Athlete 3 came to Source Endurance following four years of Triathlon and dabbling in other sports. He had previously been an elite racer and has international racing experience. His injuries have kept him from being competitive in the past and now he wanted back in the game. Athlete 3 also realized that lately the bar has been raised for cycling in central Texas and guidance would be needed to be successful at this level once again. His 2009 goal was simple, "use 2009 to return to a competitive level in the elite field." After a successful 2009, he turned his attention to cyclo-cross in order to give himself a bump in the top end that he could use in 2010.
This year Athlete 3 strives to once again be a protagonist in some central Texas races by continuing to improve fitness and racing with better tactical awareness as well as being more pro-active late in the events. Athlete 3 states that the frequent accelerations needed to excel in technical criterium races is also a weakness.
Athlete 3 balances all this training with his profession as a software engineer, wife, 2 children (one baby), a new home and troublesome swimming pool.
By examining Athlete 3's training and racing history, we were able to see the deficiency in his short, sharp accelerations. To address this, Athlete 3 did some things that many road racers never think of. First, he did some CX races. The one hour of hard riding every couple of weeks enabled him to improve his top over the off-season and he began the 2010 road season with a better top end than he ever had in 2009. Also, we focused on his VO2 max early in the season in order to help him tolerate the multiple maximal efforts in each race required at the elite level. The results were better than expected.
March 2009 Cumulative Power Distribution
March 2010 Cumulative Power Distribution
Mean Maximal Powers: March 2009 (dotted) vs. March 2010 (solid)
