The Longest 3 Minutes of My Life: The Mingate Algorithm

First off, I want to thank you all for your support & comments on my Boston race report.  That's what I love about the running community - we "get" each other and we all support each other.  You guys rock.

Now that Boston is done, Coach Ming has said he's shifting my focus from the run to the bike & swim.  We have 7 weeks to get me primed and ready to go.  I've been training in both disciplines throughout my Boston training, I just wasn't pushing myself in either of them.  I was in maintenance mode.  Subsequently, I started slowing down in the pool, which I wasn't happy about but I know that will come back once I start pushing myself again.  As for the bike, I've actually shown improvement which is generally what should happen when you actually log the time in the saddle.  I didn't do any of that last winter and if I did, it was sporadic at best.  This year, I rode 3 times a week during my Boston training.  About 80% of the rides were just recovery rides but sometimes he had me doing power work.  That consistency in the saddle has paid off.

Tuesday night I went down to U of T to the infamous "Pain Cave" because Ming wanted to do another test.  Of course I was apprehensive, but I was also curious.  He said it would be less than an hour including warm up and cool down.  Ok then.  I was chatting with one of my colleagues at the studio that was a part of Mings PhD study and he just smirked when I told him what I was doing.  He asked if I knew what test I'd be doing.  I said I had no idea.  He warned me to be prepared for a world of hurt.  Awesome.

I met Ming at the U of T Athletic Centre and he proceeded to take me through a labyrinth of hallways, down some stairs and into the underbelly of the building.  I wish I took a video because I felt like I was literally being led into the dungeon.  We walked past what looked like heating units and plumbing, all of which was enclosed in cages.  We rounded a corner to a hallway with a series of offices.  Ming opened the door to one of them and I had my first introduction to the pain cave.

It was a large-ish room with a couple of offices a large table and some chairs and a whole bunch of exercise equipment.  There was a treadmill and a couple of interesting looking stationary bikes. Ming had me get on one of the bikes and start pedaling.  I've never been on a bike like this.  The minute you applied pressure to the pedals, it increased the resistance so it made it harder to pedal.  He dialed in a cadence (95 rpm) so that's what I had to maintain, which was fairly easy for me as that is about where I'm at when I'm on the trainer.  There was a table in front of me that had a computer screen on it with a graph.  The graph was tracking my power so it was kind of neat to watch it.  He had me do a good warm up with some 5s max sprints that showed up as spikes on the screen.  After I was warmed up, he explained that we were testing for Critical Power, which is also known as Functional Threshold Power.  I tested for this back in December except that this test was a 20 minute test.  Mings PhD thesis was centered on developing a shorter more accurate way to test for this.  So, I knew that my suffering would be shorter than 20 minutes at the very least. 

Ming explained that I had to ride all out, as hard as possible until he said stop.  I didn't ask for how long as I figured he probably wouldn't tell me.  I had put my heart rate monitor on but he didn't want me see it so I had to put the watch on the table in front of me.  He then proceeded to remove the computer screen that was in front of me and he also turned the other screen he had away from me so I couldn't see it.  I had NO visual distractions, no music, no nothing.  I think he does this so you really have to go within yourself and focus on nothing but the pain so you can work through it.  As he started his countdown, my palms started to get sweaty and my heart rate spiked.  I said to him that I figured my heart rate was high and he looked at it and started laughing.  I was clearly nervous about what was to come.

pic courtesy of Ming - this was before the pain started. 

As soon as he said GO, I mashed the pedals.  Normally I will focus on something but I had nothing to focus on other than the black table in front of me.  I looked at that for a bit and then just closed my eyes.  Ming started encouraging me.  I concentrated on pushing those pedals as hard as I could.  The lactic acid started to build up fairly quickly.  My breathing became ragged and soon I was gasping air.  I was also hunched over with my head down.  That seemed like the most comfortable way to be when I was exerting myself to the extent that I was.  The encouragement kept coming and all I could think was "when will this be over?"  I couldn't even ask the question -nothing else was able to come out of my mouth except gulps for air.  But, I kept mashing, even though ever fiber in my body wanted me to stop.  I focused on not letting up or backing off but trying to push through the hurt.  I can do this on the run but I haven't quite experienced what it's like to do on the bike.  Until now.  It felt like forever but Ming finally started to count down.  I could taste blood that's how hard I was working.  As soon as he said stop, I sat up and let up on the pedals.  I knew I had to let my legs spin out for a bit after that kind of effort.  I did that for a bit but was thirsty so I got off the bike to get some water.  Oh my God, my legs were like jello.  I asked him how long that was and he said 3 minutes.  My response?  "That was the longest 3 minutes of my life". 

Yesterday Ming gave me the data from my test as well as "a picture of what my legs drew on the screen".  This what he said:

CP (critical power) = 216.5w (in December it was 186)
anaerobic work capacity (AWC or W') = 8759.76J

- The CP value is 30w higher than when we tested you in Dec, so that's a really good sign when we haven't focused on cycling yet and the supplementary bike workouts are helping
- so with your new and improved CP,  that means the training zones are different now.
- the "toughness" score (ie. the variance on the points along the line) is very good, that means you "know" how to push yourself!

 This is all Greek to me so I asked him what these numbers mean.  Apparently I have good Critical Power but I have to work on developing my anaerobic capacity, which, according to Ming makes sense because I have only really been training my aerobic system vs. my anaerobic system.  The really good news I took from all of this was that my CP (or FTP) went up by 30 watts with consistent easy training.  I can only imagine where it will go once I really start pushing myself. 

So when I opened my training log yesterday, I noticed a whole new set of values.

The next 3 weeks will be all about training my anaerobic system so I'm going to have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.  I'll be hanging out in the higher end of this range a few times a week.  In fact, tonight will be my first hard workout.  It will also be a brick.  Nothing like having your first run after a marathon come AFTER a hard bike ride, ha ha.

#Mingsanity indeed.

Testing Testing.....

As part of my "Big Things in 2014" plan, I decided I should probably get my functional threshold power tested on the bike.  I had my lactate threshold tested on the run just over 2 years ago and on the bike about 7 years ago but this whole "functional threshold" thing was new to me.  After doing a bit of research it is essentially the same thing except the number you end up with is not heart rate based but power based.  It's a number that is measured in watts.  What are watts?  Watts, in the most basic of terms, are the amount of power you are able to generate on the bike.   Why is this important you may wonder?  Well, unlike heart rate, which can be influenced by many things like temperature and dehydration, watts are absolute.  Your power is your power, period.  Thus, for training on the bike, it makes much more sense to train with power vs. heart rate.  Now that I have a computrainer, it's something that I want to take full advantage of.  Especially if I want to improve my cycling.

Enter Mike Mandel & Ming-Chang Tsai from Real Deal Racing.  Real Deal offers FTP testing as well as coaching services and computrainer classes all over the city.  These guys know their stuff.  They live and breathe cycling. 

So last Thursday I dragged my slightly scared butt over to RPM for a 90 minute session with Mike & Ming.  One of my fellow coworkers has been participating in a study with Ming and has referred to him as Dr. Pain.  He posted a video on Facebook of the end of one of his testing sessions.  It was scary stuff.  So I was super nervous.  I know how to push myself on the run and I've learned to handle that pain but the bike is a whole other world. 

Mike got my bike up on the trainer and I hopped on and did a warm up.  I chatted with them about racing and next years plans and then Mike explained the test to me.  He was going to have me do some cadence drills to get me really warmed up, then I was going to do a few one minute efforts and then I was going to go into a 20 minute all out ride.  The key, he said, was to not go out too hard or your power would drop off substantially by the end.  In running terms it would be like hitting the wall in a marathon.  Mike advised me to pick something to focus on to take my mind off the eventual discomfort I would feel.  I opted to focus on my cadence up on the screen in front of me.

I watched the countdown on the screen and as soon as the 1 disappeared from the screen, I cranked the pedals.  I watched my watts spike.  I shifted gears to find the right balance of cadence and power.  I settled into a pace that I thought I'd be able to maintain for 20 minutes.  The first 5 minutes didn't feel horrible.  I was toeing the line between comfortable and uncomfortable.  Mike asked me what my effort level felt like and I said about an 8 out of 10.  I went on to say it kind of felt like a tempo effort in running, because at that point I could still speak in full sentences. 

I was thankful for the spinning class that was happening because the instructor had some good tunes cranked.  The next 5 minutes definitely felt harder and I could see my heart rate had started to climb into the 170's.  That was definitely 10km race pace territory.  My breathing became more and more laboured.  I kept my eyes on my cadence, occasionally glancing up to look at my watts.

My cadence went something like this:  99, 99, 99, 101, 99, 99, 98, 100, 99, 99, 99, 99, 99, 99, 99.  I was almost hypnotic.

I watched my watts start off around 192 or so and then by the time I hit the halfway point of the test they had dropped to 190.  I didn't want them to go below 190.  No rhyme or reason for it, I just didn't want it to go below that.  At the halfway point Mike says you're past the hard part, this is going to be easy.  I laughed.  Because at that point I could still laugh.  Then the encouragement started.  Both Ming and Mike were encouraging me to push harder and try to get my watts up to 191.  I dug a little deeper.  I hit 191.   More encouragement to go for 192.  The shovel came out and I dug a little deeper.  I saw 192 come up on the screen.  At this point, I was really starting to feel the pain.  I was told I had just under 8 minutes left.   Good God.  I knew it was only going to get worse.  More encouragement from the guys to get one more watt.  I found 193.  My heart was in my throat.  My legs were burning.  Mike asked me what my effort level was and all I could say was hard.

With just under 5 minutes left I was at 193 watts.  The guys were pushing me to get to 194.  They were joined by a woman who was setting her bike up for the time trial session that was scheduled after.  She chimed in by saying I was the leader and she was chasing me, she was right on my tail.  That seemed to light a fire under me and I managed to crank out another watt and hit 194.  At this point I could not longer focus on anything.  I was working so hard I couldn't see straight.  My cadence appeared as a blur on the screen in front of me.  The boys were pushing for one more watt.  I didn't think I could do it.  I put my head down and hammered on the pedals.  Just when I felt like I was going to die, I heard the cheers.  I hit 195.  Now all I had to do was hang on.  I had less than 2 minutes.  I put my head down and kept grinding.

Grinding it out:  Shot courtesy of Mike Mandel / Real Deal Racing

When Mike announced I was done, my first words were "Somebody get me a bucket."  I immediately stopped pedaling but Mike said I shouldn't stop.  So I sat up and switched gears so my legs could spin.  He said I could stay there as long as I needed to so I did.  I was actually a little afraid to get off my bike as I wasn't sure if I'd actually be able to stand or walk.  So I spun my legs until my heart rate came down and I had some feeling in my legs again.

I maxed out at 195w.  To determine your functional threshold power, you take your max watts from this test and minus 5% so that put me at 186w for my FTP.  I have no idea if that's good or bad, all I know is that it can be improved upon as my cycling fitness is next to non existent.

I can honestly say that's probably the hardest thing I've ever done physically.  But I'm glad I did it.  I now have a training tool to help guide me through my winter training.  Once I start riding outside, I'm going to have to invest in a power meter if I want to continue training and racing with power.   That's a whole other expense that I don't want to think about right now.  So many toys, not enough money, ha ha.

This is what I got at the end of my test.  I can do this test again on my own at home in a few months to see if I've improved.  Not sure if I want to go through that kind of pain again, but I'm sure my curiosity will probably get the better of me.

Have you ever done this test?