Well its been quite some time since last I wrote a post. I have spent the off-season primarily returning focus to all the areas of life that matter more than hobbies. With our latest addition to the family tree now fully settled in and the responsibilities of family life settling down, I’ve finally found a free moment to consider the last few months of self experimentation.
Somewhere not long after Harper’s birth in August I found myself with an inordinate amount of down time. As one does, I quickly planned out a 2020 triathlon season which will (hopefully) include the following events:
- Ironman 70.3 Florida, April 19
- Ironman 70.3 Gulf Coast, May 9
- Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga, May 17
- Ironman 70.3 Memphis, October 3
I planned then, and still do plan, to race a relay at Gulf Coast and focus on the other three events with two A races being Chattanooga and Memphis. 70.3 Florida is intended to be a “getting back in the swing” style event 🙂
Now, what all these events have in common (or at least the three focus events) is that they are “hilly” or “rolling” courses. While there are no mountains to climb, each requires me to step a little further outside of the typical pancake-flat riding that I’m used to. So, undeterred by my obvious lack of relevant experience, I’ve been formulating a plan of action.
As a cyclist, my riding characteristics fit well into the terrain around me. I’m large (for a cyclist) at 6’3″ (1.90 meters). During the past race seasons, I have typically come in around 185-190lbs (84-86kg). During the fall off-season I was sitting comfortably at 195lbs (88kg) and contemplating hilly riding. While flat riding is largely dependent on rider power output (watts), vertical gain quickly introduces the importance of the almighty power-to-weight ratio (W/kg). In following in the science side of exercise, there are two variables that can be controlled for then: power (watts, w) and weight (kg).
The complexity in physiology dictates that there is a fine line where these two variables can be balanced. Most commonly, the focus on lowering weight results in an overall loss in sustainable power output. When this is the case, the net effect is really just that you may now be a smaller, less powerful rider going the same speed as you had been… frown. The trick? Somehow increase power and lower weight to a point where it is sustainable without impacting performance.
My self-assessment during this time left me with the impression that I may have room for adjustment. First, I picked up a Garmin Index Scale that measures body composition and tracks it daily (if you’ve had to listen to me talk about fitness, you’ve no doubt figured out that I will buy almost anything that has a Garmin label on it…). Second, I took an initial composition measurement over the course of a week, measuring daily. Based on this, I set my “initial” condition at:
- 195 lbs (88kg)
- 11.1% body fat
- And a bunch of other metrics that matter but are waaaaay too detailed and boring.
As a 31yr old man in decent shape, and based on previous seasons, I figured a reasonable target composition would be 175 lbs (79.3kg) at ˜8% body fat. In deciding to set these targets, I determined that I would try to achieve this target before beginning any “build” phase of training where dieting for weight loss is a terrible idea and a great way of hurting yourself. Before starting any weight loss, I also base lined my threshold power (FTP) using a ramp test. At that time I was sitting at 270 watts for a ratio of 3.07 w/kg.
With all the baseline metrics established, I began my random foray by committing to a vegetarian, beer-less diet from October 2019 through the end of the year. Admittedly, the first 2-3 weeks of this process felt absolutely awful 😦 It was initially very hard to find a balance of macronutrients for sustainable weight loss that would also provide some semblance of energy to accomplish all of life’s essential activities. During this time, I reduced my exercise load to account for the adjustment period with the intention of starting base preparation in December.
You may ask, “why vegetarian?” And that is a good question. Simply put, a vegetarian diet forced me to carefully consider what I was eating at each meal. Vegan would have done similar but I kept it less extreme this time 🙂 So just know that my decision was entirely based on wanting to insert a “meal check” into my habit. I started up using MyFitnessPal again to log meals and make sure that I was staying on top of macros as well as eating enough food to remain healthy. It’s not hard to imagine, but it requires a greater quantity of vegetables than meats to hit calorie goals and digestion/absorption times are substantially different. What this really meant was that I had to adjust to eating more, more often in order to keep up a decent energy level. In looking back, it feels like this process took a solid month to finally get down.
As I mentioned, I scaled back the exercise portion of my routine to allow for adjustment across the first month. I tended to average around 6-7 hours during this time period and, admittedly, none of it was quality exercise as much as it was random noodling around. Most runs and rides were low intensity with a few exceptions as I randomly decided to participate in the 30A Half Marathon (which I blew up/cramped up in and had to walk half of).
After an initial adjustment period and a solid month maintaining dietary restrictions through November, I began retraining in base phase in mid-December. With a renewed dedication to making the most of every minute I spend in self-flagellation, I switched to a TrainerRoad cycling plan built around interval training. I quickly retested at the beginning of my base phase and found a few extra watts in the cobwebs of my quads for a base FTP of 280 watts, very similar to what I was riding at the end of last year’s Ironman training. As an aside, I noted during Spring 2019 that training for a full-distance Ironman was/is not at all conducive to building threshold power on limited time. So, instead of having built a higher threshold capacity last year, I focused almost solely on lower power endurance riding-likely a mistake. With that aside, I noted my body composition to be 182 lbs (83kg) at 8.5% body fat for a threshold power ratio of 3.37 w/kg, a 10%ish improvement.
Now… to address the overall experiment having just now finished “base” phase training and ready to begin the build. Did it work? Yes and no… From a weight perspective, I have found that 175 lbs is likely too low for me as an athlete. I’ve had weigh-ins where I’ve been at or below target weight but these typically have come when I’m utterly depleted from training and my body glycogen stores are completely shot. I have found that 178-180 lbs is within an achievable window where I can expect to exercise effectively without being exhausted, brain fogged, and depleted. Body fat, on the other hand, has fallen from 11.1% to 7.5% without feeling negative effects.
Overall I’m comfortable with the results of the vegetarian diet and base training phase. These two separate phases did overlap somewhat in that I began eating meat again, though less than pre-diet, at the beginning of January while I still have some weeks of base training remaining. Without intention on my part, I do believe that the staggered approach work well in that physical loading and adjustment periods are not occurring simultaneously. So, with a “normalized” diet and a completed base training phase I’ve once again retested at the beginning of the build phase of training. The results are currently an FTP of 290 watts at 178 lbs (80.7kg) for a ratio of 3.59 w/kg. I’m happy with the results so far and looking forward to continuing to nerd out over composition and output numbers in the build to Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga :). My goal is to be at or over a 300 watt threshold with a similar body composition maintenance and hopefully “race” at a power ratio 3.75 w/kg this Spring.
In the meantime, I’ll just be over here optimizing all the little aero, positional, nutritional, and equipment elements that I can in eking out all the speed from that ratio 🙂 And, of course, building a reasonable swim and run fitness as well…
John Fielding 