Back in the Saddle Thanks to Joe

Howdy to all.

I doubt you've been swinging by the blog lately, no reason to really. But if you have, you may have noticed that the last 5 workouts log on the right has been getting updated pretty regularly, and that I've been consistently logging some workouts again.

Work in Nov and Dec were insane and I couldn't seem to be healthy and find free time at the same time for about 6 weeks, so as a result my training suffered. I bagged the Houston Half Marathon, which seems to be an every other year tradition of mine, and decided to work on filling out the spare tire around my mid section.

Anyhow, I'm in the middle of Prep Phase week #4 (following Joe Friel's Triathlete Training Bible Training method). Next week will be the beginning of my base phase. I'm training up to the CapTex Tri in Austin Texas on May 29th. I'll do a couple of races along the way, but that is the first "A" race on the schedule for '08. I'll do 12 weeks of base training, 4 weeks of build, then 2 weeks of Taper/Race.

For those not familiar with Joe's training method, he uses HR Zones to dictate intensity in each workout. In order to establish your zones, you need to conduct Lactate Threshold (LT) tests for both the run and bike every 4-8 weeks. I think he has a test for swimming, but I'm pretty comfortable with controlling effort in the water and have always done my own thing there.

So back to the LT tests. They are basically 30 mins of an all out sustained effort. You take your Avg HR for the last 20 mins of your effort, and that is your LT. From there, you can set your zones using a table which you'll follow during your training as perscribed by Joe. Pretty common stuff for how triathletes train. Well I did my run LT test last night on the local HS track, and wow does that effort hurt. So my LT HR right now is 179. Much higher than I thought it would be, but the test went well. I dosed my effort correctly and didn't go out too hard or save too much for the end. It was a good test, so I'm going to trust the results.

Well I have a power tap for my bike that I got around the middle of last season and I was hoping to switch from HR as the unit defining my Zones to watts as the unit of measure. Unfortunately, Joe's most recent version of the Training Bible (the 2nd edition) came out before power meters had begun to be commonly held by amateurs, so he didn't elaborate on how to do this. There is some interesting info on use of Power Meters in the book, but no way to set zones which is critical if you are planning to follow his methods.

As I was contemplating this challenge I had, I recalled back in 2005 when studies regarding the impacts of vitamin E supplements came out that potentially contradicted some advice Joe put forth in one of his books (can't remember if it was Going Long or the TTB), that I found his email address on-line and shot him an email asking for his thoughts. Not expecting a reply, Joe responded to my email within 15 minutes of me sending it with a thorough explanation of the differences between the studies recently published and his recommendations for use of vitamin E as a supplement. You can't imagine how cool I thought this was.

So I thought, I have a question for Joe, why not send him an email again. It turns out that Joe now has a blog on Blogger [Joe Friel's Blog] with his email address published on it. I sent Joe an email with my question/dilemma, and what do you know - 15 Minutes later, I have a response from Joe saying he would post how to set zones using watts from a 30 min LT test to his blog some time this week when he had time. 24 hours later, my answer is published.

Lucky for me, the reference he sites as the source for his info, Allen and Cogan's book Training and Racing With Power (which can be purchased from Amazon using the link on the right side of my blog - cha ching) is a book I got over the holidays. I read the section outlining FTP last night, and there is no more to it than Joe outlines in his post. The only difference is that Allen and Cogan suggest doing a 10 min warmup at 65% of max effort, then 5 minutes at max effort to take the freshness out of your legs, then recover for 10mins at 65% of max effort, then do a 20min TT at max sustained effort. Your avg wattage over this 20 min effort is your Functional Threshold Power (FTP). You can set your zones with the following table:

Zone 1 <55%>
Zone 3 76-90% of FTP (tempo)
Zone 4 91-105% of FTP (lactate threshold)
Zone 5 106-120% of FTP (VO2max)
Zone 6 121-150% of FTP (anaerobic capacity)
Zone 7 >150% of FTP (neuromuscular power)

Like Joe says, FTP changes more rapidly than LT HR does, so testing every 4 weeks will probably be the way to go until I begin to plateau as I gain fitness.

So the bottom line is that I can use power this year to set my zones, and Joe Friel is a really freaking smart guy, who is super responsive to his readers' questions.

Definitely check out his blog, there are all kinds of goodies on it.

Off to the pool!