It's killing me but..........

Steve_B

Then he should have announced that he wanted a warm-up before going into the hill. Fair is fair.

The guy sounds pretty clueless to begin with and possibly inexperienced at riding with others. If you can't handle 230 W for a decent amount of time, then >330 W isn't a warm up. It isn't even a "blow out". It's a shock to the system and not a very subtle way of opening up the body. Forgetting about the PM, I think any decent rider without a PM wouldn't be so dumb.

I have found that group tempo (or SST) rides don't work very well so I've stopped trying to do them. Forget about the fact that I am riding with racers at a similar level to me and not going any harder than the average power of sitting in during local training crit (without the major power excursions that make the latter much harder), you would think by the way they are complaining that you are trying to torture your ride partners. As another way of saying what you and KOP have said, people don't understand what an evenly dosed out effort is. Not even close.

daveryanwyoming

Actually the guy has ridden for many years and often with the Tuesday night hammerfest ride. I think it shows more than anything else how folks just don't understand steady pacing. They're accustomed to working much too hard uphill and then easing off way too much to try to recover and don't even know it. It made me wonder how many times I did similar things back in the day. HR and even RPE won't fully respond during a three to five minute climb but you can still dig a pretty deep hole in that much time and then think everyone is hammering much too hard after the hill when in fact they've eased off to a much steadier pace.

BTW, I'm with you on group Tempo and SST riding and do at least 90% of my training solo these days. Once in a while I'll train with a friend who's on the same page but it often doesn't work out so well. Training partners are great for sprints and L6 hammer days and I've done some interesting L5 work where we start with a big gap and take turns trying to chase each other down for 4 or 5 minutes at a shot but for the longer stuff I prefer to ride alone these days.

-Dave

Pendejo

All these stories underline why I gave up riding with others years ago. When you do, the majority of time you're either going faster than you want or slower than you want. Then you have the inevitable "testing" jousts. I'm quite content proving what I've got in a race. When I'm training I'm working, and I don't need any "help."

(Of course, the other day this did not stop me from slowing a training ride down to ten miles an hour so I could chat with a beautiful roller-blader I encountered on the bike path.)

Alex Simmons

The power meter can be a social wedge. One needs to bear that in mind for some athletes for whom the bunch is an intrinsic element of their motivation.

That's where training with power comes in.

What I do with such athletes is to show them how to ride with the bunch and get a good training session.


Back to me....

Not a great week. Had a good indoor session last Tuesday but my stump became quite sore the following day and I thought a couple of days off would help. But it stayed sore through the weekend and that hit my confidence and motivation. It reminded me of what happened after the first couple of months with my first prosthetic - good progress, then niggles, then going backwards as my ability to be physically active went out the window due to the pain associated with using the prosthetic. While I'm sure it's not like that this time, it doesn't help.

It feels a bit better today, so will really try to get back on the ergo tonight and see how it feels. That's the public declaration for accountability purposes

Really just hoping it's an adaptation thing and not a sign of trouble.

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frost

Heh, yes, this is so true and so funny. I have friends who have been cycling for 20 years, ex national level riders, who really do not have a glue. They push 400-500 watts to short hills and explain that they want to ride fluently not stopping to hills. Then 250-300 watts on the flats gets them complain that it's not a nice social ride anymore and why are we always pushing this hard.

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jD_Empath

I went on a 75-mile bike "tour" a few weeks ago with two other riders from the race club. It was a hilly ride so my intention was to keep a sane pace throughout and never get into "race pace".

One of our guys is young and strong, so he tended to hammer every hill that we encountered, and I (being the other climber) decided to keep up with him. My meter showed peaks around 330 watts for his climbing pace (later analysis showed that most of the hills had average watts around 250, but higher peaks). I was able to stay with him, but we ended up dropping our other friend, so it was better to wait at the tops. We picked up a fourth guy (very big and strong guy) along the way.

Once the hill section was done we had about 20 miles of flat headwind to get home through. We settled into a 4-man rotation of 1-minute pulls. This was the proof that all of the hill hammering was starting to take its toll. After a while I realized that our young buck wasn't pulling quite as long as he had been before. Perhaps even more interesting was that the big guy would surge ahead every time it was his turn and force us to accelerate in order to keep up with him. We would be going along at 23 or something, and then suddenly we are doing 25-26 for his pull. It was extremely tiring. I thought to myself "either this guy has no idea what he is doing or he is just much stronger than we are and thinks we are sandbagging"

At first it was like this, but then after a little while, his pulls got shorter and shorter, and then slower and slower, until someone said we had lost the guy off the back. I sat up and waited, slowing the group, and he rejoined us. We kept on going with a more reasonable pace for about 4 miles, but then he dropped off the back again, this time so far back that we just decided to keep going until the end. After all, we were just doing a steady non-race-pace, but it was enough to totally exhaust him after all of his surges had worn him out.

Post-ride analysis on this one was pretty interesting, to see the power sections of my pulls followed by a higher spike of power where I had to stand up and mash to catch the guy's surges, and then later, back to a more normal paceline pattern.

Felt_Rider

Based on what you guys are saying about these type of cyclist I can relate, but from the weaker side. My aspirations are to become a better club rider and I am riding with a gang that is just above my ability on most rides. Now that I have stepped my training up a notch I am also struggling more on the Saturday group ride because training through the week at a greater intensity is leaving me less than fresh for those rides. I can definately understand why guys at your level desire to train alone because there are things in group rides that can be frustrating, like longer stops changing flats or refueling at stores or having to slow the pace down for weaker riders like myself.

However, I feel I have been very fortunate to be accepted into the group that I have been riding with for the past 2 years. They have mentored me in many ways and yet they are not at the level of you guys. When it is my turn at the front someone may sit behind me and tell me if I am pulling too hard or too long. When my turn in the front is done I often get encouragement on my way back to the back with, "good pull." If we are riding in the North Georgia gaps I get a lot of coaching as to how to handle the extended climbs. So there may be some benefit to clueless riders if they fall in with the right group and if that rider is willing to listen and respect what the veteran riders are saying.

I understand why you guys want to train alone, but this past weekend I was grateful to be in a group when I flatted 50 miles into the ride. I ran over a piece of glass and while changing the tube I was unaware that the piece of glass was so large and I was feeling the inside of the tire when it cut my finger deeply. Blood was streaming out so fast, but two riders came back to check on me. I was very grateful for the help to finish to tube change because of the amount of blood streaming was quite messy. One of the riders was actually carrying bandages and antiseptic. Times like that make me happy to be in a group.

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Felt_Rider

I hope you can keep at it. That makes me wonder how the long distance amputee runners tolerate the pounding.

Just think of it this way. Your numbers starting back are higher than my numbers with constant training. Perhaps not that encouraging, but it all I have to offer.

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kopride

Alex,

This is going to be a challenge for you as an athlete. And as a scientist, you already know that it often is not something you can just work through. You might want to get your stump imaged by MRI. The newer MRIs can image things like edema and bursitis and differentiate them from just normal adaptation. See link below.

If it is not organic, then there are significant issues with pain perception by folks who lose their legs traumatically as opposed to non trauma (vascular or diabetes). Indeed, many trauma patients even experience increased sensitivity in their non amputated limb compared to non trauma. (I can send you the link if you are interested). Hopefully you are working with docs who are experienced in your type of patient population, i.e. trauma/athletes. In terms of prevelance, your group is relatively rare in developed western countries compared to the usual population of diabetics, vascular, cancer patients, where the actual surrounding tissue has already experienced dramatic sensory loss due to the underlying condition. Those patients have problems, but they are often quite different, i.e. the dramatic sensory loss leads to them being unaware of excess mechanical stress until after damage is done.

I get the sense that you are a "grin and bear it" type who might not be interested in dealing with a sports psychologist, but progress is generally not linear. There will be peaks and valleys as your body goes through dramatic adaptations. You have made tremendous progress in a remarkably short time without a sports orientated psychologist, so common sense might just say, stick with what is working, but there is a risk that sensitivity might cause you to overcompensate, or alter mechanics and cause real harm to your stump. There are biofeedback and other techniques to get your through these issues if it is not a true organic problem. Here are some interesting links if you are interested. (My interest in this topic comes from a different stance. My father (and many other family members) have a neuromuscular disease that involves dramatic sensory loss in the extremities and is involved in prosthetic and brace research. Fortunately it is X linked so I didn't get it.) The sensitivity issue is a huge obstacle for this patient population). Here are some links that might be interesting. Good luck and keep posting

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12736896?ordinalpos=15&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18569892?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

jsirabella

+1 on your assesment of the group ride.

In my case even when we were suppose to be doing a "team" group ride where these guys were suppose to work together. It just became a "hammerfest" where the newbies felt like crap for not being able to hold on and the better riders sometimes performed like crap that week at their races.

Too much ego involved and is why I love the PM! I just need to look at my fil at the end of the ride to know if I did well. Lately I have been wanting to hang on to wheels and see how long I can do it. Even if I loose a wheel, it does not bother me until I go home and check the file. I sometimes feel better about those efforts because they sometime become my new best efforts for that duration of time.

I do believe you need a bit more "arrogance" in this sport than others though. But that should be expressed on through your bike.

-js

jsirabella

I do not understand the amount of pain you are going through but as a simple minded person that I am woudl ask, "Do you take pain killers?" Can the doctor recommend even something like stronger advils or such to deal with the pain you are associating with the rides.

I find Docs to be either sympathtic to athletes or the attitude of "stop doing it". There is alot you can do with medicine and technology today.

I am always really impressed with the wheelchair racers. When I see them going up the hill at CP I sometimes slow down just to watch them do it. I do not want to bother so as soon as they notice I take off but that is amazing...

I was also really inspiried recently by the roumanian runner at 38 kick ass over the entire field of runners. When you look at her face she reminded me of a grandma but her body looked like a 20 year old.

-js

Felt_Rider

Excuse my ADD, but I have to throw in a word to kopride.
I was thinking about you and your style of training off the bike last night as I watched the Olympic guys on the rings. From a guy like myself always into to strength related sports those guys are in a different league of strength.

Amazing strength and muscular control
Every summer Olympics I sit in amazement

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kopride

Those guys are on a different planet in terms of strength. Rings are a great training tool for anyone interested in strength training. You don't need to start out trying to do an iron cross. Even basic dips and pull ups are more difficult on the rings, then doing them on static bars or stands. And throw out your cable pull machine compared to the flyes you can do on rings. I bought my rings for about 50 bucks and have them attached to a doorway pull up bar. For more radical moves, I hang them on my kids swingset. If I had only 200 bucks to my name. I would buy a doorway pullup bar, rings, and a 53 pound kettlebell

Here are great links.
http://www.beastskills.com/
http://gymnasticbodies.com/

I followed Coach Sommers progression training for the planche and front lever. Now I am working on a muscle up, which is the basic initial move on the rings, pull up over the bars into a static dip position. Talk about core strength.

I have to admit that it probably does not help my cycling much, other than weight control and core strength. But in terms of efficiency, again, a little goes a long way. And, like your experience with your recent weight loss, my wife is more apt to stay interested.

wiredued

Now that you are talking about core strength I would like to add FWIW that high enertia trainers might be counter productive to building core strength low enertia seems to build core strength. Not enough for gymnastics but enough to change the handle bar stem to somthing lower with longer reach.

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