First race in 25 years

Training and Performance Fundamentals
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I just completed my first race in 25 years. It was a 20 mile (32KM) hill climb.

Let’s just say I completed it and that was the accomplishment. I had a rough idea of how long it might take me based on similar training on another mountain the past month, then I had a “best case” time in mind. In the end it was just a little better than the how long I thought it would take. Overall I’m a bit disappointed but for where I’m at and what I’m dealing with, it’s a “win”.

I’m looking for some feedback from the forum and insight as to what might be going on. This has been a persistent problem since I got back into cycling in May '24.

Time to complete: 2 hours 50 mins
Avg power 197 watts.
Avg HR 175 with 2:11 spent in Zone 5 HR, above 172. (Intervals ICU says I set a new Threshold HR of 179) I spent a good part of the first 10 miles (16km) at over 180. The other roughly 40 mins were just below 170.
FTP of 270 in TD, but I set it to 255 based on Intervals ICU.
50 years old.
Weight 205 lbs (93kg) I’m 50 lbs (23kg) overweight, last time I was fit and in shape was 2020 and I was 165 lbs (75kg)
Target power was 210-220 watts which I did a good job of maintaining for the first half except for the initial start where everyone goes off too fast.

For the past 4 years I’ve averaged about 4 hours of sleep/night. It’s not that I don’t want to sleep more, it’s just since a Midnight shift I was on 4 years ago, my body just hasn’t reset back to a normal rhythm. No matter when I go to bed, it’s 4 hours and then WIDE AWAKE.

I’ve been to Drs with no resolution. I have good sleep hygiene etc.

I’ve been using Hexis live for the past month (synced with intervals.icu) and it’s helped with the fueling and I have started losing some of the weight. (Down 9 lbs/4kg in the past month). Hexis puts me at about a 200-450 daily deficit, so this isn’t even close to accounting for this amount of weight loss.

Aside from the obvious performance decreases due to chronic sleep deprivation and poor recovery, weight gain, hormone dysregulation, high A1C, my main question would be…

Hexis provides a fueling strategy during workouts, I followed it, in fact I went over slightly for this race, but about half way up the mountain I cracked, just like I did in training. Now I’m only doing Z2 power, but Z4/5 HR. Huge disconnect here I’m aware (this has been my problem the past year plus).

Does sleep deprivation and poor metabolic health cause the body to burn through fuel (carbs) faster during exercise? Is the efficiency massively skewed? Should I look to go even higher on the carb intake during training and racing going forward?

There’s a lot to unpack, and I may not have done a great job of filling in all the gaps of info needed.

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Cracking half way into the effort could be linked to fuelling, but it would be helpful to know more about your training.

How often were you doing nearly 3h workouts? If you look at your power curve (on intervals) how does the target power compare to the number on the curve?

Did you consider a negative split pacing plan when deciding how to approach the event?

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That ride looks like brutal. 2 hrs 50 minutes with 2 hrs 11 min spent in zone 5 HR to me says that you just went too hard.

Dave

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The race sounds great. Meaning you set a goal and you did it. It likely helped you keep your consistency up.

I have a lot of thoughts on what you have said. I am generally a good sleeper but if I break my pattern of sleeping good I get into a spiral that decreased sleep increases stress which decreases sleep… I have never been stuck at 4 hours for a long period of time. While AI hallucinates and gives a lot of bad advice, I think if you keep feeding in enough information and cross checking it can likely help you. I am guessing your sleep drugs were stronger but for me the weight lifters trick of ZMA really works. I feel great and it helps sleep but it takes a week or so before it starts taking effect. It seems hit or miss if it works for people or not. Unquestionably helps me when I need to break the pattern of poor sleep.

When you are not at optimum metabolic health and you are not sleeping well adding harder intensity efforts can make it worse. I would do everything possible to try to break the sleep/stress cycle. So that would including following Dr Maffetones advice. Read one of his books (or ask AI what Maffetone would suggest). And to answer your question, yes reduced metabolic health in general is connected with reduced fat burning. Turning yourself into a good fat burner via “zone 2” fasted rides or at least no pre-or during training ride carbs and many other tricks, should help turn you into a good fat burner and may help with sleep as well. The more fat you burn the less carbs you need, but if you are going above FTP efforts there is going to be a ton of carb burning in general.

I am happy to discuss as much of this as you want but personally I would read a Maffetone book and see if any of his advice can help.

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This one simply reply, probably makes all the difference. I read it before going to bed last night but was too tired to stay up. 4 hours later when I snapped awake, it all made sense. I had gone too hard, even if the power didn’t show it, the heart did.

Even in my “practice” sessions my HR was better under control. Chalk it up to race day jitters or the faster start or the caffeine. For where I’m at in my health with the poor sleep, I’m better off going based on HR rather than power. Even though much of what I read about training with power downplays the role of HR these days, for me it seems HR is still the standard.

Power is like the new shiny toy I got back in March and couldn’t stop paying attention to it thinking it was going to make the difference.

Intervals correctly identified my Threshold HR was set too low, so my true Zone 5 HR was above 180 bpm. So while my Wahoo said I was in Zone 5 HR for over 2 hours, we all know that’s impossible.

I have a huge uncoupling problem with power and HR that likely all comes down to the lack of sleep. It’s frustrating and I’ve been grasping at straws anywhere to help me solve the problem.

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I have tried ZMA for months at a time, with no benefit. The only med I was Rx’d, I reluctantly took for a few months but had little effect other than to cause blurry vision. His response was to up the dose, I took the first pill at a higher dose and nearly went blind. I never took it again.

Prior to getting back into cycling in May '24, I had spent nearly a decade on low carb/keto. The first several months of riding up until October of '24 I was trying to lose the weight and riding on low carb. My legs were constantly sore, especially after the long Z2 4-5 hour rides and it would last for days. Back then it was ALL Zone 2 as I am a big believer in Maffetone’s work after reading up on it.

The weight never really came down and I was obviously not adapting to the training much. I don’t remember exactly when, but I decided to go out on a long ride in October I think and took a bunch of carbs. I was absolutely blown away by how much faster I went and how much better I felt.

25 years ago I would routinely go out on 5-6 hour rides fasted and have nothing more than a couple bottles of water and a handful of almonds. That’s just how we did it back in the late 90’s and early 2000s. I’d do a 100 mile stage of a stage race and have nothing but water and a single banana along the way and somehow still be able to get in the breakaway or mix it up at the end. But I think we all pretty much did that in those days, we just didn’t know any better.

I no longer do fasted rides or don’t take carbs on the rides. Based on what I’ve learned, doing so is only contributing to the stress on the body and given the lack of sleep, I don’t need anymore stress on the body. Also, since I’ve gone back to a higher carb lifestyle, I haven’t been sick since December of '24. The wife and kids have all had several colds etc but somehow, even with the stress of training and not sleeping, I’ve managed to stay healthy.

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I think you put an amazing effort into this. 2 hrs 55 minutes at that hard of a pace is incredible.

I think you should be really proud of yourself that you were able to dig that deep. I think there’s a lot of people that wouldn’t be willing to work that hard.

I feel like I’m constantly posting Dr Seiler stuff here, but what says about load/stress/strain makes a lot of sense:

The TL:DR is:

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Dave

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I have parallels to your life and experience. Also not a fan of keto (tried it but much shorter duration than you). I am a high fiber, more whole foods believer and don’t get sick even though others in the house do. I feel healthy and feel optimum about 5kg less than now (more might be better). My struggle is always getting extremely busy and year round consistency.

I responded and realized I did not finish reading what you wrote. You know all about Maffetone and Zone 2 benefits. I still believe you might benefit from small aspects of of it, meaning small steps in trying to get your body better at burning fat, maybe it’s fine now. I gave the typical response to someone that feels like they have metabolic issues, but sounds like you have tried a lot. Meditation? Yoga? :slight_smile:

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I should say obviously Dave picked up on what you really care about, race performance and I saw 4-hours of sleep + metabolic issues and red lights start going off… I agree completely with everything Dave is saying and think it’s incredible you went so hard.

You said average power was 197, what was normalized power? Normalized power is a better indicator of stress than average.

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Hi LunethG,

What a great race. I say: well done. I don’t understand why you are not happy with the result when it’s better than you expected!?

A few things I’ve noticed. Why would you change your ftp? Intervals FTP is usually lower because it adjusts it based on different training sessions where you are not trying to improve ftp as a goal. A lower ftp might mean that your training wasn’t as sharp as it could have been.

Second, it is only logical that you crash. Racing to the max and being in a deficit can not happen at the same time. Your glycogen stores are lower than they should be for racing.

Finally, the lack of sleep doesn’t help. I think that should be a priority to sort that out. It sucks when you go to a doctor and that doesn’t help. Maybe too simple, but have you tried to sleep in two sessions?
So go to bed early, sleep for 4 hours, get up, do something, and do another set of 4 hours.

I hope you figure that out.

Have fun, Coach Robert

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Normalized power was 205. So not significantly different I don’t think. It was a rolling start too and I’m not exactly sure when the “gun” went off as I was near the back based on age category so when I hit the start on the head unit it was probably late and we were already surging.

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Hi Robert,

I think it’s because I suffer from what I’d call “Uncle Rico Syndrome” You know if coach has just put me in we could’ve won State, I can throw a football over those mountains.

25 years ago I finished 5th overall in this race in 1 hour 36 mins. So it’s hard to shake that out of my head. Yes I’m not 25 anymore and a lot has happened since then in life but I think a lot of us who enjoyed some success still have this belief in our heads that we can do it or should be able to do it. It’s not rational of course, but it’s part of what drives us and makes us never quit or give in.

As for glycogen depletion, I’ve been using the Hexis Live app. It’s pretty remarkable. It syncs with Training Peaks or Intervals and looks at your calendar of training, takes into account your bio metric data and either uses an algorithm or AI (not sure which) to plan your fueling. Breaks down your macros for each meal. You can tweak it and once you complete a workout it syncs and will adjust based on the data. I marked the race as a competition and though I am in a deficit, it ramps up the intake based on the info. I ate a TON of calories and carbs the latter half of 2 days before, the day before and the morning of. The day before it had me at a 1300+ calorie surplus, so knowing this going into the race I actually had even more confidence on race day as all the other training sessions had been performed at a small deficit.

For sleep, 2 sessions would be great, but not practical. I’m an older dad with 2 younger kids. They go to bed around 730-8 pm and my wife and I shortly thereafter. So by 8-830 I"m out. By 1230-1 AM I’m wide awake, “rested” and though no thoughts run through my head I simply can’t fall back to sleep. If I don’t get up and ride or do something else, I tend to get cold (body signal I’m going to fall asleep) around 330-4 AM. The problem is I get up at 430 to get ready for work. My “weekends” are during the week so my wife and kids get up at 530 AM to get ready for school, so even if I do fall back to sleep on my “weekend” its not more than an hour of additional sleep as there i no one I know who could sleep through my kids getting into it with each other :roll_eyes: every morning.

Regarding FTP, I have come to realize that while I get an FTP in the TD app via the ramp test, it over estimates my actual FTP and rather what Intervals tends to come up with is some thing that is pretty close to what I can sustain. I think it has something to do with a pretty strong anaerobic component that I’m capable to contributing to the test. On intervals my 1 minute and below power is near the top of my age category and I don’t even train it.

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Oh yes I was 50 with twin 2 year olds… sleep was destroyed for a few years… And these days once I am up, I am up… my only hope is getting to bed earlier.

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You’re not alone. The ramp test increments are too fast in my opinion.

Try a slower ramp rate. 6% still over-estimates for me, but not as bad.

Dave

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One more thing worth sharing, Dr Andrew Coggan who invented the concept of FTP has never actually done a test specifically to determine his FTP as he felt it took valuable time away from training.
He gave a guide though on how to figure it out though.

Ways of determining your functional threshold power (roughly in order of increasing certainty):

1. from inspection of a ride file.
2. from power distribution profile from multiple rides.
3. from blood lactate measurements (better or worse, depending on how it is done).
4. based on normalized power from a hard ~1 h race.
5. using critical power testing and analysis.
6. from the power that you can routinely generate during long intervals done in training.
7. from the average power during a ~1 h TT (the best predictor of performance is performance itself).

Not many people seem to like the idea of the long time trial, but it I don’t think it hurts quite as bad as people imagine. It probably hurts a heck of a lot less than a LunethG hill climb race! :slight_smile: just kidding of course…

Mine’s not that great, but I completed it and found 45 minutes is plenty for a recreational cyclist / weekend warrior type.

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Dave

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I also know exactly how you feel that at 59, I still think I can get back to the 25 year old version of me :slight_smile: Lucky for me I never did races and don’t even live in the same country so I can’t compare other than the scale… No power meter data… But I know what it felt like, and I am not there yet.

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I just don’t think it is that important to have precise FTP (measuring progress can be inspirational and motivate people though) and even Coggan’s definition is 40-60 minutes and 40 minute power can be noticeably different than 60 minutes and many like to swap CP for FTP and CP is closer to 20 minutes and frequently closer to a ramp test results.

Each person can handle training at a specific % of FTP differently and so many ways to calculate that you just have to define why you need to know your FTP. If you are trying to do long sustained intervals or efforts at FTP then it better be closer to actual 60 minute normalized power. If you are trying to do VO2max then W’ plays a factor too… Just monitoring progress a ramp test is reasonable.

I suggest just keeping it simple, just pick a method you prefer and try to understand how your body works with that method/estimate. Ramp tests or eFTP like intervals (as long as you are going to failure periodically) are fine methods… With ramp tests and training you might want to round down especially if you tend to have some strength or extra weight.

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I’ve got a 40k mostly flat out and back TT this weekend. Assuming I pace it well, I should get an accurate FTP. Based on last week, I’m inclined to pay more attention to the HR than the power. I’ll have both up on the head unit to measure the effort as I go. I ran the course through Best Bike Split and it tells me the best pacing strategy is to go out hard at FTP and try to hang on as the out portion is the slight drag uphill.

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Dave,

is this an automatic ramp test? I’m intrigued by this and was thinking about doing one a few days before my upcoming 40K TT to get a better idea of what I should shoot for.

I think Alex once replied to a test I created that included a 20 min MAF test at the front and then went into the TD Ramp. I think he said as long as the word “automatic” was in the title of it, it would auto calculate the FTP.

Maybe Alex can clarify.

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Yes, I recommend ERG mode. The ramp rate is slower at just 6%. It reduces anaerobic contribution.

Ramp needs to be in the name to go to automatic cool down and FTP calculation.

Dave