2006 Performance Manager above

2005 Performance Manager

2004 Performance Manager

The last few races of the year are just around the corner and au revoir to serious training for a while. This weekend I'm racing the CO state road race chanpionship in Grand Junction, next weekend is Gore Pass RR, and then next weekend is the Parker Omnium (7mile TT, 100m RR, criterium).

I've pasted in my WKO+ Performance Manager charts for 2006, 2005 and 2004 seasons. The biggest thing to take note of is I am currently sitting at a chronic training load (CTL) of 80 and this is a good 30 points higher than any point in the last two years. You can see how it has risen steadily all season long. Now of course a CTL of 80 is not that high when it comes to training for pro/1 level road racing, but 80 for me now is a huge accomplishment when trying to manage work and family life. Most of my week's end up being 10-12 hrs of training and I have a few 14 and 15hr weeks recently which has pushed things up. I'd say the majority of national level elite riders are training up near a CTL of 120.

One of the thing's I'm pretty happy with at this time of the season is my training stress balance (TSB) is up to 1.4 as of today. Now with some good easy rides and a pit of intensity next week I should going well for the last two race weekends of the year. I'm also hoping som new critical power records can be set in the coming weeks once get some freshness back.

I hope everyone's training is going to plan. Make the most of what's left in 2006!

Dirk

2006 Boulder County Business Report IQ Awards
Last night Jani, Donavon, Gear and I attended the IQ Awards show at the University of Colorado's Stadium Club. This was a great opportunity to network and meet other innovative companies within Boulder County. We even met some of TrainingPeaks customers who use our tools daily.

One of the great surprises was to run into triathlon superstars Nicole and Tim DeBoom. Nicole and Tim who were on hand representing Nicole's clothing company Skirt Sports ( http://www.skirtsports.com/). Nicole even took home the top honor within the sports and outdoor category.

Tim had just returned from a Tri-Dubai training camp in Kona. I can't imagine how hot it is over there training now in that Hawaiin sun. It is hard enough being a spectator on race day in that heat and humidity. It is certainly the opposite of training in Colorado's dry altitude heat.

TrainingPeaks next big focus is preparing for Interbike trade show where we will have our own booth this year for the first time. I can't wait to just hang out and talk training tech for three days and nights in Vegas.

Ciao
Dirk

Chronicles of a bike racer
Here is another rider's perspective on bike fitting at BCSM. Tim Gresh made the trek out from PA. and posted his test results for all to see.

VeloNews: The Journal of Competitive Cycling
Check out Cesar's bike fit videos at Velonews.com. By the way today was the time trial stage in the Tour of Utah and Cesar's new TT position rocked. He placed 9th and lost minimal time to the top guys. (see results at http://www.tourofutah.com/results.html) His old position and bike fitting process are shown within the videos at Velonew.com.

The exciting thing is we just changed his TT position last week and already saw hige improvements. Cesar has another six months to go (Most likely in Malaysia in February) until his next time trial, so he can certainly improve even more between now and then.

The mountain stages statr tomorrow in Utah so the real action is yet to come for the final classification.

Ciao
Dirk

Tour of Utah Navigators win stage 1 -- Cesar 4th
I just got off the phone with Cesar after he finished the first stage of the Tour of Utah and he finished 4th with his Navigators teammate Sergey Lagutin wining the stage. This is a perfect start to the Tour for Cesar and last Thursday's motor pacing session with Tyler, Greg Henderson and Chuck Coyle must have really paid off in today's sprint finish.

It is actually amazing how well Cesar does in the sprints. If you take a look at the Tour of Langkawi and Tour of Georgia stage finishes Cesar was consistently right around 10th in the sprints. In fact I think I remember Floyd finishing right on Cesar's wheel in the sprint stages in GA this year.

I told Cesar to save as much energy as possible in tomorrow's flat stage just like he did today. His tactic of finishing top 10 in the sprint is a safe guard against losing any time in the opening stages. This could be crucial as it comes down to the short time trial (7-miles) day.

Now that Cesar is gone out of my place I've also taken advantage of the Colorado Altitude Tent he was using for the last three weeks in my basement. I slept in it for the first time last night at an oxygen saturation of 15.5%, which equates to about 13,500ft. I guess I did feel more stressed during my sleep and may not have slept as deep as usual, but it was my first night and I'll see how it goes the next few nights.

Yesterday I raced the Bannock street criterium in Denver. I made it into a 7-man break with two Health Net including Greg Henderson, two Tiaa-Cref riders including my ex-teammate Chad Hartley, a 5280 rider and my teammate Christian McCarthy. With about 20 minutes to go in the race Hendy attached and luckily I had my teammate Christian right on his wheel. This move split our group and I was left out with Chad and the other Health Net rider. We were eventually reabsorbed by the main group and the lead four stayed away.

Greg Henderson won, the 5280 young rider was 2nd and my Vitamin Cottage teammate Christian was 3rd. My other teammate Alan McCormack (age 50!!!) was 7th, I was 12th and I had another teammate Jon Baker in 14th.

This week we have no local races and then it picks up again with; Longmont criterium, Carter Lake RR (CO State RR champ's), Grand Junstion RR, Gore Pass RR and then the final NRC race of the year in Parker CO (a 3-day omnium).

Lots of racing left. Can't wait.
Ciao
Dirk

Cesar's Bike fit at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine

The photos show Andy Pruitt being interviewed by Neal Rogers and Andy Pemberton of Velonews TV. Cesar being interviewed, and then Cesar on his time trial bike with the reflective sensors used in the 3-D imaging.

This week we went to the BCSM to meet with Todd Carver and Andy Pruitt to get feedback on Cesar Grajale's bike position. This is a tough time of year to conduct a bike fit as Cesar, and most riders, still have important races to compete in. Making changes during the season isn;t always advised but we wanted to take advantage of Cesar's trip to Boulder and set up a consultation with the local experts.

Andy determined that Cesar is tight in the hamstrings and gets the majority of his reach to the bars from bending his upper back (this isn't too hard to see with the naked eye). Cesar's pelvis tends to also tilt to the right so his right hip is slightly in front of his left hip. Another finding which was no surprise to Cesar was that he tends to collapse his heals and arches in and this is evidenced by Cesar's heals hitting the frame as he pedals. There are even marks of Cesar's bikes which show where his heals hit the frame.

Cesar's time trial position was dramatically changed because he was way too far forward which reduced the amount he could utilize his larger butt and lower back muscles. He was rotated so far forward that his plum line from his knee landed well in font of his toes.

Pruitt added wedges to his shoes just under his cleats to add more support and lessen his heal rotation inward. Cesar imediately loved the feel of this slight change and even motorpaced the next day and said it helped him a ton.

The next move is to allow cesar to finsih out his season and then make more dramatic changes to his bike fit this fall when he has lowered intensity and volume. I suspect we will raise his saddle a bit and pull him back in his position to a lesser degree than we did on the TT bike. Cesar will also need to spend time with physical therapist to get more feedback on what exercises are good for his tight lower back, hips and hamstrings. He just started stretching last winter and lifting more so he still has quit a ways to go.

The exciting part is he has a great deal of improvemnt to go and yet he has amazing results right now. i can;t wait to see how fast he is in 2007 and beyond.

Ciao
DF