High tech

After 13 yr olds sleeping in oxygen tents, we now have juniors being tested in wind tunnels to optimize their TT performance. What does all this have to do with fitness and health you may ask? If it seems a bit excessive to you, you are not alone. Clearly someone has lost their sense of perspective. But it is hard to see what can be done about it. This is one of those situations where common sense stands alone against an overwhelming array of people who gain financially from perpetuating the madness.

No doubt the bicycle manufacturers, the coaches and the wind tunnel operators like it. The more gadgets the better, as it all drives sales.

It is also something that fits with the national spirit. We are a gadget-loving high tech country after all. And if it gives us an unfair advantage with respect to poorer nations, well that is not a bad thing either apparently.

Small country

We just got back from Junior National Championships in Bend, Oregon. It is events like these that make you realize that when it comes to cycling, the US is a very small country. I believe a grand total of some 750 riders showed up for the event. That covers all age groups 10-23 yrs of age, both genders, and quite possibly a number of Cat 1's as well since the Elite Criterium championships were held concurrently. To say nothing of the Paralympic Championships.

In essence, the event is like a provincial championship in Belgium. For those of you unfamiliar with Belgium, it is a small country in Northern Europe, about the size of the State of Maryland, with about 10.5 million inhabitants. It has 9 provinces. Which means there are nine provincial championships each year.

Nationals, as it is called, is the most competition one can get in the US. As National Team Coach Ben Sharp pointed out in his presentation about European Cycling, one can often find more junior men (17-18s) racing within 50 miles of another on any one given day in Belgium.

That does not mean Americans don't have talent. Although we have a small sample, it is clearly an enriched sample. It is also remarkable how many have parents who are first generation citizens, dual citizens, or with otherwise very strong ties to Europe or Latin America.

There is good talent but there are also serious holes in the competition. When someone wins consistently and with a large gap, like Craddock did in the junior men category, you can be sure it is a sign of strength. However, the same cannot be said about many other medalists and runner-ups. Did they end up first, second or third because they are first, second or third, or are they there because the real first, second or third is not?

Clearly a lot of potentially promising American juniors do not ride bikes. They are running track, cross country skiing, or maybe even playing baseball. While we have an impressive line-up of pro riders (yes there are good American riders besides Lance), a country this size should completely dominate the sport of cycling. With 300 million inhabitants, America has a larger pool to choose from than Europe does (not all European countries are fond of cycling).

Yes we have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go.

Kids and sponsors

I am not so sure it is a good idea for kids to be sponsored by companies. Even though it is all well-meaning, and supportive, there is a constant pressure that cannot be ignored. Of course there are some who will say, it is a good way to get kids ready for adulthood and for them to learn that all things come at a price. It teaches them good behavior. Good means adult approved in this context.

Books like Outliers also seem to favor heavy handed parental "support." They point out that successful people were exposed very early and spent numerous hours, 10,000 or more to be exact honing their skills. The book even makes an explicit pitch for parents who drive their kids from one activity to the next and have their kid's calendars booked tighter than a those of a chief executive.

Surely the documentaries made around the Spelling Bee, show successful kids surrounded by hard-driving, even tyrannical maniacal parents. It teaches the kids a good work ethic so the saying goes. But is that what success is really all about? Does anyone ever wonder about the victims lying by the wayside?

Does it really make a difference? Surely those who are gifted will do well regardless -note that Outliers would not agree-, and the same applies to those who are not so gifted. I am not so worried about the first group, or whether they achieve their goals through being gifted or through hard work.

While you could argue that that is the key question, I beg to differ. It is not that important. In general when people are good at something, they work hard at it. It is always fun to work on things one is good at and people will do so every chance they get. So the whole question of how they get there is rather academic.

The problem is not there. The problem lies with those who are not the very best. They are the ones between a rock and hard place. Their parents, their coaches, their peers, their sponsors, everyone is pushing them constantly. Add sponsors to the mix and the pressure goes up a few notches. Now the team has to deliver, the coach has to succeed. And there is no easy way out.

Loss of perspective

Last week I heard about a 13 year old bike racer who sleeps in a low oxygen tent in the garage to prepare for important races. The same kid rides a $5,000+ bike and has an assortment of wheels and components that would make a small US pro team jealous. Every weekend his parents and team mates push him to race as much as possible "so he will get stronger." Email messages from the team coach read, "second and third place is not acceptable." It is all perpetrated by well-meaning adults who have their heart in the right place.

Although I was somewhat shocked when I heard about it, it really is not that unexpected. It is totally in line with parents getting their preschoolers ready for college or teaching their two-year olds to play the violin. Unfortunately it is equally unproductive, if not more destructive. Promising young riders burn out before they get a chance at real competition.

Something is amiss with junior racing, or should we say with children's sports programs in general? Parents, eager to produce the next (put in your favorite cycling hero here), push their kids way past what is healthy for them. Coaches and team directors, eagerly oblige, often edged on by sponsors who want to see results week after week. All of it leads to exhausted, overreached and burned-out teens. Fortunately serious overuse injuries are rather rare in cycling. Not so in many other sports.

Cycling is somewhat of an odd endeavor in the US. The pool of racers is rather small, much smaller than that of Belgium, a country the size of Maryland with a population the size of NY City. More than half the licensed racers in the US are masters and many are over 45. An inordinate number of them "train to train." So much so that one famous blogger called "training to train" the very essence of amateur competitive cycling.

Unfortunately, it is these experienced masters who are guiding much of junior cycling. With their obsession with long distance, and a slight aversion towards intensity, these guys, who overwhelmingly picked up cycling in their adult years, are the blind guiding the not-yet-seeing. Unlike Europe, where distances for younger age groups are limited by law, American parents and coaches seem to think: the longer the better. Young riders are forced to race in Category events, where they are matched up against adults instead of their peers.

Category racing is a US-specific phenomenon. It mixes racers of all ages that have acquired a certain number of points to upgrade to the next category. Category 1 represents the top amateur group. Higher rankings in general mean longer races. But because most US cyclists are masters, these longer races are relatively low intensity events interspersed with bursts of higher intensity sprinting. Juniors tend to be good at speed -better than the older adults- and so they have a fair chance of winning such events if they do not drop out from exhaustion before the end. Winning is seen as a sign of progress by their coaches. What is not so easily seen is that these youngsters are now routinely riding 90-100 mile events, something that would be illegal in Europe. Ironically enough they do so to prepare for racing in Europe!

Long races are but one issue. The second is an obsession with material possessions and a focus on high end gear. Because their American parents are well off, junior offspring are riding the latest carbon concoctions with all the bells and whistles. They ride the same bikes the pros ride. That also means their focus is entirely on equipment and away from fitness and health.

It is something the bike manufacturers wholeheartedly endorse. With a limited (quasi-stationary) pool of customers, revenue has to come from second, third and fourth ultra-high-end bikes, as a recent Wall Street Journal article pointed out. Or low-oxygen tents, never mind the developing brain!

A summary of recent workouts:

Wednesday, May 26, I ran 7 miles in the hills.

Thursday I rode on rollers for an hour.

Friday I rode 28 miles, about 20 with Alistair and the rest alone.

Saturday I drove Alistair to Livermore and rode 15 miles on Patterson Pass Rd, Tesla Rd, and Vasco.

Sunday I rode 35 miles through Orinda and Moraga.

Monday I ran the 10.5 mile Shepherd loop. It had been a while since I did that. I did not run up the BMX hill, but I did run fast on Skyline, catching some bikers.

Tuesday I ran 7 miles in the hills.

Today I ran 9 miles in the hills.

315 W

I ran on a treadmill at the Westin in Boston last week and it estimated my power output to be about 315 W while I was running at 9 mph. 9 mph is a speed I can hold for about 30-35 minutes on a treadmill. I can run a bit faster outside, even though the consensus is that running on a treadmill is easier than running on the road.

As I mentioned before I agree with that statement, for short distances. I can certainly run at a faster speed on a treadmill for short periods of time, but I cannot hold this for very long. The reason I believe is lack of cooling. I am probably relatively inefficient in that I tend to generate a lot of heat and sweat a lot. I certainly sweat a lot more than other people around me, and it is not uncommon for me to leave a sizable pool of sweat behind after a long stationary workout.

Yesterday I rode on my rollers and I held 325W for 30 minutes (in aero position). I would not call it maximal effort but it was up there. What I like about this is that numbers are nicely consistent. It appears that something in the range of 315-325W is what I can hold for about 30-35 minutes. According to the lookup tables that would correspond to a speed of about 40 km/h (24.8 mph). The real speed is likely higher since this was done in a deep aero position.

My speed on the rollers was lower but it is a rather arbitrary quantity and depends a lot on the setting on my Kreitler "Killer Headwind" fan.

On the standard 20 minute test I can get a power to weight of 4.2 or better (mid Cat 2 range), but so far I have never gone all out on such a test so it is possible that I would do even better.

On Saturday and Sunday I rode a 35 mile loop through Orinda, Moraga and over Pinehurst. On Monday I rode on rollers, including the 30 minutes at 325W. Today I ran to Montclair and back for 8.8 miles. All I can say is that this time I felt a whole lot better than last time I did that run.

Rule number one

For competitive endurance events, rule number one states: check your weight. More than anything else, training plans, expensive gadgets, supplements and all, maintaining a low body weight is the key to success.

Low body weight is key to success in running, cycling, climbing, cross country skiing and other aerobic events. It is less important for swimming as long as you can maintain a good body position -which I postulate is largely a matter of body type.

Since I use this blog to keep track of my workouts, here is my update. I haven't done any since May 7 so this may be a bit long.

On Sat, May 8 I rode 25 miles with Alistair.

On May 9, I rested and watched the Berkeley Hills Road Race.

On Monday I ran 6.5 miles in the hills, in the rain.

On Tuesday I ran 8.6 miles to Montclair and back.

On Wednesday I rode for 1.5 hours.

On Thursday I once again ran 8.6 but it did not go so well this time around.

On Friday I rode the Bear's loop with Pig Farm Hill for a total of 20 miles.

Then on Saturday we went to Grass Valley for the mountain bike league state championships. I rode 7 miles with Annelise on the course.

On Sunday I rode some with Annelise and we went to Sacramento to see the finish of stage 1 of the Tour of California.

Monday was another rainy day and I rode 1:03 on rollers, including 20 minutes at over 325W.

On Tuesday I flew to Boston and swam in the pool for about 1 mile.

On Wednesday I rode 45 min on a stationary bike, and then ran 1 mile at 9 mph on the treadmill.

On Thursday I swam 100 laps in the pool -probably a bit less than a mile.

On Friday I rode the Bears loop plus Pig Farm hill.

Doping

Once again the sport of cycling is being rocked by another doping scandal. Although the Floyd Landis' accusations made front page news in the mainstream US media yesterday, it seems most of the amateur cycling community prefers to ignore it. And who can blame them? Doping is a hot potato and it is a sore spot. So much so that you can't even joke about it anymore.

Floyd's claims are by no means unique or new. He is saying what others have said before, some as recently as a few months ago, that the use of performance-enhancing substances is rampant in the peloton. But this time, the messenger and his past exploits may overshadow the message. Furthermore, in naming Lance and Bruyneel, Floyd has ensured that his message would gain high visibility but also draw attention to his, rather shaky or shady, personal past.

Yet Floyd is not the first one to point the finger at Armstrong. Nor is he the only non-Frenchman to do so. (Americans of course like to believe that the French would secretly enjoy bringing down Lance, while they seem to forget that the fortunes of Lance and the Tour de France are now willy-nilly intertwined and symbiotic). If I remember correctly, the honor of being the first insider to point at Lance, goes to Frankie Andreu, who was once a beloved American cyclist, but is now all but forgotten (and tarnished). But then again, Frankie never won the Tour or did anything as spectacular as Floyd.

It is of course easy to fault Floyd and brand him as a cheater who never really won but instead stole victory by illegal means. But that would be closing one's eyes to the many documented reports that clearly show Floyd was a very capable and fit cyclist, who was certainly strong enough to win the Tour without performance-enhancing substances. Unfortunately since his return from a 2 year suspension, Floyd's performance has been substantially sub-par, which makes it all the more easy to claim that he only won because he applied testosterone patches to his privates.

Although I believe in the power of pharmaceuticals I also know that such dramatic improvements are out of the question. No amount of HGH, steroids, EPO, and-or other concoctions is going to make an average Cat 1 racer into a Tour de France winner. I would even go as far as claim that the performance-enhancing power of most substances remains unproven.

Although there are some data on the short term benefits of HGH and EPO, and possibly on the long benefits of steroids for things such as weight lifting, sprinting, and hitting home runs, the data on aerobic endurance performance are not there. While it seems logical that to assume that these substances should work, and while all the physiological and medical knowledge points us in that direction, this remains far from proven.

Just a little bit of experience with drug trials for regular (so-called ethical) pharmaceuticals should be enough to convince anyone that trying to predict drug efficacy remains akin to trying to predict the future. While EPO may well help someone win a time-trial, its long term benefits are unknown, and it would not surprise me in the least if one found that the long term effect is nil or even negative.

Unfortunately, from a scientific perspective, the current attitude towards drugs and sports effectively precludes any serious study of the matter. Although WADA occasionally studies or supports studies that look at short term benefits (a recent study showing HGH could improve sprinting performance comes to mind), such studies are too few and far between to really make a difference.

Once again, experience from real life clinical trials shows that large studies, involving thousands of persons and running over several years are needed to disentangle such matters. What is really ironic is that such large scale testing appears to be happening right now -all indications are that large scale doping in professional sports has been going on for decades now, and continues to this day- but without the benefit of scientific data gathering and analysis.

One can only lament the huge missed opportunity here.