do is step on the scale and it’s done for them.

Dr. Rick Kattouf II, a professional dietitian and fitness trainer who uses TrainingPeaks to manage his clients, says: “In order to maximize human performance in life, fitness, and sport, it is imperative to understand your body composition. It is critical to monitor your fat mass and lean mass. The Withings WiFi scale allows you to monitor these numbers, which will be automatically sent to your iPhone, the web, and your TrainingPeaks account. As a coach, having the ability to monitor my clients’ body composition allows me to assist them in bridging the gap between where they are and where they want to be!”

“We are very proud to include integration with TrainingPeaks online training and nutrition software,” says Cédric Hutchings, co-founder of Withings. “The Withings scale introduces the new age of the Internet of Things, where devices can be considered as an open platform that can be used by experts to provide enhanced services. With the Withings body scale, we offer experts a way to provide closer services to customers, a new way to transform online services into detailed and tailored services for the public. By bridging the gap between customers and experts, Withings makes the services the experts provide more efficient and personal.”

“As a user of our own software products, I’ve imagined and longed for something like the Withings WiFi Body Scale for years,” says Donavon Guyot, CEO of Peaksware. “Now that the integration of our products is complete, I’m proud to say the result is literally a dream come true.”

The WiFi Body Scale is the world’s first WiFi connected personal weight scale, which automatically records the user’s body weight, lean & fat mass, and calculated body mass index (BMI) to his/her secure webpage and/or free Withings iPhone application, WiScale, plus a host of other third party sites.

The scale is currently available on www.withings.com for $159.00 USD or 129 €. For more information on Withings or to get more images of the WiFi Body Scale please contact PR representative Jean-François Kitten or Jessica Darrican for USA at (305) 576-1171 ext.16 or jessica@maxborgesagency.com

Fitness professionals can sign up for a free trial TrainingPeaks Professional Edition account at www.trainingpeaks.com/pro and individuals can get started with a free basic or premium subscription TrainingPeaks personal edition account at www.trainingpeaks.com.

In a shocking turn of events, a large breakaway group containing several dangerous riders got away from the main peloton in today’s Stage 11 of the Giro d’Italia, leaving overall leader Alexander Vinokourov and second-placed Cadel Evans far behind and rearranging the general classification with Saxo Bank’s Riche Porte as the new leader.

Saxo Bank Performance Manager Bobby Julich spoke with Dirk Friel of TrainingPeaks today about this dramatic upset and how excited the team is for their young leader.

Stage three of the Tour of California from San Francisco to Santa Cruz was yet another record breaker for Saxo Bank’s Jakob Fuglsang and a very exciting day overall for defending champion Levi Leipheimer, who got away from the pack on Bonny Doon in a break that also included last year’s other two podium finishers Michael Rogers and Dave Zabriskie.

The chase that ensued was intense but somewhat disorganized, allowing the three podium finishers to cross the line ahead of the main group. Considering the intensity of the climb and the final chase, along with an earlier chase that reeled in a break of 5 riders just before the peloton reached Bonny Doon, it was a tough stage. If you think yesterday’s stage two data was high wait till you see today’s file. Read on for more details below, listen to a podcast with Dirk and Hunter, and stay tuned for the rest of the race!

The stage started out with nice weather as the riders left south on Highway 1 from San Francisco, but quickly changed as they hit the hills and saw a repeat of yesterday’s miserable conditions. A small breakaway group of five riders slipped away and was allowed a maximum of four minutes before Team Radio Shack got to work on the front and reeled it back in.

Bonny Doon Showdown

As the riders neared the final Category Two climb up Bonny Doon the last breakaway rider was caught and all eyes turned to Levi Leipheimer. This is where Leipheimer established his dominance in the ’09 edition of this Tour. If anyone had plans on dethrowning the Radio Shack rider they would have to match Levi pedal for pedal up this 10k climb of 2,000 vertical feet.

Jakob Fuglsang showed that he is a climber with lots of potential by making the split up Bonny Doon. Levi rode away with Michael Rogers and David Zabriskie, and crested Bonny Doon with about a 60 second advantage. At one point Jakob lead the group in pursuit. His power data summary up the climb shows just how much it takes to race at this level.

Bonny Doon Climb Summary

Time- 25:47

2054 altitude gain

386 avg watts (400np)

169 avg heart rate

175 max heart rate

91 avg cadence

Jakob Fuglsang had a tough day in the rain like everyone else that raced today’s stage 2 of the Amgen Tour of California. This was a much harder stage that yesterday’s relatively downhill stage into Sacramento. Read on for more details, stay tuned to our Tour of California page for further updates, and listen to a podcast from Hunter Allen and Dirk Friel below!

The weather was a major factor as the day wore on and the rainy conditions worsened. The course profile was also a bit much for many of the riders made worse by dangerous wet roads. In the end four climbs were traversed including two category two climbs the last ending about 10 miles from the finish.

Jakob ended up finishing in the 3rd group of riders 2:47 behind the winner, Brett Lancaster (Cervelo Test Team). Jakob’s last duties for the day included making sure his three teammates, Andy Schleck, Andre Steensen and Jens Voigt made it safely over the climbs and into the front group lead by Team Radio Shack.

As you can see by the data stage 2 was much harder than the first stage. Jakob averaged 456w for 5-minutes today compared to 412w on stage one. Likewise he also set a much higher 20-minute power value in stage 2 of 389w, compared to 327w on stage 1.

Stage 3 won’t get any easier as the riders prepare to race south out of San Francisco to Santa Cruz. This is the same stage where Levi rode away and established himself as the leader of the Tour of California last year. Look for fireworks late in the stage as the contenders duke it out once again.

Stage 2 Summary

Total Time: 4:41

Stage placing: 47th at 2:47
GC placing after Stage 2: 47th
Body Weight: 154lbs ( 70kg)
Average speed: 23.8
Average heart rate: 130
Max heart rate: 174
Average cadence: 90
Average watts: 235w (306w normalized)
Max watts: 1081w

TSS: 322

CP5: 456w

CP20: 389w

The 2010 Amgen Tour of California is off to a great start, with HTC-Colombia’s Mark Cavendish winning Stage 1 in the state capital of Sacramento. The day certainly started off fast as smaller domestic teams tried to establish a breakaway in the opening miles. All the pressure was on HTC today as they have the best sprinter in the race with Mark Cavendish and in the end he proved he certainly was the fastest man.

As the race entered the final finishing circuits around the state capital in Sacramento the race was well under control by the sprinter’s teams. This is where Saxo Bank’s Jakob Fuglsang sprung to life and helped his team sprinter, Juan Jose Haedo, move up to the front. Jakob recorded his highest CP20 value in the final 20 minutes of racing at  327w (348w normalized). Check out his SRM power data here.

Another rider who shared his race data is Team Fly V australia’s Jay Thomson, who set his highest CP20 value in the first hour of racing as he tried to bridge the gap to the early break. In the end HTC-Columbia only allowed the 4-man move get up the road to a maximum gap of four minutes before they brought it back within 20km’s to go to the finish.

Jay ended up taking it relatively easy until the final 30kms when he started working for his team sprinter Johnathan Cantwell who placed 5th on the stage. The roads were flat and slightly windy entering Sacramento but for the most part safe, until the finishing circuits. Several riders crashed with under three kilometers to go including some big names such as George Hincapie and Stuart O’Grady.

Check out a video interview between Dirk Friel and Jay Thomson

Today’s race to Santa Rosa will be even more action packed as the riders must climb some severe climbs near the finish in wine country. The Tour of California won’t be won on Monday, but it certainly can be lost. Listen to a podcast discussion between Dirk Friel and Hunter Allen about the upcoming stage and yesterday’s events.

Dirk and Hunter discussed the contrast between Jay Thomson’s approach to the race yesterday versus Jakub Fulgerson’s strategy. “It was kind of opposing stories: you have Jay Thomson trying to get across to the early break, in the first 30 minutes of the race the guy was putting out 1300 watts… on the other hand Jakub Fulgerson was really trying to take it easy as much as possible yesterday until the circuits where he was helping out his team sprinter J.J. Haedo who ended up getting second, so that was good for those guys.”

Stay tuned for more race files, interviews, and videos this week!

Across the pond, Team Saxo Bank’s Chris Anker Sorenson won the mountain stage to Terminillo at the Giro d’Italia, after recovering from a broken collar bone just 7 weeks ago. Team performance manager Bobby Julich spoke with Dirk Friel at the Tour of California about how Chris used TrainingPeaks and WKO+ to help him make this miraculous recovery.

“I’ve been working really closely with Chris, monitoring him closely on TrainingPeaks and WKO+ software,” said Bobby. “He broke his collarbone in the last stage of the Vuelta a Cataluna, he ended up finishing the stage but he definitely broke his collarbone so he had to take 5 or 6 days completely off the bike… he had the injury right as he was coming onto a major peak, so he was going to take a break anyway, but it really shows how you can monitor a rider even during a period like that, get into their head, monitor their data… he only lost about 5% of his condition over that period, and when I was able to point that out to him it really improved his morale.”

Listen to the full interview below, and stay tuned for more race files, interviews, and videos this week!

By Alan Couzens, MS

One of the most common requests I receive as a coach is to don my prognosticator hat and answer the question “How fast will I go on race day?” This question can take various forms, from the direct “Will I qualify?” to the subtle “What’s an appropriate pacing strategy?” but the inquiry is fundamentally the same – based on the training that I’ve done, what are some realistic performance expectations? Or, the flipside to that, “if I have xyz performance expectations, how much training do I need to do?”

The truth is that, as Zatopek observed back in the day, to a large extent training remains ‘principally an act of faith.’ There are so many variables, some fitness related, some not that make up a given performance on a given day. In order to make even a decent guess, I need an intimate knowledge of a given athlete and their training history. It is a huge over-simplification to assign volume targets for different ‘categories’ of athlete and yet, with the exception of the coaches who whole-heartedly embrace mathematical modeling of the training process, this remains the go-to paradigm: “You want to qualify for Kona? Take 20hrs a week and call me in the morning.”

There are a few flies in the ointment with regard to the load:performance relationship that make this an unsuitable approach…

1. Quantifying load for different intensities and different sports

In the interests of simplicity, many coaches and athletes continue to look at load from an “hrs per week”  perspective. In reality there can be a huge difference in training load between a 20 hour base week for a good level age group athlete and a 20 hour specific prep week for a competitive ITU athlete. Factor in the additional difficulty of quantifying the effect of a big run week vs a big swim week and attempting to discern a load:performance relationship  based on hours of training becomes a futile task.

2. Delayed training effects

The cold, hard fact is that training load doesn’t show up immediately to benefit performance. In fact, when it comes to training, things are likely to get worse before they get better. You get different performance benefit from training depending on its proximity to the performance date, as explained here. For this reason, total training hours over the course of a year tell us very little without further info as to how they were distributed and an athlete who is ‘smarter’ in the way they distribute load can beat an athlete who accumulates load in a non-deliberate way.

Both of these factors come into play when determining the performance benefit that an athlete can expect from a given load but the biggest principle that must be factored in when predicting performance from load is that of….

3. The principle of individuality.

This is the really big fly in the ointment that has caused many a coach to throw up his arms in frustration or, worse than that, to attribute the failure to the athlete – ‘you just don’t have it, Kid’ ‘choose your parents wisely’  etc etc.

Even if we are able to accurately quantify true load and accurately discern the general fitness effects of training at a given point in time to some performance in the future, no two athletes will respond exactly the same way to this load.

Read more in the full article about quantifying load and optimizing performance using the Chronic Training Load (CTL) metric in TrainingPeaks WKO+ software.

This year’s top-ranked professional cycling team in the United States, Team Fly V australia, will be releasing daily power, heart rate and GPS files during the 2010 Amgen Tour of California. TrainingPeaks co-founder, Dirk Friel, and Hunter Allen, co-author of Training and Racing with a Power Meter, will be providing same-day analysis of each day’s stage files which will also be available to view and download by anyone who visits the Tour of California Power page located at www.trainingpeaks.com/atoc. Race data will be available to view directly through the TrainingPeaks.com File Viewer, or by downloading and analyzing data within TrainingPeaks WKO+ desktop software.

“Team Fly V australia is currently the number one ranked team racing in the US having won more than 30 races so far in 2010,” said Peaksware CMO and co-founder Dirk Friel. “TrainingPeaks is a proud supporter of the team and we are very excited that they are allowing us to release daily power files from one team member after each stage of the Amgen Tour of California. There should be some amazing data coming from this team so stay tuned to our daily race coverage.”

“Having TrainingPeaks as a partner gives us an ongoing advantage in terms of athlete preparation and management.  To have TrainingPeaks provide our Sport Directors and Riders daily analysis will provide us with valuable expertise that we will use to manage our Team performance and maximise our results.” said Team Managing Director Chris White.  White added, “As a tool TrainingPeaks is powerful but to have Peaksware’s co-founder Dirk Friel travel with us on tour provides us with substantially more fire power to add to our arsenal.”

Brett Roland Fly V australia’s Digital Development Director added,  “The Amgen Tour of California will be the first real opportunity to show the cycling community and our devoted fans what race data our riders can produce and how we can make it available to them. Through our partnership with TrainingPeaks, and the benchmark we will set at the Amgen Tour of California, we are highlighting how we are taking behind the scenes access to team information far beyond what teams have offered their fans and club members in the past.”

Stay tuned to the TrainingPeaks Tour of California Power page for daily updates including power file analysis, articles, videos, pictures, and interviews with Team Fly V australia riders and others.

Question: I just did my first triathlon of the year and I’m panicking! My time is 4 minutes slower than when I did the same race last year, but I’ve been training much harder, and I was even more careful leading up to the race to not over-train and to eat right. What happened?

Answer: Let me say this very clearly: don’t panic!

I’ve often had this occur to both myself and to the athletes I coach, only to find that we were completely barking up the wrong tree when we became distressed, completely altered our training program, and had unnecessary heartache and disappointment. Why is this?

1. Swim buoys move. Despite GPS technology creating less problems that in the past, swim courses and marked swim buoys in triathlons are notorious for being inaccurately placed, getting blown several dozen meters off course, or simply being mismeasured. Just  think – one hundred meters in the water could affect your overall time by one to three minutes. Compare this year’s results with previous year’s results and see if your entire competition was slower than last year in the swim. If so, it could indicate a “slow swim.”

2. Water temperature and water environment changes. Cold water, fast moving currents, and less choppiness all create faster swim conditions. Were these variables present last year and not present this year? That could also affect your time.

3. Transitions count. This sounds simple, but many triathletes don’t account for sixty extra seconds here and forty extra seconds there, and ignore T1 and T2 times in their overall analysis of their swim, bike and run splits. Fumbling with your shoes, losing your sunglasses, or getting stuck in your wetsuit can all affect your time. So check your transition times!

4. Bike and run courses change. Analyze the bike and run course markings, terrain and environmental factors. Was the turnaround mark accurately placed? Were there different wind conditions? Was the road in poorer condition? You can use the strategy as suggested in the swim for checking the accuracy of the bike and run course  - was everyone consistently slower? Then the course was likely longer or had more difficult conditions.

5. Gear matters. Think about your equipment. It’s entirely possible that you ran low pressure in a tire, wore your goggles over rather than under your swim cap, had heavier shoes, or had a brake pad rubbing.

Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that you can be fitter and have a slower race. I recently competed in the Wildflower Half-Ironman triathlon, but had a time that was five minutes slower than a previous year. But I believe I’m in better shape. So I checked the results, and sure enough – everyone was slower!

Finally, if you’re absolutely convinced that you are indeed slower, then internal performance factors come into play. How is your hormonal status? This can easily be evaluated through salivary measurements. Have you been severely sick anytime in the past 8 weeks? If so, your minerals could be imbalanced. Even something as simple as neglecting to change the water filter in your house can affect your internal performance. While training is indeed the most important factor when it comes to performance, you may want to think about some of these little things as well.

So trust your fitness, continue to train, don’t be disappointed, and have a great season!

Best of luck,

Ben Greenfield
MS, CPT, CSCS, CISSN
President, Pacific Elite Fitness
Director of Sports Performance, Rock Star Triathlete Academy
http://www.pacificfit.net/bengreenfield.html
http://www.rockstartriathleteacademy.com

Many qualified experts on training and nutrition use TrainingPeaks to help manage their business. Now, a select few are offering professional training and nutrition advice on our blog. The views expressed here are the opinions of the experts and as such do not represent the official position of TrainingPeaks. Read on to learn more about the expert, and submit a question of your own below!

About the expert:

Ben Greenfield is recognized as one of the top fitness, triathlon, nutrition and metabolism experts in the nation. In 2008, he was voted as the Personal Trainer of the Year by the National Strength and Conditioning Association, an internationally recognized and respected certifying agency. Ben is Director of Sports Performance and oversees the physiology and biomechanics laboratory at Champions Sports Medicine in Spokane, WA, which offers metabolic-based weight loss, bicycle fitting, running gait analysis, swim stroke analysis, VO2 max testing, blood lactate testing, resting metabolic rate analysis, and other cutting-edge procedures for weight loss and performance.

Ben hosts the highly popular fitness, nutrition and wellness website at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com, which features blogs, podcasts, and product reviews from Ben. In addition to coaching and training for weight loss and sports performance at http://www.pacificfit.net, Ben serves as a business and marketing consultant to fitness professionals, and is the host of a weekly syndicated fitness business blog and podcast at http://www.trainfortopdollar.com. Ben also directs the Rock Star Triathlete Academy, the internet’s top school for learning the sport of triathlon and getting faster! E-mail: ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com

Ask a question of your own! If you have a question for the experts, submit it here either by emailing asktheexperts@peaksware.com or by posting it on our message boards. Your question could be featured in our next blog!

FREE MOBILE: Now on TrainingPeaks.com, all members can enjoy free access to our mobile site from any web-enabled mobile device at www.trainingpeaks.com/m. Record workouts, meals, and more from anywhere on your iPhone, Blackberry, or other mobile device! Watch a 90 second video about the mobile site.

Just like the regular website, basic members will only have access to limited functionality on the mobile site, while premium members will enjoy enhanced features such as future planning.

ENHANCED PRINTING: Be sure to take advantage of the new single workout printing functionality, as well as the ability to print out your Annual Training Plan schedule.

TRAINING PLANS: Our new dynamic training plans now load faster than ever before, updating schedules in real time to keep everyone on track. You can also now load a plan in a second calendar to make easy edits, and finally, promo codes for plans have been improved to make offering discounts easier and faster. Learn more about dynamic training plans.

Here’s the full list of updates (you can always get these on our What’s New page):

TrainingPeaks.com Build 3.0.20100511

• Single workout print view
• ATP Print view
• Required email validation – to comply with CAN-SPAM laws
• Mobile app is now available to Basic and Premium users, some limits for Basic users (http://www.trainingpeaks.com/m)
• Messaging within the app (gain access to a plan/library, gain/lost access to a client, gain/lost coach, demotion from prem/basic)
• Drastically improved performance when editing Dynamic Plans (100x speed improvement)
• Load a training plan on ‘calendar 2′
• Auto select current ATP when clicking on ATP icon
• Improved coupon code system for training plans
• Copy all/Clear all links on the QuickView for each text field
• Various bug fixes
• Many behind the scenes performance improvements, including faster copying, pasting, and saving of workouts

By Joe Friel

Unlike most other endurance sports, bike racing outcomes are usually determined as much by patient aggressiveness as by physical fitness. This is quite evident in a stage race such as the Tour of California. You will probably see the top contenders for the G.C. holding back early in the week and even late in the week on some stages. They’re waiting until the time is right—time trials, long climbs, strong cross winds and other such critical moments.

This is something Lance had to learn in order to become a top contender at the Tour de France. He was certainly not patient when he first came on the road racing scene. He was only aggressive. As he has aged and become more experienced his patience has increased remarkably.

Patience is the capacity for calm endurance. When everyone around you in the group is starting to nervously wind it up, the patient rider calmly positions himself for what he anticipates will soon happen–and then waits for the proper moment to finally be aggressive. Bike racing patience comes from knowledge gained through experience–knowing the riders to watch, knowing the course, and knowing the way the race is likely to unfold.

Aggressiveness is assertive and bold riding based on the rider’s strengths. This is the fun part of bike racing. In covering another rider’s move or in attacking, this is when the fit cyclist may “burn a match” with an appropriate amount of effort/power for the situation–not too much or too little.

The smart and patiently aggressive rider loosens the restraints at just the right moment–neither too soon or too late. In contrast, the impatient and overly aggressive rider becomes assertive at the wrong times and squanders precious energy. Many riders waste their matches by riding aggressively at the wrong times and so are likely to remove themselves from the selection process at the key moments in the race when the outcome is being determined.

Patience is hard to learn. You must restrain yourself when your body is feeling powerful and your mind anxious. This is the time to become finely tuned in to what is going on around you. Instead of needlessly burning a match at these times, focus on getting yourself in just the right position so that you can’t get boxed in, are near the front and are ready to respond to any important moves. Now is the time to pay attention to other riders. Is anyone looking around nervously, shifting, moving up or back, out of the saddle, repositioning to the left, tightening shoe closures, etc. Listen to what is going on around you, especially breathing and gear changing. If the sun is right, watch for shadows coming up from behind you. Observe the other riders’ faces–nervous, calm, suffering, placid? Using all of this information, you should always be ready to spring at just the right time to take advantage of someone else’s match while conserving yours for when it really counts.

Watch for all of this unfolding on TV coverage in Cali. And, make sure to stay tuned to TrainingPeaks for daily power meter, heart rate and GPS file analysis of each stage from both Saxo Bank and Fly V australia riders! Then take what you’ve learned to your own racing.

About the author:

Joe Friel is the author of The Cyclist’s Training Bible. Learn more about training and racing at his blog: www.joefrielsblog.com.

At this year’s USA Cycling Collegiate National Championships in Wisconsin, Marian University of Indianapolis, Indiana took home the Division I title, and Whitman College of Walla Walla, Washington got the Division II title! Robert Bush of Marian also brought home the individual national champion jersey for Division One. Congrats to both teams, who each use TrainingPeaks and WKO+ software as part of their training strategy. All the hard work seems to have paid off in these recent victories!

For both Marian and Whitman, the results came down to the final event of the weekend, a four-person team time trial. Only ten points separated the top two Division 1 schools, but both the men and women at Marian posted the fastest team times to pull into the overall lead. Whitman also managed to stay ahead in the final event, overcoming a close competition with Mesa State from Grand Junction, Colorado.

Marian’s time trial team included Robert Bush, Zach McBride, Adam Leibovitz, and David Williams, who worked together to post the fastest time of the day of 36:23, over a minute faster than their rival team from Lees-McRae. The women’s race was much closer, with Marian’s ladies coming in just ten seconds ahead of the Lees-McRae girls.

In Whitman’s case, somewhat of the opposite occurred, with the women’s team winning the time trial over Mesa State’s fifth place finish to claim the overall victory, while the men had a more difficult battle with Mesa State. Although the men did not beat Mesa State in the team time trial, they managed to hold on for the overall victory by limiting their losses in the omnium and posting strong performances all of the weekend’s events.

Congratulations again to Marian University and Whitman College! Read more on Velonews

Peaksware has an immediate opening in our Lafayette, CO office for a Sales and Marketing Relationship Manager to join our growing team.

Job Description:

GENERAL SUMMARY:

The Sales and Marketing Relationship Manager has three main responsibilities:

• Enterprise Level Business Development – Identify and develop high level business opportunities with prospects such as corporate wellness providers, health clubs and other enterprise level businesses.
• Lead Generation – Formulate and execute integrated, strategically-focused B2B marketing programs for new customer acquisition and lead nurturing with a primary mission of bringing the sales team high quality sales opportunities.
• Relationship Nurturing and Brand Recognition – Work with prospects and customers to build long lasting relationships and to increase Peaksware’s brand awareness in the health, fitness, wellness, nutrition and sports performance markets.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:

• Assist in developing and implementing plans for lead generation/nurturing activities and programs.
• Initiate the sales cycle by initiating relationships with prospective clients and qualifying leads for the sales team.
• Generating new opportunities (open doors) with prospects using a variety of approaches, including: research, 3rd party resources, cold calling, e-mails and events management.
• Articulate the value proposition of the company’s service to create viable prospects.
• Identify market opportunities by researching, analyzing and identifying new business growth opportunities.
• Assist with creating and editing sales tools to enhance selling success, including white papers, collateral, presentation materials, company/industry profiles, business partner contacts and information vehicles, etc.
• Work directly with individual sales team members to drive campaigns and programs at all levels to build pipelines and help close business.
• Maintain professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops; reviewing professional publications; establishing personal networks; etc.

Skills:

REQUIRED SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES

• Excellent cold calling experience required – both in person and via phone or email
• Strong sales aptitude
• Consultative selling background and training
• Proven ability to utilize web 2.0 inbound marketing strategies for B2B sales including content generation and syndication as well as relationship nurturing
• Knowledgeable about the market and understanding of how the products and technology fit into the overall industry
• Passionate about health, fitness, and/or athletics
• Successful in working with both sales and marketing teams
• Communicate ideas and information in a form well matched to and well received by others
• Invites productive and regular exchanges of information among team members
• Require strong written and oral communication, as well as good interpersonal and customer relations’ skills
• Network and build long-lasting relationships effectively
• Self-driven, results-oriented and a clear focus on high quality and business profit; with the ability to work under limited supervision
• Open-minded, a progressive thinker, a listener and an individual who is comfortable with participation from fellow employees
• Self motivated to continue learning for professional edification through reading, networking groups, seminars, etc
• Must be able and willing to travel up to 50% of the time

EXPERIENCE

• Experience selling enterprise level clients with long and complicated sales cycles
• Experience managing marketing campaigns that vary in scope and complexity
• Previous experience working on or collaborating with a highly driven sales team
• Previous experience in a software or technology environment
• Experience using TrainingPeaks.com (Personal Edition and/or Professional Edition)
• Proficiency in Salesforce or other CRM

About Peaksware:
Peaksware develops software that helps motivated individuals and professionals achieve health, fitness and peak performance. The main product TrainingPeaks.com is used to monitor, analyze and plan training and nutrition by coaches, personal trainers, athletes and general fitness enthusiasts around the world. In addition to direct to consumer software, Peaksware powers training and nutrition sites for Runner’s World, Outside Magazine, Timex, the New York City Marathon and others.

Position Includes:
Compensation based on experience plus full benefits including medical, dental and vision, 401k, gym membership & short term disability.

Please send your resume and a brief cover letter to: hr-(at sign)-peaksware-dot-com.

UPDATE: This position has been filled.

By Jim Vance

Are you using WKO+ to its fullest? Sure, you probably look at individual workout files, and see how a session went, but do you see the bigger picture? Do you see quickly and easily if your athlete is progressing at the rate and in the ways you want to see?

WKO+ is known as a popular software program for analyzing power files, and seeing how a specific workout went. Though the software is great for individual workout analysis, this pales in comparison to what a coach can see and how they can better manipulate the training and periodization of the athlete, based on the bigger picture of fitness and performance.

WKO+ allows coaches to see the entire picture of fitness and performance, not just a single session. Most coaches never look past the single session, and therefore miss the opportunity of seeing if the athlete is truly progressing or regressing toward their goals.

After athletes record and log workouts, uploading data from their training devices, we want to look for trends within the data. WKO+ allows coaches and athletes to set-up charts which show the trends of output and performance. Here is an example of a chart I use for some of my cyclists:

The chart shows the trend of the average watts per kilogram by week, that I am tracking for the season of outputs for all rides. I want to make sure I’m seeing the upward trend I want to see, as this athlete prepares for their goal race in October. The continual upward trend shows me if the athlete is progressing as we hope. If we are not seeing this upward trend, then we must make decisions on how to adjust the training, given the data. Data-driven training decisions are the key to avoiding performance plateaus and regression.

This chart below, does the same thing as the previous chart, only it focuses on running and the average run pace for the athlete of all runs, in kilometers per hour, by week of the season.

Again, I want to see an upward trend, and that is what I’m seeing. When I don’t see the trend, I must make decisions as a coach, on how to rectify the trend. Though I may typically think that my training decisions are correct, individual differences in athletes make data-driven decisions much more effective for all athletes we coach.

I believe more in studying the bigger picture of fitness than the smaller, individual workout files. I have been doing this long enough to begin to see a plateau in performance before the athlete can. This is critical, because by the time an athlete tends to notice, the damage is already done. They have lost quite a bit of confidence, and maybe even seen fitness regress.

Many coaches make training decisions based upon tradition. “We always do six weeks of base work,” or “We must do eight weeks of VO2 max training,” for example. This is training by tradition, not by data. What if the data shows your athletes already have the aerobic base they need by week four? What if after five weeks of VO2 max intervals, your athletes are at a plateau? These are lost weeks where a coach could switch the training focus to other areas of weakness, and make the athlete ready for even better performance. This is data-driven decision making, and WKO+ is a key tool for seeing this.

Set up your charts in WKO+ to look at the bigger picture of the season. Many coaches pay attention to the Performance Management Chart, (PMC), and it’s a good tool for monitoring, but it is not the only one for monitoring fitness and adaptations.

In the next article, I will discuss how you can adapt the PMC for better overall monitoring of fitness thru the season.

Jim Vance is a USAT Level 2 and Elite Coach for TrainingBible Coaching. You can see many of his webinars on WKO+ at Performancewebinars.com and follow his writings and training advice at his coaching blog, CoachVance.blogspot.com. Questions or comments can be sent to jvance@trainingbible.com.

For at least the Eastern part of the United States, it was a too-cold winter, followed in May by a too-early summer. This caused problems for many runners doing marathons the first weekend in May, Pittsburgh, Flying Pig, & Illinois being among them. It’s tougher to run well in warm-weather marathons when you don’t have the opportunity to acclimatize by training in similar weather through June, July and August.

Nevertheless, those three months are almost upon us, and we probably should not complain, should we? Here are a few tips to help you in your transition from winter to spring to summer.

1. ESTABLISH YOUR SUMMER RUNNING GOALS: Perhaps you already established a goal or goals at the beginning of the year. If not, consider that subject now. Are you going to spend the summer training for a fall marathon or just running for the joy of it? The choice is up to you, but goals work best if selected well in advance.

2. GET YOUR CLOTHING IN ORDER: Time to put those tights and long sleeves away for the summer–although not too far away, since freak weather sometimes happens. Nevertheless, this is the season for shorts and singlets, but also a cap to keep the sun off your face. If running a fall marathon, think ahead to what you might wear in that race.

3. SHOES ARE THE KEY TO AVOIDING INJURY: Don’t succumb to the latest fad, which is barefoot running, unless you grew up running dirt roads to school in Kenya. For those of us who run mostly on pavement, proper footwear will help prevent injuries. Consult with experts to determine the best shoe for you. In that area a podiatrist trumps the guys at the  local running store.

4. CONSIDER THE SPEED TRAINING OPTION: Summer is a good time to work on your speed. Running fast you can run short and avoid overheating. Train at a local track or on wooded trails, but cut back on mileage so you do not over-train. Admittedly, this might not be the best advice en route to a fall marathon.

5. PICK A GOOD TRAINING PROGRAM: This is self-serving advice, because I have programs for all distances from 5-K to the marathon available interactively through TrainingPeaks and also on my Web site: halhigdon.com. Training with a plan and purpose, however, will get you to that goal mentioned above.

Gotta love summer, particularly after all the cold weather runners struggled through last winter. But you will enjoy summer the most if you prepare right. Enjoy the experience.

HAL HIGDON
www.halhigdon.com

Ben Chaddock of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington discusses his cycling team’s chances at Nationals in Wisconsin May 7-9, the new cycling class that the team started to help riders become familiar with the sport’s terminology and techniques, and how the team uses TrainingPeaks and WKO+ to keep their training on track. Listen to the whole podcast below, and read on for a few excerpts.

Discussing the cycling class that the team started, Ben is enthusiastic about how it has helped the riders. “We started a cycling class this year, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which goes through absolutely everything that you need to know. We had a week and a half of Computrainer testing and we went through every single person’s results and looked at zones they should train in more, zones they should train in less… and that stuff’s all logged in on TrainingPeaks, so in the future if you want to go back and see one of the previous tests for a team mate, you can just go right in there and grab it.”

In addition to a strong men’s team, ever since Mara Abbott showed up on the Whitman College cycling team, the woman’s team has also been excellent. “We have the strongest woman’s team program in the nation, no question about it,” says Ben. “Looks like we’re going to have a full squad on the women’s team this year for Nationals, if we have everyone get through these last few races, and we also have a lot of younger women, which is also very important.”

Aside from using the software for the team, Ben enjoys using it himself and with his coach. “Having the PowerTap and being able to look at the data in WKO+ helps me understand how to improve from year to year. Sometimes your coach can’t be available so you have to come up with it yourself, so it’s very important that you understand the reasoning behind your training program so you can figure it out for yourself.”

Happy training and best of luck to the whole team at Nationals! Read more on the team website, and check out the Nationals course maps on TrainingPeaks Routes.

Peaksware was featured today in the business section of the Daily Camera in an article describing the healthy, active lifestyle that the company promotes to its customers and employees. The author of the article, Gabriel Dillon, quoted marketing coordinator Elizabeth Hartman on some of the benefits of working at Peaksware. “In addition to working with active people, Hartman said she enjoys many other perks, such as good health insurance, a YMCA membership and the opportunity to be a part of a growing company.”

The article also quoted co-founder and CMO Dirk Friel on the origins of the company and the types of fitness professionals that currently use the program to manage their clients. “Dietitians, personal trainers and wellness professionals all create the plans used on TrainingPeaks, Friel said. There is community involvement, he said, and those professionals lean on Peaksware to keep things running smoothly.”

With partners from the Bolder Boulder to Runner’s World and Outside Magazine, Peaksware has been able to provide TrainingPeaks to a variety of markets. The article quoted Bolder Boulder marketing director Matt Jenkins on the successful partnership. “ ‘About a month ago we opened up the program and a good percentage of people have been using it,’ Jenkins said. He added that there is an upgraded version of the Bolder Boulder training plan that is custom-tailored as the race gets closer and closer.”

Read more in the full article.

Consuming the right types of nutrition as soon as possible after racing will enable you to resume training faster.

You’re running a marathon. All is well until mile 23, when suddenly you hit the dreaded, metaphorical wall. You start to feel as though you’re carrying a lead-stuffed backpack and running on sand. Your pace slows inexorably. The devil on your shoulder tempts you insistently to stop. After 10 more minutes of exquisite suffering, you heed him.

Why did this happen? Based on what you’ve been taught, your first guess will probably be that you didn’t take in enough carbohydrate during the race, or that you didn’t do enough long, slow “fat-burning” runs in training. But, believe it or not, it’s just as likely that you failed to take in enough protein during the race, or that you didn’t do enough plyometrics in training.

In other words, the wall might not be what you think it is.

For most runners, “hitting the wall” means running out of energy. More specifically, it is a form of exhaustion that occurs when carbohydrate fuel – either muscle glycogen or blood glucose – falls to a critically low level during the latter portion of a long race or workout. However, recent findings in the field of exercise physiology are painting a more complex and nuanced picture of this familiar and dreaded phenomenon.

In particular, it now appears that muscle damage may be an equally important cause of hitting the wall. The scientists currently pursuing this line of research believe that a protective mechanism causes the brain to curtail muscle stimulation and produce feelings of discomfort and exhaustion when muscle damage approaches dangerous levels during prolonged exercise. That exercise causes muscle damage has been known for more than a century. What’s new is the idea that such damage is perhaps as potent a cause of hitting the wall as running out of carbohydrate-derived energy.

One of the leading proponents of this new understanding of endurance fatigue is Tim Noakes, M.D., an ultramarathon runner and author of Lore of Running. “I believe that the intense discomfort you feel near the end of ultramarathon races is not due to muscle glycogen depletion but is more likely due to muscle damage and your brain trying to tell you to please stop, as you are going to destroy your muscles if you continue,” Noakes says colorfully.

Read more about muscle damage and recovery in the full article on Pacific Health.

Nutrition article courtesy of PacificHealth Laboratories, makers of nutrition tools such as Accelerade, Accel Gel, Endurox R4, Endurox Excel and much more. For product information or to purchase products, please visit www.pacifichealthlabs.com.

Stage 1: Silver City – Mogollon 151km

1 Levi Leipheimer (Team Mellow Johnny’s)                               3:48:18

2 Tom Danielson (DZ Nuts)                                                              :10

3 Cesar Grajales (Ouch-Bahati Foundation Pro)                             :16

4 Phil Zajicek (Fly V Australia)

Phil Zajicek of team Fly V australia placed 4th in stage 1 of the Tour of the Gila in Silver City, NM. Even though this is the first stage of the event it is always one that can ruin the chances of all but a few top climbers. This premier stage finishes with an 8km Category 1 climb known as the Mogollon.

Zajicek is one of the top favorites in this years event as he placed 3rd overall in the 2009 Tour of Gila just behind Leipheimer and Lance Armstrong. Zajicek has been managing his training through TrainingPeaks products for three years and was kind enough to conduct a phone interview with Dirk Friel of TrainingPeaks just after the stage one finish.

Zajicek explains how he placed fourth on the stage and the tactics that played out in the final crucial miles. He also discusses how the Tour of the Gila is an important event as he prepares for the Tour of California later in May.

Stay tuned to TrainingPeaks for more interviews throughout the Tour of the Gila. TrainingPeaks will also gain behind the scenes access to Team Saxo Bank and Fly V Australia during the Amgen Tour of California May 16-23rd. Daily race files will be posted and analyzed throughout the entire event.

As always sign up to follow all the latest news at www.twitter.com/TrainingPeaks

USA Cycling members can now create a TrainingPeaks Basic Personal Edition subscription for free and qualify for 10% off Premium Personal Edition subscription accounts due to Peaksware upgrading its relationship with the national governing body.

TrainingPeaks provides tools for athletes and coaches to monitor, analyze, and plan peak performance. All USA Cycling members can create a basic personal edition account for free which includes an online and mobile training and nutrition log compatible with more than 80 different heart rate monitors, power meters and GPS devices. Members can then receive the 10% discount when they upgrade to the premium edition which features future planning, calendar sync, and enhanced reports. USA Cycling certified coaches can also qualify for discounts on the TrainingPeaks Professional Edition.

In addition to being a gold-level member benefits provider, TrainingPeaks is the official software supplier to USA Cycling’s National Development Programs. This gives USA Cycling coaches the ability to monitor and analyze athlete programs easily and efficiently through the web-based TrainingPeaks Professional Edition software, as well as through its WKO+ desktop software.

“TrainingPeaks gives our coaches the ability to oversee and manage the training programs and SRM power files of all our National Development Program athletes,” said Jim Miller, USA Cycling’s Vice President of Athletics. “Without TrainingPeaks, it would be impossible to manage all of our physiological data and training programs.”

USA Cycling’s coaching staff needs easy access to all athlete training and race data. The TrainingPeaks system provides a state-of-the-art communications link which allows data sharing between athletes, USA Cycling coaches, personal coaches, and medical staff.

“We are proud to have supported USA Cycling and their world class athletes such as Kristin Armstrong and Taylor Phinney and their coaches,” said Dirk Friel, co-founder and CMO of Peaksware, the producer of TrainingPeaks and WKO+ software. “Now we are excited to expand the level of support to the entire cycling community by offering discounted tools for training, nutrition, mapping and analyzing heart rate, GPS and power meter files.”

USA Cycling members can get started with a free basic personal edition of TrainingPeaks, or can take advantage of the 10% discount on the premium edition by clicking here.

Team Timex triathlete and doctor Alex McDonald noticed some pain in his hip while running about a year ago. After a few months, he went in for an MRI and discovered that he had a stress fracture in the neck of his femur, a serious injury that required him to stop running entirely. Read on to learn more from Alex about Team Timex and the importance of taking care of yourself!

“Last May I started to develop some pain in my hip while running and even walking, so I decided to take a week off… At the beginning of July I realized that something was very wrong.  After a couple visits to the doctor and an MRI, I discovered that I had a stress fracture in the neck of my femur, just below the hip joint.  To say the least, this was a pretty serious injury which required me to stop running for 8 weeks.  I was still training in the pool and to some extent on the bike, but nothing very intense.”

“After a 2 month ‘mid-season break’ I very gradually started running and doing other physical activities.  I continued working with a physical therapist throughout the process to alter some biomechanical issues that were the main reason for the injury. It was a very mentally frustrating process, but I knew the long term repercussions would be far worse if I tried to force myself too soon.  As a result, I spent the entire summer getting healthy and healing slowly.  Because of the length of time it took to heal, my coach and I decided that it was best to not race again in 2009 and give myself the whole off-season to properly heal and build back my fitness.”

Now fully recovered, Alex is working on getting back into racing. “At this point I am healthy and feeling very good.  It is only April so I am by no means in top fitness, but I am very happy with where I am given the off-season.  I started my season at California 70.3 in Oceanside which will be followed by New Orleans 70.3.  After that, the main focus for the first part of the year will be Ironman St. George in Utah; I’m really looking forward to the new race!  After that, things become a little less clear because the rest of the season depends on my race and results at St. George.”

His results at St. George aren’t the only factor adding uncertainty to Alex’s schedule this season! “My wife and I are expecting our first child in July, so that will certainly make things interesting in the middle of the summer.  I plan to see what happens and keep things flexible as far as my racing schedule.”

Alex plays a unique role on the Timex team as an athlete and a doctor, helping his team mates to realize when it might not be such a great idea to push through an injury of their own rather than take a break from training. “The Timex Multisport Team is full of extremely talented and intelligent individuals and everyone brings unique and valuable qualities to the team.  My professional experience as a physician, as well as my personal experience as a coach and athlete, places me at a unique crossroad between the sport and medicine worlds.  I am able to take concepts and ideas from one world and ‘translate,’ if you will, to help make them more accessible to the other.  I also work to help bridge the gap between the two mentalities.  For example, high-level athletes often want to push through discomfort or injury while a physician will often recommend that an athlete in this position stop training completely to let the injury heal properly.  This can create tension in the physician-athlete relationship.  I, however, am both an athlete and a physician and can wear either or both hats when required.”

Alex is able to apply his knowledge of both medicine and sports not only to Team Timex, but also to other teams outside of the triathlon world. “Furthermore, as a result of my position and education, I was invited to serve on the Timex Performance Center Advisory Board in collaboration with the New York Giants football team.  This has been another tremendous opportunity to act as a liaison between medicine and sports. I really enjoy my role as a Timex Multisport Team member, as well as being a part of the triathlon and fitness worlds.”

In addition to working with Team Timex and the New York Giants, Alex enjoys using TrainingPeaks to work with his coached athletes as well as with his own training. “As some say, ‘what gets measured, gets done.’  TrainingPeaks is an invaluable tool for an athlete, or an athlete’s coach to track and gauge fitness progress over a long period of time.  In addition to using it as the main line of communication with my athletes, I also use TrainingPeaks personally when I work with my own coach, especially since the program is compatible with the Timex Ironman Race Trainer and the new Timex Ironman Global Trainer.”

“There are a large variety of different tools and functions built into TrainingPeaks that help make this process fast, smooth and accurate.  Personally, I have been using TrainingPeaks for 4 seasons now and have an invaluable amount of data that I can refer to at any time to help guide my training and racing.  Additionally, because it is an Internet-based system I can easily update data from all over the world from any computer, no matter where I am training or racing.  This was especially helpful when my computer crashed last year and I lost all my data, but my training information was all sitting safely on the TrainingPeaks server, ready for me to download.”

Learn more about Alex and Team Timex on the team blog at teamtimex.timexblogs.com.

By Coach AJ, D3Multisport

For some it’s instantaneous, for others a long, drawn out affair. Either way, injuries can put your triathlon season on hold. Unfortunately injuries are a part of training and learning how to avoid them, and what to do if you are hurt can make the difference between a great season and what could have been.

Let’s start with the best way to treat an injury: avoidance. Injuries caused by accidents, a turned ankle or bike accident, can’t be helped, but others can. Pulled muscles are a much greater risk if you are dehydrated or not properly warmed up. Proper technique in the weight room and in the pool are critical to avoid over-stressing a joint or muscle. Piling on extra miles because it’s your first outdoor workout, or you “just felt good” may leave you stricken the next day. Consistent training requires you to listen to your body and do the little things properly in order to stay healthy. Preventive care is your first line of defense.

But just in case you couldn’t help it and tagged along with your buddies for an epic day and now you have a twinge in your calf, let’s discuss your options. First, you can do what many do and that is pretend it will just go away. This strategy has it’s roots in the belief that somehow your body is different and despite medical knowledge to the contrary, exercising the injury is actually good for you. I also call this the “Rocky Effect”. This strategy is further confirmation of the poor judgment that got you to this point. The better option is to pull back the training. No matter where you are in the season, this is a must. Continuing to train through the pain can often times lead to another injury. Your body will need to compensate in some way for the lack of fluid motion. That overload of stress can lead to another injury and create a new muscle firing pattern. When the knee hurts, your gait changes. When your gait changes new joint and muscles have to carry the load. That may lead to another issue.

Next you need to decide on treatment for the injury. For some, it may be a simple matter of resting. Other, usually more traumatic injuries will require outside treatment. Again, somehow this eludes many athletes. They worry about missing two or three days of workouts. The big picture is that if you don’t seek immediate help, your down time may double or triple. Even if you can get the workouts in the quality suffers and you are left with good numbers for your log, but no real training effect. A general rule I have for athletes and myself is that on the day I feel no pain and think I could get back into training, I take one more day. It is worth it to miss one more day of training in order to increase my chances of remaining healthy.

Some injuries are recurring no matter what. Those lingering issues we all deal with due to the nature of training. For some it’s a bad shoulder, for others it’s the knee. With these niggles and pains the goal is minimization. Over time you should learn what aggravates your condition, and what methods are best for treatment. With that knowledge you then need to make smart decisions. If you have a rest day coming up you may be able to get away with pushing the limit. On the other hand when you are in the middle of a large block of training you probably need to stay well within the envelope.

I hope that you never have to put this information in action, but the truth is that it is practically unavoidable. In triathlon, consistency is the key, and remaining healthy is the key to consistency. When stricken with an injury you need to make good decisions, be rational and you’ll get back to your training quickly.

Many qualified experts on training and nutrition use TrainingPeaks to help manage their business. Now, a select few are offering professional training and nutrition advice on our blog. The views expressed here are the opinions of the experts and as such do not represent the official position of TrainingPeaks. Read on to learn more about the expert, and submit a question of your own below!

About the author:

A.J. Johnson has been involved in triathlon for over 10 years. As an athlete he has finished 13 Ironman races, including 3 Ironman World Championships, been a USA Triathlon All American on 3 occassions and has an Ironman P.R. of 9:12. A.J. is a USA Triathlon Level 1 and USA Cycling Level 3 coach and has been working with D3 Multisport for 6 years. In those 6 years of coaching he has worked with athletes ranging from World Championship qualifiers to first time athletes. To find more information about A.J. or other D3 coaches visit www.d3multisport.com.

By Dirk Friel

Team HTC-Columbia’s Marco Pinotti had yet another strong finish at the Flèche Wallonne classic in Belgium on Wednesday, placing 28th, 32 seconds behind the winner Cadel Evans. Pinotti made it to the base of the infamous Mur de Huy, which includes 20-percent grades and averages 12 percent over one kilometer, with a group of nearly 60 riders vying for top podium positions.

For the third successive year, Pinotti has shared his power data collected from his SRM Power Meter and analyzed with TrainingPeaks software. You can see the 2008, 2009 and 2010 power data and analysis at the following links:

• 2010: Power Files
• 2009: Article – Power Files
• 2008: Article – Power Files

By Rob Lockey, CSCS

Our society is wrought with symbols of it to the point of worship. It is our sustenance, nourishment, fuel, energy, calories along with countless other words to describe it. Food. Call it whatever you want, but the revolution of production in the food industry has created a bounty like no other in history. With such an abundance of choice and ideas on how and when to consume it, many of us have lost a sense of what the basic purpose of it is: to provide health and energy.

I hesitate to open a dialogue about the world of diets…consuming this over that, this counts more than those count and eat this macronutrient over that macronutrient, but I offer yet another way to interact with food. Being an endurance coach, I get to see the deficits incurred in expenditure from workouts of many different clients. The one thing I have noticed most is the tendency to under-consume calories.

By journaling your consumption of foods over time, we can look at the relationship of food and the workout as well as the overall improvement over time. You don’t need to count calories or even change what you are eating at first. We want a snapshot of your current habits before changing any aspect of diet. Far too often athletes make a change without knowing where the change will take them, based on the fact that they don’t know where they are to begin with. Being diligent by keeping a record of what is eaten can assist in answering questions like, “How come I bonk after the 4 hour mark in a century ride?” Looking at the preparation before the century and the fuel consumed during the ride can give us a much overlooked place to find improvement.

Once you have a fairly accurate record of current eating habits, small changes can be applied to your diet so that your body will be able to better perform. When it comes down to fuel sources of fat, carbohydrates and protein, the macronutrients our body uses, we need to concentrate on certain percentages of these based on our body weight. Many times protein is over consumed, which is not a source that our bodies like to rely on, and carbohydrates are under consumed, which is a source we really need. So, shifting the percentage of the macronutrients that we eat can give us more energy that is ready to use for the work at hand. This plays big dividends when we discuss high intensity work and fueling of the muscles, a topic for another discussion.

Nutrition journaling is a tough job and finding a good resource to capture this data is very important. There are many ways to do this, such as keeping a notebook with you at all times to track food intake or using your planner to record the data on each day. These methods work well but leave the calculation to you, often the cause of not adhering to the goal. There are also web-based applications to record the nutrients, the better approach. These allow for a visual aspect as well as calculations being done for you. The application I prefer is TrainingPeaks. Their system is very robust, containing a huge library of foods, with the ability to create meal templates. Once you have a few days or more of food entered you can look at a daily calories pod which compares expenditure to consumption.

I feel that all endurance athletes can perform at a higher degree through the implementation of nutrition journaling. Stay away from fad diets and large deficits in eating while training by monitoring your intake against your outflow to create a better balance for improvement. This can be attained by consuming everything in moderation and the daily attention to understanding your consumption of the life sustaining substance we know and love as food.

Rob Lockey, CSCS, ACSM/HFS and a USA Cycling LII Certified Coach, provides testing and coaching through Optimize Endurance Services. Contact him at 303-356-9893 or rob@optimizeendurance.com

On Thursday, April 22 at 10am Mountain Time we will be hosting a 1-hour webinar focusing on how to best use your training device within TrainingPeaks.com. If you use a downloadable watch, bike computer, heart-rate monitor, GPS or power meter, you’ll want to be sure to attend.

We’ll cover:

• Easiest way to get data to TrainingPeaks.com
• How to “mark-up” a workout using WKO+ and send it to TrainingPeaks.com
• Bulk upload using Device Agent
• Reviewing Laps, Splits and Bests
• Deep dive into graphing and charting
• Configuring the Dashboard to visualize your fitness
• Saving routes
• Sharing your workouts on Twitter, Facebook or via Email

We’ll touch on many features related to getting the most out of your hardware when using our software.  It’s FREE and easy to sign-up, just follow the link below.

Register now: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/738295571

From 358lbs and 28% body fat to 170lbs and 12.8% body fat, Michael Gilliland’s journey to improved health and fitness has been truly epic. Read his inspiring story here.

As a child, Michael was not particularly inclined nor encouraged to participate in an active lifestyle. “Sports or other athletic endeavors had never been part of my life. As a child there was a short stint with Little League and the city swim classes, but that was the extent. Yes, there were the P.E. classes playing parachute and attempting the Presidents Physical Fitness tests, but those events were always geared to the physically active child and never addressed the child that was not physically active. These events and P.E. classes also never address how to become physically active and make it part of your life.”

This trend continued until one day he realized that he was having trouble seeing his feet when he tried to put on his shoes. “The realization that one has completely let themselves go is quite sobering. When I was trying to put my shoes on that morning, it was a sad moment. Why I had not realized it before I do not know. That day was no different than any other day in recent months. I was big and did the same thing that morning I did every morning. To this day I do not know what triggered the thoughts and realization of my then current state of health.”

Once the realization struck, Michael decided to do something. “The decision to become healthy actually was quite simple, but then came the physical part. Due to weighing 358lbs it was not in my best interest to do too much at first. Of course, I did put those sneakers on and go out for a run, but that run only lasted about 20 steps before my chest was heaving and I was done. It takes a lot of effort to get 358lbs moving, but also to get it to stop.”

The first big step that Michael took was to improve his nutrition. “After a few visits with my doctor and some advice from a nutritionist I invited friends over for a food party. Not a food party to eat but a food party to take all my food away. I completely cleaned out the cabinets, refrigerator and freezer so that I could start new with good foodstuffs – no prepared or preserved foods of any kind. Everything was fresh with lots of vegetables, fruits, and lots of protein. Specifically paying attention to the type of carbohydrates and quality of protein.”

Next, he started researching online to find out how best to approach improving his fitness. “My decision to buy a heart rate monitor was based on information from various websites. Even with that information I still did not know what to do with the data or how to train properly via one’s heart rate. All of the data looked great on the graphs with those pretty colors and lines moving across the computer screen, but what did it all mean? It wasn’t until about 2 years ago that I began to better understand the various methods of training (eg: Rate of Perceived Exertion – RPE or Heart Rate-based training). Now with a better understanding of Heart Rate-based training I feel I am more effective with my training and the goals of each training session. I am still learning and all of us should realize that learning is an everyday event.”

Finally, Michael found a coach. “I realized that while I could reach my goal with self-training to do well, train safe, and be the most effective I really needed an expert that could help me. This was when I decided to go with a coach. Finding my coach actually come from from online experience on Twitter. I had been talking with many runners and triathletes. It was via Brandon Wood (IronBrandon http://brandonsmarathon.com/) that I found Coach Jeff. Now with his expertise has my training truly begun to be training, with a well-designed program giving me the skills needed to be healthy, safe, and enjoy the events that I choose.”

Michael’s coach uses TrainingPeaks to manage his training, and he finds it to be a great system. “I cannot think of a feature that I do not like. I enjoy the ease of uploading data from my Garmin to the site, viewing the data and using it to interpret the effectiveness of a specific day’s training session. That along with tracking nutrition, data comparison and the interaction I receive from Coach Jeff Kline are very important.”

This is Michael’s first season participating in events. “This is my first year that I truly considered racing. So far I have two half-marathons and a full marathon on the schedule. Not many events when compared to others, but a great place to start for this late-bloomer…  Yet to schedule is a sprint triathlon. Still looking through all the available events to find one that I and my coach would work best with my current skill-set. It is hard to say what the future holds. My long term goal is to participate in one of the Ironman Triathlons. This would be a great testament to the fortitude and will one has in making lifelong changes to ones health and lifestyle.”

“Changing one’s lifestyle can be difficult. One must realize that it is lifestyle that needs to be changed. Diets do not work as one needs to change the mental and physical approach to health, as well as all aspects for a healthy lifestyle. Changes such as those I have made are never easy. Ask friends and family for help and support. These types of changes require a great commitment from one’s inner-self. My Road ID simply states, ‘I Run To Be.’ Live life well and enjoy all that is.”

Thanks for sharing your story, Michael, and happy training!

Peaksware has an immediate opening in our Lafayette, CO office for a Quality Assurance Software Tester to join our growing team.  We’re looking for an individual with excellent communication skills, strong exploratory testing skills, and the ability to plan and execute test sessions and test cases using a context-driven test approach. This is a full time position (40 hrs/wk).

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Manually test the functionality of our various web sites, web applications and desktop applications
• Dynamically adapt test approach to the context of each project
• Perform session-based exploratory testing
• Develop and execute test cases, document results
• Log clear, reproducible bug reports
• Advocate for bugs throughout the resolution process
• Work with the Test Lead and Project Manager to ensure timely testing coverage according to project schedules

QUALIFICATIONS:

• A detailed oriented and curious tester’s mindset
• 1-2 years software testing experience on desktop applications, web applications, and web sites
• Proven ability to follow direction, take ownership of assignments, and work well with others
• Proven ability to communicate with technical and non-technical people at various levels
• Proven ability to write clearly
• Strong critical thinking and problem solving skills
• Ability to manage multiple activities and projects at the same time
• Strong Windows and Internet knowledge (additional Mac OSX experience a plus)
• General computer/networking knowledge

THE IDEAL CANDIDATE WILL:

• be very computer savvy (but programming knowledge is not a requirement)
• be passionate about health, fitness, and endurance athletics
• posses great communication skills
• have prior experience with our software products (TrainingPeaks.com and TrainingPeaks WKO+)
• have prior experience with downloadable training devices (like heart rate monitors, GPS devices, and power meters)
• have a four year college degree (or equivalent professional experience)

Peaksware strives to develop software systems that help motivated individuals and professionals achieve health, fitness and peak performance. Our main products are TrainingPeaks.com (a web based system to monitor, analyze and plan training and fitness information for individuals, trainers and coaches), and TrainingPeaks WKO+ (a desktop based program that provides detailed analysis of downloadable training device data, from heart rate monitors, GPS devices, and power meters).

Apply today: Benefits include annual salary, full medical and dental insurance, 401k, and gym membership. If you are looking for a great atmosphere, fun people, and the ability to make a difference in the health and fitness of people everywhere, we want to talk with you. Send a cover letter, your resume, salary requirements and time-frame for starting to: hr-(at sign)-peaksware-dot-com. Plain text, PDF or MS Word format is ok.

UPDATE: This position has been filled.

This article was originally published in the American Council on Exercise’s (ACE’s) Get Fit blog. Visit the American Council on Exercise for free health and fitness information, and read on for an excerpt from the article below.

Contrary to popular belief, women aren’t the only ones with biological clocks. Everyone has them, and we all heed their ticking on a daily basis.

If you are a regular exerciser, you may have already determined your most productive time to exercise and follow a routine that works best for you.

On the other hand, if your exercise time varies from day to day, and it’s wearing you out instead of pumping you up, you may be interested in the work of scientists who are studying the proverbial internal clock and how to best determine what time of day you should schedule your workouts.

Rhythm: It’s Not Just for Dancing

The secret appears to lie in circadian rhythms, the daily cycles that the human body follows. These rhythms originate in the hypothalamus and regulate everything from body temperature and metabolism to blood pressure.
The rhythms result from the firing rate of neurons. They have conformed to the 24-hour light-to-dark cycle, and may be regulated and re-regulated each day according to the environment.

Warm Is Better

It is the influence of circadian rhythms on body temperature that seems to yield the most control over the quality of a workout. When body temperature is at its highest, your workouts will likely be more productive; when your temperature is low, chances are your exercise session may be less than optimal.

Body temperature is at its lowest about one to three hours before most of us wake up in the morning, in contrast to late afternoon when body temperature reaches its peak. (To determine your own circadian peak, refer to the box to the right.)

Studies have consistently shown that exercise during these late-in-the-day hours produces better performance and more power. Muscles are warm and more flexible, perceived exertion is low, reaction time is quicker, strength is at its peak and resting heart rate and blood pressure are low.

Read more in the full article

The Boston Marathon is less than a week away, and Australian runner Karen Barlow is well prepared and excited to race after her final tune up at the Carlsbad 5K last weekend.

“I had my last hit out on Sunday at the Carlsbad 5000 before the Boston Marathon next weekend. It has a reputation for being ‘The Fastest 5km Road Race in the World!’ 16 world records have been set over 5km on the road at Carlsbad. Unfortunately on Sunday the temperature was perfect but the ocean breeze was pretty stiff so no records were set.”

“I led out with 2 other girls for the first mile which was slightly downhill and into the headwind. I held my own over the second mile  being only slightly behind going up the hill so was pretty happy with myself.  I then made a break for it on the next downhill before the last turn.”

“I came out of the turn ahead and thought I had it in the bag…except I did not count on the two girls I had just dropped having other thoughts! Ha ha! Up the last hill one girl blew past me…and then to rub salt in the wound the other one got me on the downhill in a sprint finish to the line by 2 seconds! So I had to settle for third place in a time of 17.20.”

The Garmin splits showed that Karen ran a very even race, and you can view her file here:
Mile 1 =5.30
Mile 2 =5.29
Mile 3 =5.32
Final 0.15mile =5.21/mile ave pace.

Commenting on the differences between a 5K and a marathon, Karen remarked that although she may not have been the fastest to the line on Sunday, she felt well-prepared for Boston. “All my marathon training was not conducive to a fast finishing kick! No matter how much I willed my legs to go faster in the last 200 yards of the race they could not do it. The 5.21/mile pace I averaged over the closing stage was a lot faster than the marathon tempo runs I have been logging in practice. But I know that those 10mile tempo runs in training will get me over the line at the Boston Marathon next week!”

Karen qualified for Boston at the Rock ‘N Roll Marathon in New Orleans, which she won and really enjoyed. “It was a wonderful feeling winning in New Orleans! The city is a fantastic city to visit & I would highly recommend the New Orleans Rock ‘N Roll Mardi Gras Marathon as a great event for marathoners to participate in…especially as the course is completely flat! The bands along the course were great, the event was extremely well organized, and the people at New Orleans were so friendly! Visiting Bourbon Street after the race was definitely a highlight for me too!”

Get a training plan for a Rock ‘N Roll Marathon of your own here.

Her win in New Orleans was her second marathon win after her debut marathon in Melbourne in 2006. Right after racing in New Orleans, she started using TrainingPeaks to keep better track of her progress. “I started using Training Peaks after New Orleans to help me with my training and racing records. I am notoriously bad at keeping records of my training, but I am very good at writing my resting pulse on little sticky notes beside the bed…I am also often writing my sessions on scraps of paper & backs of envelopes…you get the picture -ha ha! So I really needed one place to log all my data that would help me keep an accurate record of what I do.”

“There are so many features of TrainingPeaks that I love that I don’t know where to start. I love that TrainingPeaks calculates how many miles I have logged for the week (simple but important). I love that TrainingPeaks tells me how many miles each pair of my shoes have done too! I can upload my Garmin files & TrainingPeaks automatically puts all the data into my diary for me. Using TrainingPeaks I am able to record my pre-run meal and it spits out all the nutrition data without me needing to look it up. All in all it is the coolest training diary I have ever had!”

For Boston, Karen is very focused on staying strong while running up the course’s notorious hills. “My goal for Boston is to get myself up and over the infamous Newton Hills…especially ‘Heartbreak Hill.’ I am definitely scared of the hills in Boston -ha ha! I will be really happy with myself if I can run a strong smart race. I feel like I am in good shape at the moment so Boston will be a great test for me.”

Looking past Boston, Karen is focused on qualifying for the London 2012 Olympics. “London is still a few years away and there are a lot of really super fast girls in Australia ranked ahead of me in the marathon. So my goal is to work hard over the next two years and see how much I can lower my marathon time. The qualifying time for London is sub 2.32min and my current best is 2.45. That is one very big challenge!”

Best of luck and happy training, Karen!

By Nell Stephenson, BS USC EXSC, ACSM H/FI

“Help! My wedding is only a few months away and I still can’t fit into my dress! What should I do?”

Does this sound familiar?  Many brides-to-be have found themselves just a few months (or weeks!) away from the big day and still not quite the size they wanted to be when they walk down the aisle.

Don’t do anything drastic, like trying to starve yourself skinny, swallow any funky diet pills or jump into a mega-volume workout regime if you’re starting from sedentary! Instead, follow these simple tips to get ready for your big day:

* Begin a workout routine, if you haven’t already, and incrementally increase your training volume and intensity (enlist the help of a qualified private trainer, if need be).

* Follow a healthy eating plan to get you safely and effectively to your goal weight.  Doing so will allow your body to adjust slowly, making for lasting changes that will stay with you well past your wedding day.

* Carefully determine which nutrition plan to follow, as so many options are available these days, some of which are ineffective to downright dangerous!  How about following a plan that is based on what humans were genetically programmed to eat?

Based on the principles of Paleolithic eating, Nell Stephenson’s Bride’s Guide will have you as toned and beautiful as you could ever have imagined for your big day!  Another nice side effect of this type of eating is that helps to reduce/eliminate acne and promote lovely, glowing skin.

All meals are balanced with regard to macronutrients, calorically balanced throughout the day, and contain a great variety of many different fruits, vegetables, lean proteins and healthy fats.  Preparation methods are included and time is of the essence, allowing this plan to fit easily into the busiest of schedules.

Nell Stephenson is happy to entertain questions about the Bride’s Guide, as well as any of her other plans, and custom nutritional counseling.  With over fifteen years as a nutritional counseling and private fitness training expert, and an endurance athlete herself, Nell offers a balanced, comprehensive approach to get clients to reach their goals, once and for all.

For more information, visit www.nellstephenson.com

Many qualified experts on training and nutrition use TrainingPeaks to help manage their business. Now, a select few are offering professional training and nutrition advice on our blog. The views expressed here are the opinions of the experts and as such do not represent the official position of TrainingPeaks. Read on to learn more about the expert, and submit a question of your own below!

About the expert: Nell Stephenson, personal fitness trainer, nutritional counselor, Paleolithic eating coach & athlete, graduated from University of Southern California In Los Angeles, with a BS in Exercise Science, and received her Health/Fitness Instructor Certification from the American College of Sports Medicine. Following graduation from USC, she attended culinary school to fine-tune her culinary preparation & presentation skills.

If you are a coach, trainer, dietitian or other professional that is managing a group of clients, you’ll want to be sure to use client categories to help make your life a little easier. Categories are a simple way to group clients together. For example, you might offer different service levels or packages like “Gold”, “Silver” and “Bronze”. Or perhaps it’s “monthly” or “one-on-one” clients.  It’s completely up to you in how you name your categories.

To get started, login to your Professional Edition account, click on “My Settings” and click the “Manage client categories” tab:

Once you have added a few categories, you’ll need to assign them to your clients. Just click into your client’s settings by clicking their name, then “user settings” and go to the “Account” tab. Here you can set their category:

Now, the benefits of categories will become clear. For example, when sorting your client list, you can “Sort by Category” which will lump each client into their categories on your listing, as shown below (category is highlighted for demonstration purposes):

Also, when sending private messages to clients, you can easily select all users within a category. Note that private messages will also send an actual email if the “receive email when I get a private message” option is enabled.  To access the private messaging system, click the “Messages” link at the top right of your account.

We hope you find these tips useful in your day to day coaching. Please stay tuned to the blog for regular usage and feature tips. If you have any suggestions on features or ideas that you’d like us to cover, please contact us at http://www.trainingpeaks.com/support.

Thanks for your continued support of TrainingPeaks!

The lottery for the New York City Marathon ended yesterday – did you get a spot? If so, make sure you’re well prepared on race day with one of the official training plans designed by Coach Andrew Kastor! Get started with your plan now and get ready for your best marathon yet.

For only $45 for a full marathon plan or $29.99 for the half, you won’t find a more affordable way to get so much daily advice from an expert. Combined with the tracking and analysis tools in your TrainingPeaks account, your motivation to train will increase dramatically! Get ready for a great experience on race day, and happy training!

Peaksware, LLC has an immediate opening in our Lafayette, CO office for a C# .NET Web Developer. We offer a small, relaxed environment in which to work on some great projects with other talented people for our industry pioneering applications. Benefits include flexible hours, working at home, vacation/sick time, health, and dental insurance.

Our main product is TrainingPeaks.com. We’re the industry leader when it comes to monitoring, analyzing and planning fitness and nutrition information. At Peaksware, we strive to develop software systems to help motivated individuals and professionals achieve health, fitness and peak performance.

Requirements:

- A degree in Computer Science or comparable experience (3+ years).

- A strong passion and thirst to keep up with new industry trends and standards.

- Ability to learn new things and grow in architectural design and coding capabilities is a must

- Candidate must be self-motivated and be ready to jump in today!

- Experience using Visual Studio 2008 for ASP.NET/C#

- Strong exposure to object oriented design and development is necessary (Java/C#)

- Experience with ASP.NET forms, object oriented C# libraries, and MVC highly desired.

- Capabilities with configuration of SQL Server and IIS a plus.

- Experience with third party or community based .NET frameworks like log4net, nunit, nhibernate, fluorineFX is a plus.

- Good understanding of database fundamentals, SQL Server and/or equivalent database experience is a plus

- Experience with w3 SOAP services as well as WCF a plus

- Interest in working in a Test Driven Development Environment

- Experience with version control systems such as VSS or SVN is a must

- Familiarity with concepts such as session persistence, URL rewriting, .ascx component design, third party component libraries like telerik, xceed is a big plus.

- Interest in fitness, running, cycling, triathlon or the outdoors is a strong plus

Apply today: If you are looking for a great atmosphere, fun people, interesting projects, and the ability to make a difference in the health and fitness of our customers, we want to talk with you. Start our application process here.

UPDATE: This position has been filled.

Question: Should I stop drinking alcohol the week before my race?

Answer: Considering the fact that urban legend has many a champion, including Floyd Landis and Greg Welch, imbibing before a break through performance, you actually have a great question.

While such performances have occasionally occurred after someone engaged in alcohol consumption, the culprit is probably just as much the increase in storage carbohydrate levels from the wheat or sugar in the booze as it is some magical performance-boosting element bestowed upon an athlete by alcohol.

For 4 weeks before any key race, I quit drinking more than one drink in a sitting.  Why? Excessive alcohol consumption not only decreases testosterone and increases cortisol levels (exactly the opposite of what you need for performance and recovery), but it can also reduce your ability to achieve higher intensities for 2-3 days following heavy consumption, disrupts deep sleep and growth hormone levels while you slumber, increases appetite cravings (imagine how french fries and pizza at 2am affects your power-to-weight ratio) and, depending on what you’re drinking (i.e. High sugar compounds like margarita mixes), contributes to a net acid load on the body, which is also highly non-conducive to recovery and performance.

So what is excessive or heavy alcohol consumption? Basically, anything that gives you a “buzz” should be avoided. So while a glass of red wine before bed a couple nights a week isn’t going to be a problem, avoid any big nights out on the town or beer driven benders until after you’ve finished your competition. Your body and your race time will thank you.

Best of luck,

Ben Greenfield
MS, CPT, CSCS, CISSN
President, Pacific Elite Fitness
Director of Sports Performance, Rock Star Triathlete Academy
http://www.pacificfit.net/bengreenfield.html
http://www.rockstartriathleteacademy.com

Many qualified experts on training and nutrition use TrainingPeaks to help manage their business. Now, a select few are offering professional training and nutrition advice on our blog. The views expressed here are the opinions of the experts and as such do not represent the official position of TrainingPeaks. Read on to learn more about the expert, and submit a question of your own below!

About the expert:

Ben Greenfield is recognized as one of the top fitness, triathlon, nutrition and metabolism experts in the nation. In 2008, he was voted as the Personal Trainer of the Year by the National Strength and Conditioning Association, an internationally recognized and respected certifying agency. Ben is Director of Sports Performance and oversees the physiology and biomechanics laboratory at Champions Sports Medicine in Spokane, WA, which offers metabolic-based weight loss, bicycle fitting, running gait analysis, swim stroke analysis, VO2 max testing, blood lactate testing, resting metabolic rate analysis, and other cutting-edge procedures for weight loss and performance.

Ben hosts the highly popular fitness, nutrition and wellness website at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com, which features blogs, podcasts, and product reviews from Ben. In addition to coaching and training for weight loss and sports performance at http://www.pacificfit.net, Ben serves as a business and marketing consultant to fitness professionals, and is the host of a weekly syndicated fitness business blog and podcast at http://www.trainfortopdollar.com. Ben also directs the Rock Star Triathlete Academy, the internet’s top school for learning the sport of triathlon and getting faster! E-mail: ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com

Ask a question of your own! If you have a question for the experts, submit it here either by emailing asktheexperts@peaksware.com or by posting it on our message boards. Your question could be featured in our next blog!

Peaksware, LLC today was named to Outside magazine’s third annual “Best Places to Work” list. Peaksware was ranked No. 38 out of 50 selected companies. The full list and related story will be published in the May issue of Outside magazine, available on newsstands April 13, 2010.

Outside’s “Best Places to Work” list was compiled with the help of the Outdoor Industry Association and Best Companies Group. The year-long selection process began with an outreach effort that identified a wide range of non-profit and for-profit organizations with at least 15 employees working in the United States. Participating companies were then sent confidential employee-satisfaction surveys and employer-questionnaires to collect information about benefits, compensation, policies, job satisfaction, environmental initiatives, and community outreach programs. All of the results were analyzed by Best Companies Group experts, who selected the 50 companies that strive to enhance their employees’ enjoyment of active endeavors, and environmental and social involvement.

“We are honored to be included in Outside Magazine’s prestigious list of excellent work environments,” said Donavon Guyot, Peaksware’s CEO. “We built Peaksware to be a place where we could naturally combine our professional pursuits with our personal passion for a healthy lifestyle. As we have grown, it only seemed natural to extend this opportunity to our entire staff and this award is validation of the fact that we seem to be on the right path.”

“These 50 companies come from a vast array of industries but they’re all following the same enlightened path,” said Michael Roberts, Executive Editor of Outside. “They’re successful businesses in a challenging economy precisely because they support a proper work-life balance. They know that benefits like on-site gyms and fitness classes, reimbursements for ski passes and sports racing fees, and support for community service efforts during work hours make their employees happier and thus more productive.”

This article was originally published in the American Council on Exercise’s (ACE’s) Get Fit blog. Visit the American Council on Exercise for free health and fitness information, and read on for an excerpt from the article below.

When you’re trying to lose weight, cutting out breakfast may be tempting. You figure you’re saving yourself some calories and you get a couple extra minutes to snooze. But research has consistently shown that the people who successfully lose weight are the ones that wake up and eat!

Furthermore, people who eat breakfast regularly have better vitamin and mineral status and eat fewer calories from fat. So it seems that breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.

Eat Early, Weigh Less Later

Why does eating breakfast help people lose weight? It defies common sense that eating all those calories in the morning instead of simply skipping them would help.

Many studies, in both adults and children, have shown that breakfast eaters tend to weigh less than breakfast skippers.

Why? One theory suggests that eating a healthy breakfast can reduce hunger throughout the day and help people make better food choices at other meals. While it might seem as though you could save calories by skipping breakfast, this is not an effective strategy. Typically, hunger gets the best of people who skip breakfast, and they eat more at lunch and throughout the day.

Another theory behind the breakfast–weight control link implies that eating breakfast is part of a healthy lifestyle that includes making wise food choices and balancing calories with exercise. For example, consider the successful weight losers followed by the National Weight Control Registry, all of whom have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least one year. Some 80% of the people in the Registry regularly eat breakfast (and also follow a calorie-controlled, low-fat diet).

It’s worth noting that most studies linking breakfast to weight control looked at a healthy breakfast containing protein and/or whole grains—not meals loaded with fat and calories.

Eating breakfast also gives you energy to do more physical activity and be more productive in everything you do, which is also vital to weight control. So make the effort to get up in the morning and fix yourself a healthy meal.

Maintaining Your Diet

Before you get too excited and go out for a Denny’s™ Grand Slam Breakfast, keep in mind that your breakfast should consist of healthy items that are in line with your current dietary weight-loss goals. Members of the National Weight Control Registry report eating cereal and fruit for breakfast. While these are certainly healthy options, eggs have also been shown to offer several benefits.

Read more in the full article.

The latest update to Device Agent 3.0 is now available, allowing direct compatibility with the Garmin Edge and Forerunner 305 and 205.

Upload your workout data directly to TrainingPeaks.com or WKO+ 3.0 without the need to download first to Garmin Training Center. Download the latest version of Device Agent 3.0 now.

The update to Device Agent also improves compatibility with Garmin Smart Recording so that the recorded data is as accurate as possible.

Along with these Garmin devices, the Device Agent 3.0 includes direct compatibility with a growing list of devices, including:

• CycleOps PowerTap
• Garmin Edge 205/305
• Garmin Edge 500
• Garmin Edge 605/705
• Garmin Forerunner 50
• Garmin Forerunner 60
• Garmin Forerunner 205/305
• Garmin Forerunner 310XT
• Garmin Forerunner 405
• Garmin Forerunner 405CX
• SRM Powercontrol V
• SRM Powercontrol VI
• SRM Powercontrol 7

It has been just about 1-1/2 months since we shut down the “classic” mode of TrainingPeaks.com, and we’ve just made it through our first development cycle without the burden of the legacy system. What does that mean? Well, we’ve gutted a lot of code under the covers, cleaned house and have really been taking direct action on new features and improving existing ones based on your feedback.

For example, you said that you had to go too many places to edit workout data (hr zones, cp values) so we brought all that information to the QuickView with new tabs where you can directly edit all values. Customizable of course, so if you don’t own a heart rate monitor or power meter, you don’t have to deal with information that isn’t relevant. You also said the left-side library “data grids” were difficult to see and hard to deal with.  So, we got rid of them entirely and now show information “stacked” in a “more details” and “fewer details” layout, greatly minimizing any need to ever scroll horizontally.  You also asked for more speed.  We dug in and we’ve made the initial load time about 25% faster. After you load the application once and your web browser caches the site, subsequent load times are under 10 seconds, often 5-7s in our testing. We also improved speed for copy/paste operations and fixed several bugs throughout the app. Many of the updates are refinements as opposed to completely new features, but we think you’ll appreciate them.

Here’s a  summary of what’s new:

QuickView

• Updated QuickView to allow editing of more data without having to go to the Detailed view.
• New tabs for the QV: HR & Power Zones, Critical Power, Stats. You can now choose which tabs you see and the order that they appear.
• Customize the tabs on your QuickView (click Options, configure this view while on QV)
• Improved the layout so you can see the title, type, date of the workout you are editing from any tab
• Now allows changing of workout type
• Uploaded files are now clickable and provides options for going directly to the graph view, recalculating workout metrics, deleting the file or downloading the file
• Attach documents on the QV by clicking the paper-clip
• Share workouts by email, Facebook or Twitter directly from the QV
• Changed wording of “view all details” button to “Reports, Maps & Graphs”

Dashboard:

• Pre-set date range picker for reports allows for fast viewing of charts and graphs. For example “last 28 days”, “this month”, “last month”, “this year” etc.

Workout Details View:

• Added workout type/date to Workout Details label so you can see the workout in view on all tabs
• Removed need for editing time in HR zones/power zones by allowing edit directly in QV

Calendar:

• One-step workout adding. Drag a workout or add it manually and go directly to the QuickView
• Fixed bug that prevented the pop-up for copy/paste from appearing or from appearing slowly.
• Significantly improved copy/paste speed

Left-side library:

• The classic workout library – Workouts (Classic), are now found under “Workout, Options button”.
• Completely revised the look of the left-hand libraries to show more information without having to horizontal scroll. Also using a “more details-fewer details” scheme for all libraries.
• Added distinct sorting options for the libraries
• People library – Now see “last planned workout” automatically updated and viewable directly without having to go to another screen

General improvements:

• Power zones are now stored per workout for improved historical accuracy and greater flexibility. This means all your historical zone labels, time in zone and zone range are stored permanently for every workout.
• Added a visual confirmation of the logged in user
• Added separate sections for Meals, Foods, VirtualCoach and ATP (Annual Training Plan)

Please let us know what you think by contacting us on our support site.  We are excited for the coming months and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on behind the  scenes. Stay tuned, as always, for more to come.

Thanks for your loyal support!

-The TrainingPeaks Team