Over the last few years I have noticed a few things about training and racing with asthma.
First off, my childhood allergies have changed from once causing a stuffy nose or other symptoms to directly affecting my asthma. So in addition to mold, dust and cigarette smoke, now food allergies like peanuts and chocolate have an effect. Of course that is an easy fix, don't eat those foods! Mind you it can be hard when you are racing and those items remain key ingredients for most endurance fuel products.
Secondly, I have to warm up if I want to do VO2 max efforts. For example, I cannot leisurely ride for 30 minutes and jump into a quick succession of VO2 max efforts. I simply cannot recover in less than two minutes; and if I flare the asthma, I'm as good as done for the day. If I ignore the symptoms and continue, I might create an effect that lasts 3-4 days, like what happened during the leadup to this year's Tour de Delta. Why does this not usually have an effect on the racing, because usually the peloton goes through a build up in effort leading into the first climb of the day. But fast criterium starts and prologue time trials can be disastrous during a multi-stage event.
Let's compare two VO2 max sets I did in early September. I even warmed up with ten minutes of tempo riding!
Set 1:
425w - 3
Rest - 1.5
410w - 3
Rest - 1.5
390w - 3 (Failed at 1 minute)
After calming down from this effort, I decided to focus of lactate efforts (340-380 watts).
Set 2:
375w - 3
Rest - 1.5
391w - 3
Rest - 1.5
425w - 3
But I ended up feeling great and equaled my first effort of the day with the last interval. This is the third or fourth time this has happened since last January so now I realize that I will need to complete a full lactate workout (4.4.4 @ 95% FTP) before I do these 110%-125% VO2 max efforts.
Labels: Toque Coaching