Our primary sponsor (Cadence Cycling) did a good job of defining terms with regard to athletic power. Here is an excerpt from their original post.

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Speed = a measure of the velocity of the bike, measured in mph or kph. Speed is not a good measure of exertion or intensity while cycling because it is greatly affected by opposing forces such as wind, grade, road surface, drafting, gravity (body & bike weight), aerodynamic profile and friction (drivetrain efficiency) as well as power. It is important to remember though, that races are won by the fastest rider, not the rider with the most power. Speed = Power - Opposing Forces (aerodynamic, gravity, rolling resistance) so in the end a rider must optimize this equation by increasing power and decreasing opposing forces as much as possible to produce maximum speed.

Intensity Factor (IF) = the normalized power for a ride with respect to the functional threshold of the rider = NP/FT. Therefore an effort at 100% of threshold should equal an IF of 1.0. If the rider has an IF of over 1.05 for over an hour, their functional threshold may have increased since the last test (or their power meter needs to be calibrated)

Functional Threshold (FT) = the maximum power a rider can produce for a period of 60 minutes. This can be estimated by completing a 60 minute time trial, a 60 minute “race-type effort” with a high normalized power (commonly a difficult criterium or fast group ride), by taking 95% of the power produced in a 20 minute time trial, 90% of the power produced in an 8 minute time trial or by completing a lactate threshold test in the lab.

Normalized Power (NP) = calculated power over a given duration that better takes into account non-steady state efforts. Average power will decrease if there are significant recovery periods during warmup, cooldown or in between efforts but the stress of the ride does not necessarily decrease (think of driving a car… you can average under the speed limit but it doesn’t mean you won’t get a ticket). Therefore, average power is not a good measure of exertion for non steady state efforts such as races, hilly rides and many group rides. Normalized power should reflect the actual intensity of the effort. It is calculated by taking a 30 second rolling average of the power values, taking these values to the 4th power, averaging these values and taking the 4th route of this number. Therefore, when the power spikes very high, these spikes will be given exponential weighting. For example, a criterium may produce an average power of only 160 watts (due to the regular periods of coasting) but the same race might yield a normalized power of 280 watts (due to the many accelerations). Though normalized power is a very good measure of true exertion, because NP works on a 30 second rolling average, rides with power spikes of less than 30 seconds may not be weighted as highly as expected and likewise other rides that contain maximal efforts of 30-60 seconds may be weighted more highly than expected.

Ugghh. First off, my utmost apologies for such a long time between posts. Life happened, and I have been absolutely swamped since coming back from Denver and Seattle. I just shifted into survival mode for a while. Neal seemed to suffer the same fate at the same time. Alas, it seems to be all better.

WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK!!

If you’ve completed the swim…
1. Were you on a spring tide or neap tide?
How did it affect you? Did it matter?
2. Which pilot did you use? Tell us what you thought?
3. How many days were you in England waiting for the go-ahead from your pilot? (tell us your story)

If you’re currently training for the swim…
1. What have you heard?
2. Do you have a pilot reserved? Who are you using?

If you have no interest in ever swimming the English Channel…
1. Post your comments anyway. We’d love to hear from you. It makes us feel better.
2. Check out www.channelswimming.net. You will find a new respect for those who have done it. Next time you meet someone who’s accomplished it, pat them on the back.

There is a lot of sponsorship stuff going on behind the scenes that we’re excited to tell you about as soon as details get finalized.

Everything about this trek is moving in fast forward. We are in the final stages of securing our pilot boats. These are the boats that will drive next to us during the swim. Although we are not allowed to touch the boats at any time, they are there to protect and feed us. They are extremely excited to be a part of 10 degrees. For those of you who are new to the swimming world, the English Channel swim requires the services of a pilot boat. Weather and tides can be a killer, and a good pilot is crucial to navigating both. Many say that a successful swim is 25% your ability, 75% pilot’s ability.

Hello everyone. This is my third blog post in two days, so we are picking up steam as a blog.

Exciting news, Adam is back from his recruiting trips in Seattle and Denver. The dude can’t stop raving about Denver. I’m just glad he’s back. While he was gone I was without a regular training partner. Now that he’s back the problem is solved, but… I’ll poke fun at him anyways.

I saw this video from Chris Prouse and it really made me laugh. I’m like Chris, in that my bicycle has been my training partner for the past days while Adam way away.

Hope your autumn training is going well out there. Enjoy the video, hope it makes you all laugh too.

I know what ya’ll are thinking. Brrr. You’re absolutely right. But it’s also really beautiful this time of year. The autumn colors are out (gorgeous red and brown). The lake temp is about 70, which is cold, but not terrible yet.

Like I said in my previous post about open water swimming, most of our training these days is swimming. I prefer open water swimming. Long distances are easier in lakes than in the pools, and more beautiful. Here are some nice pictures of Mauch Chunk Lake in Jim Thorpe, PA. It’s about 90 minutes north of Philadelphia and in the Pocono foothills. The swimming is getting brisk now that’s it’s almost November. For some reason I can bare it as long as I have an insulated swim cap on. Here are some pictures of our latest swim trip

And my favorite picture. A picture of Jonathan Taqqu using me as a ladder to tie the rope for our leanto shelter.

Some of you have asked me if there are nice places to swim outside near University of Pennsylvania. It turns out Philadelphia has two really nice swimming lakes. These are Mauch Chunk Lake and Marsch Lake. Here are maps to help people find them.

Both Mauch and Marsh are very clear lakes without much seaweed. I gone to each lake twice in the last month, such fun! Go ahead and email me if you’d like to know the best places to start your swim. It’s possible to swim 2-5 miles in both lakes. Enjoy!