Posts Tagged ‘Weight’

Getting off to a heavy start

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

Today I started tracking my metrics. This is part of my training for the next season. I was pretty good about reporting my numbers to my coach each day last year. We’ll see how I do in 2011. One thing is certain, I hope I see one data point change!

My “fighting weight” is between 160 and 165 pounds. During the race season I have little trouble maintaining that weight. The last time I stepped on the scale was late September. At that point, I was still under 170. Well, this morning the scale stared back at me with a 178.

I’m not too concerned. As I told the Beautiful Redhead, “Just getting my stored energy levels up for the training. I’ll burn this stuff into muscle by the start of the season.” Of course, I realize that “fat” doesn’t turn into muscle. At the same time, I’m glad my body has had an opportunity to “chill out” a bit. At nearly 6 foot 2 inches, 178 is not an unhealthy weight. The extra weight will help provide some stored energy and start me off training with a few pounds which I hope will make me that much faster when it is gone.

TrainingPeaks iPhone screen shot

TraingingPeaks has a mobile app that makes it easy to track my metrics each day.

As for my other metrics… here are the things I am tracking / and today’s data.

  • Pulse / 71 bpm (which is pretty high for a resting heart rate)
  • Weight / 178 lbs (target for the season 160 – 165)
  • Sleep / 6 hours (I find I need 7 – 8 hours)
  • Body Composition / 18% fat (this is about 4% over what I’ve maintained in the past)

There are some other subjective metrics that I keep. I’ve never really got into this that much. The subjective nature of it makes me wonder 1) how it affected by my mood, and 2) do the numbers accurately reflect the impact these categories have on my ability to train. I guess what you have to look at is the overall trends created by the data over time. Anyway, here they are:

  • Sleep Quality / 6 (I had a dream that I was teaching a class and my teammate, Paul Mills, was in the back of the class clowning around. Weird.)
  • Fatigue / 1 (I’m mentally a little lethargic, but physically I have no real tiredness)
  • Stress / 4 (This is the one I have the most trouble with. I mean, what is the baseline?)
  • Soreness / 4 (This is due mainly to my neck issues)
  • Overall / 7 – 1 being bad and 10 being great.

Now I just await my training plan from Coach Cunningham. I’m glad it didn’t come today. I wanted to get out late this afternoon and get my fixed gear bike calibrated with the iBike. I’ve asked Jim to include some fixed gear riding into my training. Having the power meter on there will help me give him data. Also, I am very curious to see how a ride on the fixed compares to power data collected on my road bike.

I know. I know. You all just say, “Hey, Jonathan, just ride your bike!” I will. I will. You just have to understand that for me all this data collection and analysis is part of what makes this fun.

The good news is, I think I’m ready to get started!

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Seconds Per Pound

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

I am somewhat of a data weenie.  Now, probably not as bad as Boyd Johnson, but I do like pouring over my power files and ride data.  This interest got me thinking of my ride up Paris Mountain the other day.

There are two ways to go faster up the mountain.  1) increase power and 2) decrease weight.  Of course, the more weight you have to pull up the mountain, the more power you will need to do it.  The less amount of weight, the less power you need to reach a goal.

Taking the power out of the picture and just looking at time and weight, I came up with my Seconds Per Pound ratio for my personal best time.  Basically, at 170 pounds, it took me 4.09 seconds per pound to make it to the top in 11 minutes and 35 seconds.

So, right off the bat, that tells me that by losing 5 pounds, I should be able to turn out the same average power (346 watts in this case) and reach the top in 11 minutes and 15 seconds.  Of course, the SPP goes out the window unless I maintain that same power.

What I need to do is build a formula that incorporates 1) weight, 2) power, and 3) time.  I can then change the variables to see what would happen if say I lost five pounds and increased my average wattage by 10 watts.  Then it is just a matter of finding out how to put that data into practice.

I’m just a tad under 6’2″.  I weigh in on average around 170.  Sometimes I dip down to 168 and when I’m really fat, I might reach 175.  Mostly, I’m between 168 and 172.

It wasn’t always that way.  In junior high I was 5’11″ and weighed 145.  I was a stick!  Even in college I was 6’1″ and 155.

I remember one summer working at a camp located on a ridge above Lake Jocassee.  I was a cook.  One of my fellow cooks was quite the exercise nut.  We would do over 150 push ups each night and a number of pull ups.  I would then run each day to a water fall near by.  Then on the weekends, I would run down to Lake Jocassee and back.

It took me nearly the whole summer to be able to run all the way down and all the way back up.  However, I did it.  Did I mention I was a cook?  Well, by the end of that summer I was a pretty hard 165 pounds.  I thought I was a big dude!

What that tells me is that I probably have some weight to give.  Before I started riding again in 2006, I had reached 180 pounds.  Much of the 170 I now carry is the muscle I have built up in my legs (= where my power comes from).  There is one spot I think I definitely have some to give.  It’s that hardest spot to lose – my, as Steve Sperry would say, “budda belly.”

So, could a 2010 goal be a five pound weight loss along with some increase in power for the end result of a sub-eleven minute personal best up Paris Mountain?  I’ll find out what my new coach has to say about it.  Sure is a tempting target!

8 days left to help me raise $5000.
$1115 raised so far to fight cancer.
Give to my fight today!

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