Loes Adegeest Wins the 2022 UCI eSports Women’s World Championships

On February 26th, 2022, athletes from around the world competed in the UCI eSports World Championships.  It was the second edition of the event and in the women’s race, former World Champion and professional rider Ashleigh Moolman Pasio (who also just finished 3rd place in this year’s Strade Bianche) was the overwhelming favourite.  This year’s race was two and a half laps of the NYC Knickerbocker circuit with the finish line atop the NYC KOM.  The circuit is relative flat aside from the NYC KOM climb giving the entire race nearly 1000m of elevation gain over the 57km.  It’s a tough finish with a middle 500m section at 10.6% for 400m and then 100m at 15.7%.  The final 500m of the race features a flat 300m followed by 100m climb at 10.8% and a flat 100m to the finish.

Courtesy Zwift Insider

Loes Adegeest is an accomplished speed skater, having started racing as a teenager and races for the Dutch National Team.  Speed skaters make great cyclists and vice versa and Loes is no different.  She had always enjoyed cycling and quickly saw success on the Zwift racing scene.  She joined the Aeonian Zwift cycling team and she has been a consistent and strong performer, racing in the Zwift Racing League’s Premier Division.  She qualified for the UCI World Championship Women’s event in December 2021.

Over the 11 weeks leading into the event, she trained, strategized, focused and prepared herself for the final race on February 26th.  On that day, she raced a perfect race and crossed the line to become the 2022 UCI eSports World Champion.  Many saw this as an upset. But one look at her Xert breakthroughs and training leading up to the race, it wasn’t.  She was destined to win.

The Race

The race was a tough race from the beginning with two hard efforts up the NYC KOM that wittled down the field.  To see the story of the race, we can look at her power and elevation data and as well as her Maximum Power Available (MPA).  MPA is Xert’s unique metric the depicts how much power an athlete has any given moment in a race.  It is the purple line on the chart above and is an indicator of fatigue. The value goes further than just showing fatigue as it also depicts how this fatigue is affecting an athlete’s ability to produce power – their maximum power.  When an athlete’s power reaches their MPA value, it’s a maximal effort and often results in a breakthrough in Xert.

As you can see, Loes’ MPA sees some relatively minor dips during the first two climbs.  Her power data is mostly blue (low intensity) with only short yellow and red efforts during the NYC KOM climbs on each lap. She had conserved energy very effectively, never being pushed or tested at any point in the race.  On the final lap, a few women remained, including defending champion, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio.  Team USA launched attack after attack with Katheryn Curi making a strong move leading into the final NYC KOM climb.  She was caught passed by “AMP” and three women managed to bridge and hang on: Cecilia Hansen, Zoe Langham and Loes Adegeest.  Loes had been preparing for this moment and knew exactly what to do.  She took a moment on the flat second section before the final pitch to the finish to gather just a bit of needed energy and at the base of the climb she deployed her feather power-up and launched an all-out maximal effort with everything she had for 20s.  The power-up and effort were perfectly timed, something she had practiced over and over with breakthrough after breakthrough efforts in her training.  With her fitness at a level it had never been before, everything had come together at the moment:  the perfect strategy, perfect execution, perfect planning and perfect training.  Loes wins the race.

Examining the Winning Effort

Looking the final winning effort, Loes gets the hallmark power and MPA representation of a win – a breakthrough-on-the-line.   This happens when an athlete reaches and sustains a breakthrough effort as they cross the finish line.  It’s the definition of a perfect ending to a race.

The system evaluated her signature on this day to be 853W, 19.3kJ and 309W for her Peak Power, High Intensity Energy and Threshold Power, respectively.  These three numbers are called a fitness signature in Xert.  Her Threshold Power was 309W and at just 57kg is an impressive 5.4W/kg.  This saw an increase from her previous high of 302W just 5 days earlier.  But it wasn’t just her Threshold Power that made this win happen.  It was her High Intensity Energy too.  It’s as important as Threshold Power, if not more, to achieve this race-winning, all-out effort.

Is it all about FTP?

It was just recently that her High Intensity Energy was as low as 15.3kJ, in fact.  This was at the end of a phase where she had focused on raising her Threshold Power (more on this below).  What if she had continued to focus on her Threshold Power and not on her High Intensity Energy?  What would it have taken to achieve the same result?  To find out, we use the Advanced capabilities of Xert to examine how another athlete’s signature fits the same power data:

Here we have an athlete with a High Intensity Energy of 15kJ.  In order to perform the same effort Loes performed that day, this athlete would need to have a Threshold Power of 327W! (5.7W/kg!)  For female cyclists, this would be reserved for a very, very few at the top of their game.  Had Loes been focused on her Threshold Power, reaching 327W would have been highly improbable, perhaps even impossible.

Others may have examined race details and thought that focusing on sprint power would be a good way to prepare. The final effort is only 20s so could be for sprinters?  What if her Peak Power had risen to 1000W?

Doesn’t seem like it would have helped much at all.  Threshold Power would still need to be in rarified territory (324W).  That final 20s effort isn’t performed in a relatively rested state hence Peak Power doesn’t have a lot of influence on the athlete’s ability to push this power under this much fatigue.  Pure sprinters really don’t have a chance here.

Focus Focus Focus

Loes had intentionally chosen Puncheur (4 minute W/kg Focus Athlete Type) in Xert to help guide her toward the right training in preparation for the event.  She had done the NYC KOM climb many times before and knew that it was a 4 minute effort.  She also knew that it wasn’t a paced as a 4 minute constant power effort.  There was a short flat in the middle where there was some recovery.  Her 1 minute power was also important.  Indeed, the final sprint saw her reach a breakthrough at 500W, far above her 4 minute power.  If we examine the power curve for the race, we get some indication of this.  Rarely do power curves reveal this unfortunately, since efforts paced from fresh to failure do not occur often in racing power data.  However in this case, there are some interesting things to observe:

Preparing to Win

Loes had been using Xert for just over 6 months and decided to use the platform in preparation for the world championships.  Having examined the route, she recognized from the beginning that this was going to be a puncheur’s race.  She set her Athlete Type to Puncheur and Target Event Date to Feb 26th and monitored her training.  Most of her training would be by choosing both indoor Zwift rides and outdoor riding that are in-line with the advice being offered by Xert’s Adaptive Training Advisor.  She also knew that she’s need to be creative. Having been selected in December, it’d didn’t give her much time to perform a thorough Base-Build-Peak Training Program.  She had less than 80 days to prepare and also had to fit in a Training Camp with her team in early February:

She had been doing a lot of Zwift training and racing prior to the start her program and had a well developed High Intensity Energy but had to switch to building some base.  But she also had to be mindful of the intensities needed to win and practicing her race winning efforts throughout her training.  In the 10 weeks of her focused training, starting in mid December and ending on race day, she had 18 breakthroughs – nearly 2 a week – many of them similar in intensity and duration like she’d have to perform on race day.  Even with all those breakthroughs, she held steady on building her Low Intensity Training Load over that period, increasing it from 55 to 76:

This phase saw her doing more lower intensity training than before, including more outdoor longer rides:

In that process she had to let her High Intensity Training Load slide in order to keep the right focus on your Low Intensity Training Load / Threshold Power to get it as high as possible.  She also knew she was going to get a huge dose of High Intensity training during her Training Camp and was going to use that as her Peak phase to get her back on Focus and top up her High Intensity Energy to where it started:

The training camp ended up being a great opportunity to overreach.  She loaded up on both Low Intensity Training Load with some very long rides:

.. but also worked hard to get her High Intensity system ready by practicing race winning efforts for breakthroughs during training camp:

Following the training camp, all that remained was to trust the taper to allow her systems to rebound from the time in deep yellow and red form (this is Xert’s Training Status) and bring it back to blue for the race.  To ensure everything was ready, she tossed a few breakthrough efforts during taper week, mimicking the race event:

Even just a few days before the race to confirm she was ready, she pushed for a breakthrough, seeing her signature reach a level it had never reached before:

Then on race day, she went in with the confidence that she had fully prepared herself, she had practiced the race winning move over and over for breakthroughs and that she knew she had an opportunity to win the race.  And she did.

Xert helped me use my ride to work to win gold at the Track Cycling World Championships!

I use Xert like many others do; to help me better understand my fitness, and to help me reach my goals. Where I may differ from many of my fellow Xerters is that although I do some road and criterium races during the summer, my big goal each year is on the track.

For the past two years I’ve raced in the Masters category at the Track Cycling World Championships with some great success. Last year (2018) my primary goal was to defend the gold medal I won in the Scratch Race the prior year, as well as my silver medal in the individual pursuit. The event was to be held in mid-October in Los Angeles, USA (I’m from Denmark).

My biggest challenge is that I don’t have a lot of time to train. I have to balance the demands of my career with family and other life priorities while trying to train for important events. As a result, most of my training is done as I commute to and from work, which is about 14km (9 miles) each way, with some longer rides on the weekends. The key to my training is to ensure that I can be as productive as possible during my commutes, and use that precious time to help me be as prepared as I can be. Training has to be specific and efficient.

My commuter and perfect training bike (with power meter upgrade…of course), handmade by Denmark’s most iconic bike shop (Banani) 27 years ago!

Deciding To Use Xert

Before Xert I had a regimented and structured training schedule – I literally knew what workouts I would be doing 8 weeks in advance! This worked pretty well and I achieved many of my goals. But I felt that my training wasn’t as good as it could be because this plan didn’t account for how I was feeling (my freshness), or how my fitness was progressing. I decided to commit to Xert to guide my training so that I had a system that would adapt to my training environment (my route to work), my fitness & freshness, and to help me get the most out of my limited training time.

What I’ve discovered about myself

Based on my race results and my power files, I knew that I could produce a lot of power. But one of my biggest discoveries using Xert is that I have a pretty big High Intensity Energy (HIE), which I can train into the mid-to-high 30’s (kJ’s) at my peak. This confirmed my potential in the Individual Pursuit and Scratch Race events on the track, which not only need a high Threshold to win, but also need a big HIE to surge and sprint.

And what I continue to discover by using Xert is to know when I’m ready – or not ready – for more training. This gives me the confidence to get outside and train hard when I need to, or know that I need to take it easy to get extra recovery.

How I use Xert

Know The Demands Of My Races

My target events on the track are the Scratch Race and the Individual Pursuit. When I examined last year’s power data from the race using Xert, it revealed that the Focus Duration power I needed to develop was between Road Sprinter (2 minute power) and Pursuiter (3 minute power). Focus Duration is something that helps me target the training I need to do – this particular Focus emphasized high sprinting power, and my Threshold Power, so that I could have a lot ‘left in the tank’ when the time comes to push hard for the finish, which is usually with 2-3 laps to go.

From commuter bike to riding the Individual Pursuit. Photo: Mike Gladu

Track My Training

I keep track of my Focus power and my Threshold Power to see how they are improving using the Progression Chart, and I also keep an eye on my Weekly Stats to ensure that I’m ‘investing’ my training time properly. For example, on my Fitness Planner / Weekly Stats I track how my Polarity Ratio changes as I add more intensity leading up to the event; you can see this in the chart below, pulled from my Fitness Planner / Weekly stats a few weeks before the event.

Guide My Training

The majority of my training is done during my commutes to and from work, so I have to be very specific about what training I do. I don’t have any ‘extra’ hours. I use the recommendations of Xert to know when I’m ready for a hard workout, and to recommend workouts that target the right Focus for me.

Out on the road, the SMART (adaptive) intervals work well because they change their intensity and duration based on how I’m doing. With traffic, stoplights, and everything else the open road throws at me, I like knowing that if I have to push a little harder, or slow down for a few seconds, I’m not ruining my workout!  

To help guide these training sessions on the road I use my Garmin Edge 820 with Xert’s ‘Time To Exhaustion’ datafield. As my TTE approaches zero, and I’m getting really exhausted, I know I still have more to give! It encourages me to keep pushing – I love knowing that it is possible to push a little harder, for a little longer. The proof of my improving fitness and power lies in whether or not I can achieve a breakthrough!

A ‘gold’ breakthrough during one of my training rides to work, with increases in my Threshold and Peak Power, and High Intensity Energy.

Confidence

One of the most important ways I use Xert is for extra confidence. Looking at either the XPMC or Fitness Signature view in the Progression Chart, I like that I can compare my fitness signature and progression with last year’s to see if my fitness and power is about the same, or (hopefully) better. This is an invaluable tool for me to fight away any doubts I have that I’m not as strong as I used to be, or that I’m not training hard enough. The training is usually physically and mentally exhausting – especially because it’s late in the year and it requires a lot of hard intervals – so I find this information to be good motivation to keep pushing.

As I was approaching the goal date last year I could see that my Threshold Power had improved by 25 watts versus the prior year, and my 4 minute power had improved by 60 watts, without a significant change in my Training Load. That’s because I invested my training time towards harder & shorter efforts to build both my Threshold  and Pursuiter power (I ‘pulled’ my threshold up from above using greater high intensity strain, rather than ‘pushing’ it up from below with high volume/low intensity work; with the limited time I had available, this approach worked best for me).

With this information I knew that I was ready to compete at my highest level again in 2018, and hopefully to use my improved power to do even better

The Finish Line

Since switching to Xert I can say that it has worked even better than I had hoped it would. My interval targets are always exactly where they needed to be, I was able to witness the changes in my abilities with my Fitness Signature, and I saw improvements in my performance in both road races and on the track. I can also say that the training has even felt easier – it is more focused, more specific, and adapts really well to my needs every day.

Best of all, I can say that this story has a happy ending. I won the gold medal in the Scratch Race and I also won silver medals in both the Individual Pursuit and Points Race last year!

The podium from the Scratch Race at the 2018 Masters Track Cycling World Championships.

If you’d like to see the final kilometre of the scratch race I won, you can see it here!

Jesper Offersgaard has been an Xerter since 2016. In 2017 and 2018 he won gold in the Scratch Race at the Masters Track Cycling World Championship in his age group, and silver in the Individual Pursuit. He also won the silver medal in the points race in 2018. Even with his success on the track, his heart is in road racing and he continues to reach the podium in local road races.

Xploits is a collection of stories by Xerters from around the world, about their goals, achievements, and how Xert helped them get there. If you have a story you’d like to share, please email support@xertonline.com

Discovering Cycling and Xert

I only started cycling a few years ago but quickly became interested in training and competing. So, I hired a coach, Yang I Ti, to help get me started. He gave me a weekly training program that I followed very closely. But training with power, and concepts like ramp rate, were still new to me and I only began to understand – and use – them when I signed up for Xert a little later.

Preparing for, and racing, my 2018 goals events

Overtraining

Early in 2018 I was invited to ride with an amateur team called ‘Jamaica’ to ride the local championship series in São Paulo. I needed to get serious about training! I read everything I could get my hands on about sports physiology and training so that I could coach myself, but within a few weeks I ended up feeling the symptoms of overtraining. I really didn’t know how to train, but despite that I was keeping myself in the top 5 in the championship series.

Starting to Use Power

In mid-May, I finally got a power meter; I bought a Power2Max from a friend who was moving to another country, installed it on my bike, and the next day I competed in a time trial.

Time trial, the day after getting a power meter!

Even without seeing my MPA (I was using a Garmin Edge 500, which wasn’t Connect IQ compatible), I had my first breakthrough, right on the line! So even though I started out a little hard, I was able to pace my effort to the max all the way to the end.

I continued to train as I did prior to using a power meter, and it wasn’t until I signed up for Xert that what I was feeling in June was confirmed – the data indicated almost immediately a high level of fatigue. I was doing too many hard workouts in a row without enough rest (you can see my ‘tired’ status (yellow line) in my XPMC graph below).

Steady progression (after doing too much in June) to see my Threshold Power increase 15% (almost 40 W!)

So I decided to get some help. I bought a Garmin Edge 520, and I signed up for Xert and began to follow its recommendations.

After the TT in June, my next goal was a stage race, with 3 races, in early August: two road races and one team time trial (TTT). My peak would have to happen in only a couple of months!

Without a power file from racing the same event in a previous year, I wasn’t sure of the demands of the event. I didn’t know which Athlete Type to choose in Xert, so I chose ‘Rouleur’ (as it turns out, I wasn’t far off – see chart at the end of this article).

At first, I didn’t entirely follow Xert and occasionally I ignored the yellow or red stars (tired and very tired training status, respectively), which meant I often couldn’t finish my workouts! I even ignored the recommended workouts: for example, with a status of 2 stars I tried to do workouts that were 4 stars or more, and often couldn’t complete them. This is when I started to understand the Xert process! I saw that if I chose a ramp rate of between 2 and 3, and followed the recommendations, I would be able to complete the training and achieve my objectives. So I followed the recommendations to prepare me for my race weekend!

My First Goal Event: The UCFL Winter Race: a 3-stage weekend, and how it went

As I progressed through the training, the workouts became progressively more difficult. Although I had been training hard for a few years, I had never done workouts like I was doing in Xert, and before long I was reaching power targets I never thought possible. So I knew I was going to be ready to race…

By following Xert, my Focus progressed from Breakaway Specialist to Rouleur right in time for my stage race weekend, and my Threshold Power continued to increase.

The first race was the Team Time-Trial (TTT). Since none of us were time-trialists, we tried to save ourselves for the next event using the Xert MPA and Fat & Carbs datafields on our Garmins to help us manage our pace.

We maintained a pretty high – but not too high – steady pace in the TTT so that we didn’t fall behind in the overall standings and left something in the tank for the circuit races that followed. 

In this first of two circuit races I was well positioned during an important climb early in the race, and I nearly had a breakthrough as I almost went to my maximum to force a selection in the race. Three other riders counter-attacked and formed a strong breakaway out front. Then, in the last 30 minutes, one of the breakaway riders (a teammate of mine) was dropped by the break. I saw the opportunity to race for third place, so I started to attack on short climbs to wear down my opponents. (You can see my MPA starting to dip in the last 30 minutes as I started my attacks.) On the last climb I succeeded in getting away from the group and dug very deep (my MPA came way down) to get third place.

Jundiapeba Farrapos: The first circuit race (same day as the TTT).

On the second circuit race it was another tough day. The finish line favoured the sprinters, something that I was not strong at, or had even trained for. At one point in the race, shortly before the middle of the last lap (approx 1:30hrs into the race), a rider attacked the peloton and took another competitor with him. A teammate of mine suggested that I should try to reach the break… that would be my chance for victory! So I attacked, passed the other chasing groups, and reached the lead breakaway. From then on we worked together to keep the peloton from reaching us and I won the race from the breakaway to take the lead in the championship series!

The last race of the weekend: Farrapos Paranapiacaba

My Second Goal Event: De ronde vão ver Éden

Throughout the early part of the race I tried to wear out the peloton on a few short climbs. That’s when a teammate saw the opportunity for a breakaway, and attacked. As my ranking in the overall standings was high, we decided to control the peloton so that the escape could stay away. As soon as we learned through race radio that my teammate’s breakaway was close enough to the finish line that they weren’t going to be caught, I attacked on the hardest section of the course to get some more points from my competitors – that’s where I had a breakthrough in my Peak Power. By the end of the race I was alone with two competitors from a rival team, but from another category (my teammate was still up the road). Both of them continued to attack me, but I managed to stay ahead to get second in my category.

UCFL De ronde vão ver Éden

Final Race of the Season: UCFL Paris Rolé

There wasn’t much time to train for this event, just 4 weeks, and I was already tired after many months of training. As each event had a different type of terrain, I changed the Athlete Type each time to better suit the demands of the event. This last race had shorter climbs and so I chose Puncheur (I was at the end of the build and the peak phases). Seeing how important it was to follow specific training to reach my potential, I tried to follow the suggestions of Xert more closely to prepare for this race.

At the beginning of the race I tried to dictate the rhythm of the first climb in an attempt to create a selection within the peloton. We had agreed that another teammate would try to win because I was already far ahead in the overall standings and did not need that win to keep my overall placing. But my teammate wasn’t having a good day. When I went back to see if everything was OK with him, two competitors attacked on a climb and opened several seconds advantage on me. It was only a few kilometers to the finish line and I couldn’t let them get there alone, so I lowered my head and chased for a few minutes. That was one effort I clearly would not have been able to do before adjusting my training; they were both strong time-trialists. I eventually caught up to the breakaway, attacked on the climb, but saw that another cyclist had followed me and I unfortunately no longer had the strength to compete for a sprint. So again, I got a second place, but I was very pleased with what I was able to accomplish.

UCFL Paris Rolé

After this race I did regret not having done any sprint training; I didn’t do this training because I had too many days in a row with yellow stars (tired); I wasn’t recovered enough to do them and maintain my weekly focus.

Looking Back: What I learned and what I’ll do differently next season

From these races I was able to determine the Focus and XSS of the events (the ‘demands’ of the race) and especially what I was missing in my training. To be better prepared next year, I am going to:

1. Train my 3-4 minute power by choosing a Pursuiter or Puncheur Athlete Type (Focus);
2. Do some sprint workouts so that I can be competitive in a sprint, if I need to. Workouts like SMART – Ride the Lightning and SMART – Bullet with Butterfly Wings;
3. Train my ability to handle about 250XSS/day (I did that well last year, with my Training Load (TL) being ~90 right before the event);
4. Start my structured training earlier (Xert starts the Base phase 120 days from the goal date), and;
5. Follow the advice of the Advisor more closely. This is to make sure I’m doing the right kind of work, at the right time, and in the right way, to maximize my abilities.

Ironically, Xert recommended I do more Puncheur and Pursuiter workouts but I ignored the advice! I wasn’t doing the short Focus/high intensity VO2 training that Xert suggested at times, including the Closer 140 workout. After analyzing the time and power of the last sections of the races, I noticed that training this Focus would give me the time in the right power zones to be more efficient, and to repeat those efforts over and over.

I am already training for an important event next year, and knowing my past mistakes, I hope I can make better choices that could bring me even better results!

François Skaf is a 35 year old cyclist from Brazil, and only just discovered the sport a few years ago in an attempt to quit smoking. Early-on, when he was passed by a competitive cycling peloton, he decided that this was a sport he’d like to get a lot more involved in. Now, after only a few years of riding – including a few periods of overtraining – he’s learning to train smarter with the power of Xert. And he’s winning!

Xploits is a collection of stories by Xerters from around the world, about their goals, achievements, and how Xert helped them get there. If you have a story you’d like to share, please email support@xertonline.com

As I lay in the hospital after four hours of facial reconstruction surgery following a crash in the Tour Aotearoa I could only think how inconvenient this was given that in four months I would be starting the biggest bikepacking adventure of my life: 7,390 km from Norway to Spain in the North Cape to Tarifa race.

Selecting Xert

Fortunately, I had an ace up my sleeve in the form of Xert which had grown to be a key tool for my training since I first used it as a beta tester. Like many, I lead a very busy life and so wanted to maximize the efficiency of my time on the bike. This meant ensuring that I was not going too easy on my hard days, and too hard on my easy days. Xert’s ability to dynamically monitor my performance was a major attraction. Later when it introduced the ‘Adaptive Training Advisor’ it became what I think is the best tool available for anyone who wants to become a better cyclist.

At the risk of offending the Xert team, I will admit that at first I did not trust the system. So I did a lot of parallel analyses with WKO+ and Xert as well as drawing on my experiences. I reviewed the training program from Xert against the ones that I had used for previous races. Sorry. I’m an engineer after all. What came out from this was a belief that Xert would get me where I needed to go in the most effective way possible.

A seductive benefit of Xert – especially when coming back from a major injury – was getting rid of the need to do those nasty FTP tests. The way that Xert looks dynamically at where you are and infers your FTP is a real advantage.  Absolutely no way I was going to do 2 x 20’s or Coggan’s all out testing. I just let Xert tell me where I was and was reassured that I was not detraining too much.

Slight FTP digression. Before my injury I had some ‘fun’ playing with the Xert FTP app. I have a BSX Insight in which you do a ramp test to failure to estimate your FTP. This correlated really well with the Xert FTP estimate from doing several Sufferfest videos… I did 23 videos over a 3 month period and the Xert FTP increased appropriately over time, correlating well at the end with my BSX Insight. So bye bye BSX.

My Training

As soon as I was out of hospital I began planning how to be race fit by 20 June. Since I also had a major concussion, I had to be very careful not to overdo it. Riding outside was risky in case I crashed again as it could seriously compound the concussion. After a two week rest it was on the trainer for the next month, and then some big rides outside. You can see this from my progression chart below with my crash on day 5 of my race in February and the detraining that happened over the rest and recovery period in the spring.

Once I began to train seriously again, I used the Adaptive Training Advisor to propose the daily workouts for me. In all my past races I had a ‘fixed’ training program that I developed based on a number of resources. It worked really well for me, but leading up to the race I had a lot of travel for work, which was going to make it really difficult to follow my usual fixed plan, and I had good and bad days recovering from my concussion, so I wasn’t always up for hard training. Xert’s ability to propose workouts based on what I had been doing was ideal. I’ll also say that the type of workouts intuitively made sense based on my previous experiences, which was reassuring.

As an example of how the adaptive system helped me, I flew to Washington D.C. for a week of meetings and the morning after I arrived I did a ‘beat the jet lag’ century ride. I hadn’t planned on it, but it was an incredible April morning with great weather, so I just kept riding. Xert then adapted the rides over the following days to reflect my indulgence of being away from watching Netflix on the trainer and nice weather. Other days I started riding and my head said “… do something else”. I didn’t worry as much about this as Xert’s future workouts adapted accordingly.  I just wished that the Xert Fitness Planner would automatically update and show the future workouts rather than us having to push that planner button (feature request!).

As I followed the general recommendations from the Adaptive Training Advisor (with an Aggressive rate of progression, which meant about 2 hours a day of training on average) over the next two months , I saw my star count increasing and its colour changing from red to yellow to blue as I moved from very tired to fresh and back again, depending on the training load. I must say that there was good correlation between all of these and how I felt! I also really liked the training pacer as a simple and effective way to tell me whether I was ahead or behind my training plan.

By the time I began my taper for the race—and the 43 hour trip from New Zealand to Norway—I was really happy with where I was fitness wise. Four stars and fresh. That’s what Xert said … was I ready? Most definitely.

The Race

The first five days of the race I averaged 353 km/day, including a great 444 km run into Helsinki to catch the ferry to Estonia. I was still well above the 300 km/day into Poland when, unfortunately, I began to have some of the symptoms of my concussion reappear, so I adapted my race plan and rode shorter days, trying to get a good night’s sleep to recover.

If you like biking and have an adventurous spirit, you should definitely try a bikepacking. The concept behind these races is to get you and your bike to the finish line, with no outside support. So you ride as much as you want every day and when tired, find a place to sleep.  It may be a hotel, a campground, a bus stop, or just next to the road. It depends where you get to! In the race I practiced what we call ‘stealth camping’. In other words, I’d sleep places where I was probably technically not allowed to, in the hopes of being interrupted. My spots were sports fields (these are the best as there is nobody around at night and early morning), campgrounds (in Finland I bivied in the children’s play room), empty fields, etc. The most embarrassing was when I bivied in the entrance room to a sauna at a campground in Finland. It was actually someone’s suite called the ‘sauna’ suite. The police came but were very friendly in asking me to move on and used their GPS to point me to a spot across the road.

One of the greatest challenges—especially for a vegetarian—is getting enough calories to fuel you. Ice creams are great, and I limit myself to a maximum of eight ‘Magnums’ in a day. Any more would be gluttony. Last year in Australia during the Indian Pacific Wheel Race I did a 472 km run from Ceduna to Port Adelaide and my Garmin said I burned 11,000 calories that day. Guilt free eating, when you can get it, is great!

I ended up with an average of just over 250 km/day for the race including one and half rest days, finishing in 10^th place after 29:10:30 (days:hours:minutes). It was great to reach the finish line, but I felt like I wanted to keep riding! I was physically feeling great with no saddle sores, numbness, and I was not spent. Unfortunately, it was time to return to the real world.

The most wonderful aspect of the racing is the camaraderie and shared adventures with other riders. You have this shared adventure and find friendships that last a lifetime. Of course, it isn’t always easy—in this year’s race I described Spain as “heat, headwinds, hills and hunger”, but the sense of achievement, even if you don’t make the finish line, is unbeatable.

Control Point 5 after 7,000 km: the 3,390 m high summit of Pico du Veleta in Spain

Thanks to Armando and the team for helping me to recover from my crash and get race fit for such an adventure. Unfortunately, my wife has said “NO MORE” to these long-distance races so time to do something easier. Back to Ironman. I’ll be using Xert to help with the bike training of course…once you’ve drunk the Cool-Aid of Xert there is no going back.

If you’d like to read more about the event, my race report is at https://triduffer.wordpress.com/2018/07/28/north-cape-tarifa-race/

Chris Bennett is a civil engineer who is a Lead Transport Specialist for the World Bank, leading their transport work in the South Pacific islands. Originally from Toronto, Canada, he escaped Canadian winters 35 years ago for New Zealand. Working in many different countries, he’s known for not having a girl in every port, but a bicycle in every port —at one point 15 were spread between home and seven work countries. His mother had no idea what she was unleashing when she gave him his first bike. Chris and his wife Lis live in Pohara, Golden Bay where the weather is fine and the riding unbeatable. His blog is at www.tri-duffer.com. 

Xploits is a collection of stories by Xerters from around the world, about their goals, achievements, and how Xert helped them get there. 

What’s going on?

For sake of clarity, we’re going to define these modes so that we can make it clear what is being talked about and to put them into context using Xert terminology. 

FTP-Based Zones

In this post, we’re going to use a 7-Zone %FTP-based system to characterize SST.  As you can see from the above chart, sweet spot is defined as training at the upper Zone 3 / lower Zone 4 between 83-90% of FTP, although there are others that use alternatives ranging from 75% to 97% FTP.  Threshold training is defined between 90-105% of FTP.  We also define FTP to be roughly equivalent to LT2, from a zone definition standpoint (see below).

Polarized Zones and Training

Polarized zones use physiological concepts to define zone boundaries.  Zone 1 is any intensity below your first lactate threshold or LT1.  The most common definition of LT1 is the intensity at which your lactate concentration increases by more than 1 mmol above baseline levels.  During exercise, this is often seen as the intensity where breathing rate starts to noticeably increase and speaking just starts to become affected.

Zone 3 is any intensity above your second lactate threshold or LT2.  The most common definition of LT2 is the highest intensity where lactate levels do not continuously rise.  This is sometimes referred to as Maximal Lactate Steady State or MLSS.  In some definitions, LT2 is the intensity at which lactate concentrations are 4 mmol although this is often used as a convenience since MLSS often occurs near this level … but not always.

Zone 2 is any intensity between Zone 1 and Zone 3.  This is referred to as the Threshold zone.

Polarized training suggests that 80% of your training should be in Zone 1 and 20% of your training should be in Zone 3, where this 80:20 rule applies to the time you spend performing training, i.e. the ratio of low intensity training to high intensity training.  It is polarized because no or very little threshold training is prescribed.

Xert’s Three Systems

Xert doesn’t use the concept of zones directly.  Instead, it uses the concept of Focus and work/strain allocation ratios.

Recall that since an athlete’s power curve can be determined with three parameters – termed a fitness signature – an athlete’s ability to perform according to their power duration relationship is thus governed by three systems – peak, high and low – and all training will integrate into one more of these systems.  Xert uses strain to quantify overall training rather than work performed (i.e. time in zone). Whether it be VO2, neuromuscular, aerobic, anaerobic, etc., strain can be quantified as work performed relative to MPA and the strain of exercise (and thus the benefits of fitness gains from adaptation) must be allocated to one or more of these three systems.  The three Xert systems act integratively across many physiological systems.

Strain below Threshold Power (TP) is considered Low Intensity Strain and strain above TP is considered a combination of High and Peak Intensity Strain.  TP is roughly equal to LT2 and FTP for all intents and purposes.

Lower Threshold Power (LTP) is a modeling artifact that indentifies the lowest level TP will reach when all Endurance Energy stores are depleted.  In practice, LTP appears to mimic LT1.  From a modeling perspective, LTP corresponds to the point at which Endurance Energy is not being depleted and thus does in principle align with LT1 which characterizes the point at which anaerobic energy systems begin to engage in supplying energy to working muscles.  Anaerobic energy is supplied by your carbohydrate stores exclusively and this is the main source of Endurance Energy.

Sweet Spot Training

SST aligns closely with Threshold training in the Periodized method.  It is often performed as 2×20 minute interval workouts, targeting the sweetspot zone between 83% and 90%FTP, although some see it starting as low as 75% FTP and ending as high as 97% of FTP.  The concept behind using SST is that it provides the right amount of intensity for the greatest benefit in the shortest amount of time invested in training.  Generally the upper end above 90%FTP SST workouts are taxing and require lots of concentration to complete whereas those on the lower end, below 83%FTP, are easier to perform.  Many training plans that athletes purchase often incorporate SST during the base phase of an athlete’s training with the intention to substitute traditional long, slow distance (LSD) workouts with shorter ones based on SST.

This principle has come into dispute recently with research published by Dr. Stephen Seiler described here by our very own Dr. Stephen Cheung: Polarized Training and Stephen Seiler.  What the polarized method advocates is to avoid sweetspot training rather than intentionally train there, the complete opposite of what has been advocated!  It is argued that SST doesn’t provide the training value and in fact can compromise your training.  It is termed the black hole of training where athletes make the mistake of training too hard during easy sessions and training too easy during hard sessions.

So.. Which is it?  Should I do SST or not?

The answer is: it depends.  When we look at things through the lens that Xert provides, we can start to see where things can get a bit fuzzy.  Let’s take two athletes and see how they would fare doing SST:

	Athlete 1 – Slow-Twitcher	Athlete 2 – Fast-Twitcher
Threshold Power	370W	260W
High Intensity Energy	18kJ	28kJ
Peak Power	950W	1400W
Lower Threshold Power	335W	190W
%TP @ LTP	90.5%	73%
SST Range (83% – 90%)	307W – 333W	216W-234W
XSS for 2×20 @90%TP 50%TP rest 1-hour workout	72XSS	70XSS
XSS for 90% LTP 1-hour workout	73XSS	62XSS

In the table above, we have two athletes: Athlete 1 is an accomplished Elite endurance athlete and Athlete 2 is new to Endurance cycling and is a natural sprinter.

As the numbers show, Athlete 1’s range for SST is entirely below their LTP.  This means that their SST training would fall into polarized zone 1.  (SST would actually fit into a polarized training plan.) The 90% SST workout provides 72XSS of strain.  For the 1 hour workout at just under 90% LTP, XSS would be essentially identical (73XSS).  Therefore, for athletes with very high LTP values relative to their TP, sweetspot training works well for them since it ends up being polarized Zone 1 and not Zone 2 training.  If they trained at lower zones, it may in fact be too easy.

For Athlete 2, things are quite different.  SST workouts are entirely above their LTP across the whole range.  This athlete would need to tap into greater Endurance Energy stores to complete this workout and it would become more and more difficult to complete as the workout wore on as a result, likely causing the athlete to abandon the workout, even at the low end of the range.  SST falls entirely into the black hole region (easy workouts are too hard) of threshold training when it comes to using the polarized training method.  Indeed, if the athlete was to employ a polarized approach and train at 90% of their LTP, they would obtain a marginally less overall training score (62XSS).  The athlete could achieve the same benefit as the SST workout by merely extending the 1 hour at 90% LTP by about 10 minutes.  The 70 minute workout for this athlete would fall into the polarized training method, be easier to complete, would reduce demand on endurance energy stores (carbohydrates) and provide equivalent XSS benefit as the 2×20 SST workout @90%FTP.

Training Goals

Another factor to consider is the overall goal of the training.  Depending on the Athlete Type you are training towards, will determine what type of training is going to work best for you.  In the majority of events cyclists compete in, some level of supra-threshold demands exists and Athlete Types fall into those with a lower Focus Duration.  This means that high-intensity training is going to be needed in order to optimize fitness for these events.  Hence, a polarized training method, one that combines the intensities needed for the event together with longer, endurance sessions that don’t compromise the high-intensity training is best.

But if the goal is a straight, flat time-trial, where supra-threshold efforts are minimal and where TP is the main determinant of the outcome, polarized training may not be optimal if the high-intensity training is too high.  Training near your TP for those events that demand the highest TP is what will work best for these events.  Training that increases your High Intensity Energy and/or Peak Power, via high-intensity workouts according to Xert’s Focus and allocation ratios, will not be as valuable.  Hence, threshold training is what’s best in these situations.

On the far end, where athletes are training for full triathlons for example, over courses that are predominantly flat, polarized training using the 80:20 rule may in fact pose further challenges. For these ultra-endurance events, the primary determinant of performance is your LTP and raising it is your primary goal.  Polarized training will not likely be optimal in preparing athletes for these events since the high-intensity 20% training is used to improve High Intensity Energy and Peak Power (and to some degree TP) and LTP is not improved with high intensity training.  In fact, too much high intensity training can be a detriment and can negatively affect LTP.

Lastly and worthy of note, is that if the polarized training zones are not properly identified, they can wreak havoc in a training plan that intentionally avoids certain types of training.  So if Zone 1 is determined to be much higher than the athlete’s real LT1, the athlete will be performing their Zone 1 training in Zone 2, the black hole zone, which they may find too difficult to do and then find it impacting the days when they need to perform high intensity workouts.  Care must be taken when following a polarized training method that your LT2 and LT1 are correctly identified.

How Polarization Works in Xert

Firstly, Xert is the only platform available as of this writing, that establishes an estimate of your Lower Threshold Power using power data and allows workout intervals to be defined as a percentage of this value.  Following workouts that are based on LTP targets, ensures you’re not training too hard, i.e. avoids the black hole, by reducing the amount of training you spend above LTP.  Xert is not entirely polarized since training variety is an important element to training success, but you will find many of the Endurance workouts and the rest intervals in workouts to be defined at or just below LTP.

Secondly, Focus is a metric that quantifies efforts above threshold.  By definition, any Focus Duration that is less than 60 minutes, represents an effort that is above TP.  Therefore, when your Training Program enters the Build phase, you’ll start seeing the Focus of your training move towards your chosen Athlete Type.  This, in fact, is an increase in polarization as the Training Program progresses towards your target event.  For instance, an Athlete Type such as Breakaway Specialist, a great Athlete Type to choose if you are planning on doing road races, has a Polarity Ratio of roughly 80:20.

Lastly, the Xert Adaptive Training Advisor will prescribe Endurance training when your high and peak recovery loads are too high (yellow Training Status).  You will often see yellow Training Status a day or two following a hard, high-intensity interval workout where you are Very tired (red).  This indicates that your Low intensity system has recovered and is fresh enough for more training but your High/Peak intensity systems still need recovery before higher intensity can be performed.  This division of low intensity with high+peak, allows the system to give you enough recovery time to ensure your next high intensity workout will be successful and helps avoid failed workouts.  This, in essence, polarizes your training since workouts are either high intensity or endurance (low-intensity) depending on your Training Status.

If you choose Triathlete as your Athlete Type, all your training is Endurance aiming to boost your LTP as the main goal.

Conclusion

Sweetspot training, when used by some athletes and for the right purposes, provides an excellent way to train.  However, for many athletes, SST amounts to the black hole of training, where it’s too hard/short to provide endurance training benefits.  Many athletes fall in-between, where depending on the specific intensity the SST falls into and its relationship to LTP and their training goals, will determine whether it is a wise training choice or not.

Bike Set-up

• Fuji Bikes
• Xert
• Garmin 520

Israel’s Use of Xert

Chaz races Cat 1 for the CycleSport – Specialize Pb Muscle Milk team. Most recently he has raced against the Rally Sport team and even Andrew Talansky.

Bike Set-up

• Specialize Bikes – Rides a variety of sponsor’s bikes
• Garmin 520
• Xert
• Strava

Chaz’ use of Xert

Chaz has used Xert along with the advice of a coach to achieve new bests. Training over the winter he has analyzed his training and developed a great comfort with the Xert fitness signature.

“I have used Xert for over a year and it has been great. It really understands my fitness levels so when it says that I am ready for a hard workout, I know that I am. Or if it says I am fatigued, I don’t have to push as hard as I used to. As a result, my power is increasing and my training is ‘easy’ – I don’t overtrain and get exhausted.”

“When I am racing, I keep the MPA in sight so that I know when I can hammer it and when I have to back off. “ Chaz expects to continue seeing improvements in his training and racing as he maximizes his potential.

Richard Wharton

Dallas, Texas

Richard is a USA Cycling Certified Coach at the Cycling Center Dallas

Coaches Love Xert

Richard also provides detailed training on how to use Xert.  You can find out more about the Richard and the Dallas Cycling Center with this link.

Overcoming adversity with Xert

Nigel’s injury

Bike Set Up

• Ridley SL Frame
• SRAM ETAP
• Quarq power meter

What happened

Starting immediately after surgery, Nigel started the long process of recovery.

By February 2014 he was able to “shuffle about with the aid of two crutches and to ride my wife’s step through bike on a turbo trainer for 3 minutes.”

Keeping his feet on the pedals due to pain was just one of the struggles Nigel faced. However, Nigel built up enough strength to be able to mount his own bike and with assistance to clip in and out of his pedals.

“Later I discovered Zwift which meant I could be entertained whilst I worked at my endurance, and given that I was making progress in 2016, I bought the Tacx Neo.

In 2016 I came across Xert in Beta, although I was a little unsure of using Xert I could see that the tools offered may be to my advantage and encouraged me to make process. Progress was steady if not exciting, but since using Xert things have changed up a gear and I’ve seen my FTP progress at a satisfying rate, using their suggested workouts, some completed successfully, others I’ve failed, but that is the nature of the beast. Any drop in performance is down to me not trying hard enough or losing focus, but after some more intense efforts, my FTP is on the increase again.