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Race 2018 race schedule

andywood

Maximum Pace
Apr 8, 2008
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Here's what I'm thinking of for a racing calendar this year:

January

  • 27th Time Trial Japan 2nd stage
February

March

  • 10th Time Trial Japan 3rd stage & Tokyo Enduro
April

  • 15th Sun - Gunma JCRC

  • 28th Sat - Moniwa TT
May

  • Time Trial Japan 4th stage

  • ?? Tokyo〜Itoigawa 300km

  • 23 Wed - Yamanashi Road Race - Hour Record Challenge

  • 27th Sun - Niigata Championship road race
June

  • 24th Sun - Uchinada TT 10 km & RR

  • ?? Gururin 210 km RR
July

  • Time Trial Japan 5th stage

  • ?? 7,8th Niseko TT & RR

  • ?? 22nd Sun - JCRC Gunma CSC
August

  • Jyonnobi Marathon 110 km
September

  • 2nd Sun - Kurobe TT & HC

  • 8th Sun - Time Trial Japan Final 6th stage & Fuji Speedway 200 km
October

  • JCRC Gunma CSC
If you are interested in any of these races, give me a shout!

Andy

www.jyonnobitime.com/time
 
I want to do the Niseko Classic but getting to Hokkaido with a car and bikes will be soooo expensive. And I don't really want to fly.

I actually did the Moniwa TT last year. It was fun. Seems like a long way to drive for such a short race, though.

Edit: Oh, right, you're in Niigata. I didn't even know there was a Niigata championship...
 
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I sent you a message re: Niseko.

Any tips for Moniwa? The out leg looks down and fast in places so I'm going to use a 55 chainring.

Not so far for us. My kids will enter too which makes the drive worth it.

Re: Niigata, all prefectures have a championships. It can be used as a ticket to the Japanese national championships (if you are Japanese).

Andy

https://www.facebook.com/pg/biketrainingandracinginjapan/posts/

www.jyonnobitime.com/time
 
To the best of my memory it starts uphill slightly, then is reasonably flat (fairly slight rolling, very scenic) before a downhill turn-around, and then you have to go back up that hill. The finish is downhill and quite fast, so it might be a good idea to go with a big gear (I did it on a compact, but I was so tired at the end that a 55 would have been overkill).

The whole course is only like 8 KM, I think.
 
So since getting back in to cycling after way too many years off it - I love love love the work I was doing but 60-70 hour work weeks definitely came at a price - I've managed to get back to 2.3 w/kg, from 1.4 (that's not a typo) last November. That's what happens when you boost your FTP by 40% while losing 15kg. Obviously the next 40% increase in FTP will be, er, slightly harder. Actually debatable if I would get there, as that'd put me at about 300 but I turn 50 in a week or two.

But I don't think I'm quite in race territory yet, and it's been so long since I've ridden in a group I probably need to do a couple of beginner races and such if possible (although I suppose the downside is the beginner races are sketchier than ones with more experienced riders...).

I'm starting to suspect it might be prudent to just chalk this year up as one big long base training year and start racing in earnest next year. But if anyone knows of any good 'beginner' race events in the kanto area let me know.
 
Yeah, I need to lose another 50 pounds and add another 50 watts, but now is as good a time as ever to at least do some races.
 
Hey @WattsUp - your watts are truly going up!

Well done on that increase. I started back in October and only lost 3.5kg but I think that is more normal! 15kg - nice going man. Anyway - posted on a different thread that I'm kinda/sorta/interested in unhanging my old racing boots and trying something out again. I'm kind of in the same boat as you. On the lookout for something I can test the waters with not too far from Tokyo just to get the feel of things again. Am thinking of a hill climb like Oktama perhaps.

- OKUTAMA Stage
race date: 2018年7月29日(日)
entry period: 4月21日(土)- 6月20日(水)
segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/4895516
 
Well, a 40% increase from a really small number is still a small number <g>

I'm still a fat ol' git so not sure a hill climb suits me all that much...
 
On a tangentially related point, I did my first FTP test last night after putting it off for two months. Man, that is hard. While the actual average I put out for 20 minutes was actually exactly the same as the number I have been using to set my power zones (for training purposes), my estimated FTP ended up being 15 watts lower.... Sha-nai. I might still end up actually bumping this number up because the workouts could afford to be a we bit harder.

My power for the first five minutes was respectable, but in the second half I found it took too much concentration to put out my target power. I guess I need to do more TT efforts (2x15s and 20s?) and learn how to suffer.

Power to weight would be respectable... if I dropped 22 kg.
 
FTP tests are -hard- obviously they're tough physically (shut up legs!) but mentally as well - most (but not all) of my best 20-mn efforts have been in Zwift races.
You'll find that FTP test taking is a bit of a skill; takes some practice to really get the pacing down.
Takes most people 3-4 times to really get the hang of it. My hunch is that you may have gone out a bit too hard for the first five minutes?

TrainerRoad has a new ramp test that they're testing out in their beta program that basically condenses the pain and suffering into a shorter window, but the results so far have been very close to the FTP results I get from a 'traditional' 20-minute test.
There are other test methods out there - 8 minutes, 12 minutes etc. But I think extending the time we can suffer at a given power number is just as important as raising that given power number itself, so when possible try to do the 20-minute version, as painful as it is...
 
Well, I did the long Zwift FTP test, which made me do 5 minutes at 275 (before a 10 minute Z1 rest), which wasn't that bad, so I figured I'd be able to hold it for 20 minutes with a bit of motivation. However, after 10 minutes, my legs weren't able to hold that wattage without a significant amount of SHUT UP LEGS/LUNGS/HEART.

OTOH, I'm not totally sure what my max HR is, and I suspect I had a bit left in the tank until the last five (I basically coasted across the finish because I was DONE). I probably could have gone harder in the first 10, if anything... I need to learn to get comfortable being uncomfortable around my max HR.

Actually, one of the reasons I had been avoided doing an FTP test was because I didn't want to take a day off from training. LOL. But I took two days off to let a saddle sore heal.... but I did some running and other work that left me quite sore, and I may not have been 100%. Oh well.

Given how tough the last 4-5 minutes were, I suspect my real hour-power is a lot lower. But that's part of being a trained athlete I suppose. Suffering.
 
If you are using a training plan that creates workouts based on your FTP and you artificially increase the number and work at higher power zone you will not get the benefits the workouts are designed to give.

FTP tests do take getting used to as @WattsUp says but in that sense a person can also get used to them and become "good" at them so that is why both TrainerRoad and The Sufferfest have rocked the boat recently devising new FTP protocols that they believe give a truer representation of a person's ability. From these new tests, workouts are tweaked even more specifically for directed improvements of targeted weaknesses or bettering of strengths.

They advise 3 days off or greatly reduced workload before a test if I'm not mistaken.
 
I know, but the works outs feel too easy now. I basically set it to what felt reasonable at the time, although I almost think it's time to increase the difficulty a bit.

I had two days off the bike but I did some running and training two days earlier so I was a little sore. Maybe I should try again in a few weeks...
 
But that's the thing. In a comprehensive plan some workouts will be easy because they are meant to be. Not every workout in a training schedule is meant to test you. If that was the case there would be no time or room for adaptation of the improvements.
If you are picking workouts randomly and not finding any at all challenging then you may have a point.
I speak from experience. I upped my FTP and paid for it eventually. The workouts were more of a challenge but I was left run down and burnt out, tired with nothing to show for the effort.
 
I would argue that even though a comprehensive plan may have been carefully planned by whoever designed it, they aren't perfect.

A lot of them are probably based more on intuition and theory than hard scientific fact.

They might not have been all that well thought-out. They also weren't designed with a specific person's power profile in mind, or even a specific FTP (they are all scaled based on percentages of FTP).

So it stands to reason that you might want to adjust the difficulty a bit (in my case, it ended up being about 15 watts from my tested FTP). Especially since I have decent 5-30 second power but fairly woeful 10+ minute power (might have a narrow windpipe or something), and very few of the intervals in the plan are longer than 8 minutes or so.

Now, if I was paying $$$$$ for individualized plans from an experienced coach, you can bet your bottom dollar I would do whatever they told me to do.
 
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@baribari - I'm not using it (I'm using TrainerRoad with % based FTPs) but checkout Sufferfest. They have a full frontal test now which measures your 5s power, 1m power, 5m power and 20m power. They call this 4DP. Then their app bases the workouts on those different power wattages rather than being based solely on FTP. I did it for the tour of sufferlandria this year and it was really hard. I'm not using it currently as they don't really have comprehensive plans like TR and the app didn't work with my speed sensor. Will try again when they fix that. I think it is quite affective although I find the percentages for TR also work pretty well for me.
 
@baribari - I'm not using it (I'm using TrainerRoad with % based FTPs) but checkout Sufferfest. They have a full frontal test now which measures your 5s power, 1m power, 5m power and 20m power. They call this 4DP. Then their app bases the workouts on those different power wattages rather than being based solely on FTP. I did it for the tour of sufferlandria this year and it was really hard. I'm not using it currently as they don't really have comprehensive plans like TR and the app didn't work with my speed sensor. Will try again when they fix that. I think it is quite affective although I find the percentages for TR also work pretty well for me.

That sounds pretty good. It also sounds painful. The game element of Zwift is pretty important to me, though. Although I really need to try a race soon...
 
The SufferFest videos are really entertaining, and yeah, with the 4DP numbers all aspects of the workout are scaled to your specific profile.
Certainly the concept of a power profile based on maximal efforts across a range of durations isn't new (pretty sure Friel's book and Allen/Coggan's book discuss it).
But as far as I'm aware, it's the first app to really incorporate the concept seamlessly into workouts.

On the other hand, Sufferfest - as noted - doesn't really have fully integrated workout plans. They do have workout plans - quite comprehensive, including yoga and such - but they're PDF-based and not really integrated with the app.

TrainerRoad does, and the workouts are excellent, and the plans can be tailored to your specific goals.
But the workouts are...er, less 'fun' than a SufferFest video. Although TrainerRoad makes no bones about this, they are clear that they focus on workout plans that make you faster on the bike, not entertaining you. Also the podcasts are great.

Zwift - man. Right now, there is no better online/indoor cycling experience if you want to do group rides or race. They've done a good job of tackling weight doping and such; it's a fantastic experience.
Heck, they even have esports ventures now offering respectable monetary awards to winners (check out the CVR World Cup league).

Racing on Zwift is *hard* - all of my hardest workouts have been Zwift races - and they're a blast. The drafting works as expected, and you can even work with teams.
There's nothing like managing to hang on to the group up a steep hill at the pointy end of the race then grabbing a teammate's wheel in a leadout then sprinting across the finish line.
It's so much fun, I'm at the point now where I am debating whether I need to dial it back a bit and focus on actual training; the temptation is there to simply do a 40-50km race every day instead of a SF video or TR workout.
 
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Yeah, I like Zwifting so much that I've trained more or less every day for the last few weeks,but just did my first outdoor ride in something like 12 days. I was worried I'd never use my $900 smart trainer before I bought it, but no such problem. I've done more training than I ever have.

Sometimes I have to mentally debate whether I want to go ride outside after work at 4:30 p.m. with perfect weather or do focused, power-based training while watching cartoons... lately, indoor wins. Less stress on my neck and hands anyway.

I did my first ride in a while and accidentally set a PR on a hard climb. Hahaha. But most of that is from weight loss, I think.

I spent $950+ for a smart trainer in order to get myself to ride indoors more, but now I'm going to end up spending another $900 for a power meter to get myself to ride outside again.

I admit I fudge my weight numbers on Zwift.....but I just add 10% to my lean mass, which I think is within reason.
 
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