2012 season statistics and reflection

With all that is happening in cycling right now, I definitely appreciate everyone who continues to follow my racing. I have never used any kind of performance enhancing drug, and it makes me sad/mad that so many of the stars of cycling from my generation have resorted to that during their careers. I think Phil Gaimon captured exactly how I feel when he describes Racer X at the end of this Velonews article. I will always love racing and riding my bike, so nothing changes for me in the wake of all that is coming out in the news now, other than a sense of responsibility to help promote clean sport. I’m not sure how or what difference I can make, but I’m open to suggestions and will continue looking for opportunities to help.

A picture is worth a thousand words so let’s start this long post out with a picture! My win at the Tour de Tuscaloosa road race to claim the Alabama state championship was definitely the highlight of my season. The inset pictures are the Alabama medals podium from Tuscaloosa as well teammates Boris and Kevin at the Pensacola stage race.

End of the season statistics
These statistics all run from October 31, 2011 until October 28, 2012 – 364 days worth of riding and racing. I define my racing/training season from the Monday closest to Nov 1 of the previous year to the Sunday closest to Oct 31st of the current year for all of these statistics and reports. The Polar Protrainer software makes it easy to calculate the statistics over the exact date range that I want to use.

Statistics Summary
October 31, 2011 – October 28, 2012

Statistic	Avg	Max	Min	Total
Weekly training time (hours)	25.68	40.87	15.4	1336.3
Weekly distance (miles)	389.8	648.6	255.8	20,271
Workouts per week (#)	12	19	6	632
Weekly climbing (feet)	44,199	89,354	17,936	2,298,327

For eagle-eyed observers who note that the climbing total is lower than that reported on Strava, I will give the same explanation that I gave last year: I am generating these reports from my Polar Protrainer software. I wrote a converter that converts Garmin .FIT files and .TCX files into the .HRM format that Polar expects. The Polar Protrainer software then applies a smoothing filter when it is calculating total ascent and other statistics, but I can’t figure out how to turn it off so that the statistics match up with Strava, which doesn’t apply any smoothing filters.

Some weekly milestone totals (from Strava):

• 3 weeks with more than 500 miles of riding, including one 648.6 mile week
• 25 weeks with more than 400 miles of riding
• 26 weeks with more than 50,000 ft of climbing, including a week with 100,342 ft
• 34 weeks with more than 25 hours of training/racing

Other statistical highlights (from Strava):

• Approximately 640 different KOMs on Strava
• A 249 mile mega ride to win the one-day Rapha Rising challenge with over 42,000 ft of climbing. I had some Garmin problems towards the end of the day and ended up losing 24 miles and 4,000 feet of climbing — but it was still enough to win the competition!

Comparison to past years
All years run from the Monday closest to November 1st to the Sunday closest to October 31st. This should result in about 365 days for each year give or take a day or two.

Statistic (per week)	2008 Avg/Max	2009 Avg/Max	2010 Avg/Max	2011 Avg/Max	2012 Avg/Max
Training (hours)	14.0/20.2	13.4/20.8	15.4/20.9	22.4/33.0	25.7/40.9
Distance (miles)	238.4/337.1	241.8/369.4	265.5/380.3	338.4/502.7	389.8/648.6
HR avg (bpm)	137/165	139/161	136/176	131/178	123/156
Workouts (#)	11/15	9/14	11/14	11/17	12/19
Climbing (feet)	12.7k/20.3k	13.5k/29.3k	14.4k/22.8k	30.7k/52.2k	44.2k/89.4k

Statistic (yearly total)	2008 Total	2009 Total	2010 Total	2011 Total	2012 Total
Training (hours)	726	698	798	1,167	1,336
Distance (miles)	12.4k	12.6k	13.8k	17.6k	20.3k
Workouts (#)	560	4451	546	580	632
Climbing (feet)	661k	677k	750k	1,598k	2,298k

¹ When I first got my Garmin in November 2008 (which falls in the 2009 year), I was leaving my commutes as one ride. In other words, I would just stop the timer while I was at work and then start it back up for the return trip home.

Racing Season Summary
This season was another “best ever” season highlighted by winning the Tour de Tuscaloosa road race over a really strong field to claim the Pro/1/2 Alabama state road race championship, having my best finish ever in the Athens Twilight criterium (20th place), winning the 47 day Strava climbing challenge sponsored by Specialized (my 20th place at Athens Twilight was near the end of that competition), placing 11th in the elite national road race in Augusta, making the podium three times at the Georgia Cycling Gran Prix including third overall for the five day omnium, and doing well in my first real foray into mountain bike racing since high school and college (3rd at Southern Cross, 2nd at the Skyway Epic, 4th at the Barn Burner in Flagstaff, 39th at Leadville in Colorado, and 13th at Fool’s Gold).

We did a lot of traveling over the summer, including a long road trip out to Arizona for a cousin’s wedding, that included the Barn Burner mountain bike race in Flagstaff and the three-day Tulsa Tough criterium series in Tulsa, Oklahoma on the way home. I had slightly disappointing results at the Tulsa Tough, but it was still one of the funnest weekends of racing the whole year — especially with the Tour de France like climb through the crowds every lab on Cry Baby Hill on the last day of racing. Another great adventure that didn’t quite have the results I was looking for was the Leadville Trail 100 MTB race. I ended up 39th but that was after bonking pretty bad about 75 miles into the 100+ mile race and struggling for the last 30 miles home. Still, the race itself was quite an adventure getting to race alongside two different world champions (Christoph Sauser from about mile 30 to mile 40 and Rebecca Rusch briefly on the powerline climb as she blew by me at mile 75). Altogether, I raced in ten different states this year (AZ, CO, OK, LA, MS, AL, TN, GA, FL, SC) over a total of 41 days covering 2,996 miles.

Map showing the locations of all my 2012 races (click to enlarge). Over 3000 miles of racing in 10 states. I just realized I acccidentally left Arizona off the map because I lost my Garmin during the Barn Burner race so I didn’t have any data from that race to pull into topocreator.

Finally, the graphs and charts!
Critical power curve for 2012. This represents an increase from 288 watts in 2011 to 305 watts in 2012. This is QUITE a substantial increase, but it’s mainly because I didn’t have very much power data for 2011 to base my 2011 figure on. It only takes one GOOD effort to push the curve up, and I believe that effort for me was when I set the Karl Daly KOM (on June 16, 2012). (click to enlarge)

Much of my training is “distance-based” in that I aim for a particular weekly mileage. (click to enlarge)

I also spend a lot of time focused on climbing … usually this my daily focus as I will set a minimum amount that I want to climb that day and then ride as long as it takes to hit that amount. As it gets closer to the end of the week, I see what I need to do in terms of mileage to bring me up to the desired weekly mileage. (click to enlarge)

I rarely think about total time when training, but I do concern myself with time spent in different heartrate zones (particularly in the off season and base training period). I want to make sure I’m spending the right amount of time in the “red zone”. During the racing season, the race tactics that play out govern how much time is spent in the red. I aim NEVER to get into zone 4 or 5 during training during the racing season since I am racing pretty much every weekend where I spend a LOT of time in those zones. (click to enlarge)

You can see when school is in session because my “number of workouts” goes up dramatically since I have at least two rides per day (my commutes) during the school year.

Two new screenshots this year from Golden Cheetah … both “metrics” graph which highlights my best power output for a given time. This is like a discrete version of the Critical Power graph focusing on some well-known time intervals.

Aerobic power (best effort over longer time intervals). (click to enlarge)

Anaerobic power (best efforts over shorter intervals). (click to enlarge)

And finally, finally, some more thank you’s
A huge thank you to first of all my beautiful wife, Kristine Toone, and my kids Analise and Josiah, my parents and all of my teammates, friends, and family. I’ll be working over the rest of the week on a separate post with more maps of all the places that we traveled, all the places where we have stayed for races, and all the places where I have ridden this year. In that post, I’ll thank people by name who have helped out so much. Just as last year, I’ll leave this exceedingly long post with just one more thanks – thanks!

Athens Twilight 2012 vs Sunny King 2012 power and heartrate data

Well, the results are in, and below is this year’s side-by-side comparison of two very popular pro criteriums (Sunny King and Athens Terrapin Twilight). I still don’t know how to decide which race is harder … so y’all look at the data and make some comments about how you interpret it. Thanks! This year’s races were held on back-to-back weekends with Sunny King held in Anniston, Alabama on Saturday, April 21st at 7:30PM and Athens Twilight held in Athens, Georgia on Saturday, April 28th at 9:00PM.

Summary Data

		Sunny King	Athens Twilight
Time		1:30:14		1:41:19
Distance	41.6 mi.	47.6 mi.
Avg Speed	27.7 mph	28.2 mph
Max Speed	36 mph		36 mph
Avg HR		176		174
Max HR		187		189
Avg Power	269		245
Max Power	1013		1088
Placing		26th		20th

Heartrate Zones

		Sunny King	Athens Twilight
Zone 5 (175+)	0:58:45		0:54:04
Zone 4 (155+)	0:31:15		0:46:50

Some notes about the data … first, it was really windy for this year’s Sunny King criterium, which partially explains the higher power / lower average speed. But a bigger factor in the Watts vs Speed differences between the races is that in Athens you have a long stretch of the course where you rest … from the downhill going into Turn 3 all the way through Turn 4. The only place to rest on the Sunny King course is about 3 or 4 seconds as you brake hard into Turn #3.

Here are the power maps … note that for the Sunny King race there is a lot more time to warm up on the course so a lot of the purple lines are from my warm-up laps.

2012 Sunny King Criterium – Pro men power map (click to enlarge)

2012 Athens Terrapin Twilight Criterium – Pro men power map (click to enlarge)

Here is a side-by-side on the lap data for the two races showing avg power, max power, and avg heartrate. Sunny King is on a slightly longer course so there is only 60 laps as compared to 80 laps for the Athens Twilight race.

	Avg power	Max power	Avg heartrate	
Lap	Sunny	Athens	Sunny	Athens	Sunny	Athens
1	367	330	897	820	159	168
2	317	267	948	827	173	172
3	279	270	839	975	173	173
4	236	305	767	851	172	177
5	282	257	970	895	174	178
6	316	256	900	845	177	176
7	272	234	855	890	179	173
8	303	243	1013	919	180	173
9	238	258	934	891	179	174
10	268	231	822	860	175	176
11	253	272	917	873	176	178
12	260	271	804	918	176	179
13	271	284	820	931	177	179
14	282	250	928	821	180	182
15	265	249	814	973	177	179
16	289	280	853	917	177	180
17	246	234	780	901	179	179
18	276	268	879	876	175	179
19	256	261	874	884	174	179
20	326	236	935	934	180	179
21	260	249	884	903	180	179
22	252	262	945	864	176	178
23	251	234	717	897	175	177
24	256	262	807	896	177	179
25	246	244	852	920	177	178
26	289	256	916	976	178	178
27	291	238	872	903	179	177
28	295	226	827	790	179	175
29	250	216	870	794	178	175
30	272	235	882	706	174	175
31	274	239	898	885	175	176
32	249	253	910	875	176	177
33	250	260	679	900	176	178
34	252	247	735	933	172	177
35	233	218	821	885	170	176
36	265	257	897	883	175	172
37	240	232	869	842	169	178
38	247	232	855	881	171	172
39	274	222	896	832	174	173
40	260	241	657	856	175	172
41	258	262	789	930	171	176
42	261	228	893	820	175	176
43	276	224	900	800	176	171
44	259	215	812	862	174	169
45	242	267	900	775	174	172
46	251	244	825	755	174	174
47	242	229	793	817	175	169
48	247	214	744	851	171	169
49	266	191	720	813	176	171
50	276	246	880	821	176	166
51	238	225	744	775	178	170
52	294	251	873	868	179	171
53	269	240	819	844	178	170
54	253	259	825	802	178	172
55	246	214	788	816	174	171
56	277	280	791	842	177	171
57	278	325	886	971	179	181
58	264	202	965	783	177	174
59	322	243	867	701	181	169
60	330	212	744	743	185	170
61		224		852		167
62		232		816		169
63		244		832		173
64		245		885		173
65		261		731		172
66		232		827		172
67		238		876		173
68		244		846		173
69		239		854		174
70		212		817		173
71		236		879		172
72		253		875		174
73		243		812		176
74		261		782		174
75		280		865		175
76		254		919		178
77		226		827		176
78		284		850		176
79		276		922		180
80		363		1088		184

18,000 miles for 2011

Today was my last ride for 2011, and it just so happened to take me over the 18,000 mile mark for the year. I had originally thought I was going to be short of 18,000 miles, but I noticed after my ride on Monday that I was reasonably close to try and make it there by the end of the year. Also, I had 2,134,824 ft of climbing … that’s the same elevation gain as climbing Mt Everest 73.5 times starting from sea level.

Screenshot of strava stats for 2011

I also ended up winning the Strava climbing competition for December and for 2011.

2011 Studio Velo climbing competition overall winner

It’s so cold even the water bottles have to wear gloves!

Salem Lutheran Church

Terminal Morraine in the direction of Timberland Hills

Rolling hills heading towards the morraine

This is almost a categorized climb

Church in the highlands

More snow at nearly 1500′ elevation

Fire tower near the Timberland Hills lighted ski trail

Ice age national scenic trail spanning the entire state of Wisconsin – my father-in-law is hiking all of it over the course of the next year

Welcome timberland hills west lighted ski trail

Lights, grooming equipment, warming hut – the only thing missing is the snow!

Confused yet? The small green signs on the left say “public hunting and fishing grounds”. The sign on the tree is a “posted no tresspassing” sign

Co Rd J – the hilliest road in the area with several 10+% rollers including one that maxed out at 14%

14% max gradient on one of the hills on Co Rd J

More of Co Rd J with blowing snow in the distance

My first barn/silo picture of the trip … these are everywhere but it is not always easy to be in the right spot to take a pic of then while riding

25.4 degF – a bit warmer with the approaching storm – 3-4″ of snow expected tonight

Snow biking with the road bike – yes, it’s possible, but not recommended. That is an ice covered road, the snow was much easier to ride on

A lot more climbing today

I can pretty much guarantee that this has never happened in Alabama before – kids taking turns pulling each other on a sled across the frozen lake using a 4-wheeler

I think this was somewhere near the 18,000 mile mark for the year

Snow drifts on the lake. You can ride your mountain bike on the lake as long as you stay in the snowy areas. It is fun to try to map out your route from one snow drift to the next to minimize the areas of open ice that you have to cross. It is also possib

Trickiest part of the ride was navigating the driveway — all good!

Frozen slushy anyone?

Recall governor walker

Screenshot of strava stats for 2011

2011 Studio Velo climbing competition overall winner

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End of the season maps

Lots of fun maps from the season. All of these maps cover routes between November 1, 2010 and October 30, 2011.

Quick summary-
Flying:	3,900 mi.
Driving:	17,300 mi.
Biking:	17,600 mi.
Total:	38,800 mi.

Zoomed in view of the Birmingham routes – Hoover, Vestavia, Homewood

Biking near Birmingham

Biking in Alabama from Birmingham north and eastwards

All bike routes (racing, training, and commuting) for the year

Biking (racing, training, and commuting) all over the southeast

Biking (racing, training, and commuting) all over the midwest

Biking in Nicaragua for our June 2011 Nuevas Esperanzas board meeting

All of our driving to/from races and/or family vacation spots
Lots of fun maps from the season. All of these maps are for one year (November 1, 2010 – October 30, 2011). 38,824 miles consisting of 3,940 miles flying, 17,314 miles driving, and

Roundtrip flight from Chicago to Nicaragua in June 2011

Everything all on one map – annotated

Screenshot of my website (topocreator.com) for creating these types of maps.

2011 Tour of America’s Dairyland Summary

What a great race series the 2011 Tour of America’s Dairyland was. I’m already looking forward to next year. This year featured 9 criteriums, 1 road race, and 1 time trial. The criteriums were a mix of hilly technical courses and flat, fast courses. This was my first time to race more than six days in a row. By the end of two weeks of racing and riding, I had ridden/raced 824 miles (383 miles the first week and 441 miles the second week). To put that in perspective, that is 15 miles longer than our drive home from Madison, WI to Birmingham, AL. The 441 mile week is my sixth 400+ mile week of the year and most likely the second longest week of my entire racing career. I had a 500+ mile week in college.

All of our criteriums were timed at 90 minutes and depending on the average speed worked out to be around 45 miles in length. The race was so well organized, thanks in part to having a nearly identical schedule very day. I didn’t have a lot to do besides race, so I would frequently start warming up during the pro women’s race and continuing warming up during the masters 1-2-3 race before checking out the course for a few laps during the downtime that was scheduled between the end of the masters race and the start of the pro men’s race. That down-time meant that every one of our races started on time because any kind of delay earlier in the day was worked out by the time our race started.

The road race was an excellent course through the Kettle Moraine state forest area. The hills and crosswinds combined with some rain during the first half of the race made for a challenging course. I was disappointed that I put so much effort into an early break that was brought back and then missed both the break of the day plus a large chase group. I was stuck in the field until the last lap when I bridged to a solo move and worked together with the rider I caught to finish just ahead of the field. It was a good finish to an otherwise disappointing race performance.

Favorite picture and favorite video… the picture is Lapham Peak where I rode to on my rest day in lieu of the Ripon time trial. The video is the last lap sprint of the last race of the series in Madison, WI.

Panoramic view from the top of the Lapham Peak tower (click to enlarge)

Here is a summary of all my results from the races. I was hoping for more top 20s, another top 10, and a top 5 in the road race. So my results weren’t quite what I was expecting, but it was still great experience, great racing, and the longest race series that I have ever done!

RACE	PLACE	DIST	SPEED	HR	WATTS
Day 1 – Shorewood Criterium	46th	42.6mi	28.0mph	177/191	291/891
Day 2 – Thiensville Criterium	33rd	40.2mi	27.4mph	169/189	291/1242
Day 3 – Grafton Criterium	51st	39.9mi	27.8mph	168/187	281/1360
Day 4 – Waukesha Criterium	20th	40.7mi	27.3mph	167/186	259/845
Day 5 – Greenbush Road Race	17th	79.0mi	24.2mph	148/179	199/1100
Day 6 – Schlitz Park Criterium	19th	37.8mi	24.8mph	158/177	266/939
Day 7 – Ripon TT (rest day)	–	61.7mi	14.1mph	116/151	–
Day 8 – Sheboygan Criterium	26th	40.9mi	27.6mph	158/180	–
Day 9 – Fond du Lac Criterium	26th	43.1mi	29.0mph	158/183	–
Day 10 – Downer Ave Criterium	16th	49.0mi	28.1mph	160/183	–
Day 11 – Madison Criterium	9th	43.6mi	28.3mph	159/189	–

Finally, here a few maps to help illustrate the scope of our fun summer bike racing adventure…
Annotated map showing our entire trip.

Annotated map showing all the places that I raced.

Map showing all my races and commutes to/from awesome host housing in Brookfield. I saw quite a bit of southeastern Wisconsin frequently opting for side streets and country roads instead of interstates.