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The WilleHonne is a wellness community where people excited about an active lifestyle can collaborate and share their passion. Like our eponymous mascot, we endeavor to inspire people to be social, energetic, supportive, and to care deeply.

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Stuart Marais - April 2020 Newsletter

Hi everyone

I hope you guys are all well, especially during the times that we find ourselves in. Just like that, another month has rolled around, and we are starting to head into the colder times of the year. The Lockdown As you all know, we have been stuck indoors trying to maintain some semblance of normality in our day to day training, and to some degree have far surpassed what would be considered normal indoor training. After getting the news that the vast sum of races would be either postponed or cancelled due to the corona virus and an uncertainty as to when things may start up again, my coach and I decided to take a step back and evaluate what would be the best approach for the upcoming months. We thus decided that a revision to an endurance/build or base period would best suit the time at hand. With no races coming up it would be futile to try maintain any high intensity efforts as the neuromuscular fatigue that would build up would undoubtedly cause me to enter the latter part of the year, when racing resumes (hopefully), burnt out and in need of a holiday. Training in the Lockdown So, what has this meant for my training? We started a new meso cycle at the start of lockdown. Now many might be asking what a meso cycle is. When planning one’s training schedule, we take the overall yearly plan and break it up into the relative targets and goals we would like to achieve. In this Macro Cycle, we have a series of smaller cycles. These are known as Meso Cycles and comprise of 3 to 4 weeks of structured training to achieve a desired goal. This could either be to build endurance, your threshold power, VO2max, etc. This will normally comprise of either a 23/5 breakdown for more advanced athletes, where 23 days of structured training followed by 5 days of rest and easy spins to allow the body to recover and adapt, or a 16/5 pattern for an older or less experienced athletes. After 5 weeks of lockdown, I have just completed my first Meso Cycle block. With all training having been done on the indoor trainer, I am interested to see how my body will adapt to the load. When indoor training, as you may know, a three hour ride will be a three hour ride (unless you are Zwifting and have a good trainer and can still free-wheel on the downhills) and I have definitely noticed that I am burning 50-100 calories more per hour than usual. I am interested to see if indoor training may be a more efficient way of training and if there is any benefit at all to adding a few sessions to my usual training hours. Rest As mentioned above, the last part of the training block is rest. Rest is probably one of the most overlooked aspects of any athletes’ lives. We watch our numbers on Training Peaks start to turn south when we are not on a bicycle and panic thinking that we are not doing enough. This is exacerbated when we turn to social media and see our competitors hitting session after session, day in and day out as we start to wonder if we are doing the right thing. However, rest is not something that should be feared but should be embraced and accepted for what it is: a chance for your hard work to pay dividends so that when the next block starts, you are that much stronger and can handle the load and intensity of the next meso cycle.

  What to do during a rest period Now what should one do during these 5 days of rest? Typically, if I finished the last day of structured training on a Sunday, the Monday would be a total rest day, Tuesday would be a 90-minute spin (or an hour depending on your level of fitness). Now when I say spin, this is exactly what it means. For those familiar with your zones, this should be a zone 1 ride or a 1 or 2 out of 10 on the RPE scale. Wednesday would be another total rest, Thursday would be a 90-minute spin, the same as Tuesday, and finally Friday things will start to ramp up again with a zone 2 endurance ride of 2 to 3 hours. This is still easy but is just a time to get the legs going again. Now after this week of rest or detraining, a fair amount of changes will have occurred in your body. For one, most if not all the fatigue should be eliminated, and you will be incredibly fresh. For those of you who are not used to this “freshness”, it is a strange sensation especially when you look at the numbers. You will find that your heart rate is usually quite elevated for the same power numbers but will respond to efforts easily. In other words, if you accelerate, your heart rate will rise quickly, and as you slow, so will your heart rate. You may also feel slightly “sluggish” which is normal and will dissipate fairly quickly. This is why we start the next block with a few easy long days, just to wake the body up again. It is the same reason why grand tour riders dislike rest days because if you do not ride during the time of racing, there is a risk of feeling sluggish when racing resumes because your body shuts down during that time off. This recovery period is vital though. Ensure that you are eating sufficiently to meet your daily requirements as your body is in a state of repair. You can bring down the carbohydrate intake as you will not be depleting your glycogen stores during these rides and there is ample time during the week to “restock” the muscles and liver with glycogen. However, do not eliminate carbohydrate entirely, just dial it back a bit from the daily buckets of pasta. Your body is in a state of repair, as said before, and so ensure that you are getting adequate protein (at least 1,2g/kg body weight). I usually find that if you are eating good quality foods, you generally don’t have to worry too much about the fat as it is naturally found in the foods that you eat (think fish, red meats, etc all having adequate fat with your protein). Sleep is also vitally important so ensure that you are keeping good sleep hygiene throughout this period. Stress Finally, as hard as it may be, even impossible with life’s curve balls and this pandemic that has surfaced, try to eliminate as much stress from your lives as possible. Stress, whether from training or from life, will significantly increase the amount of cortisol in your body. This is the stress hormone and is secreted when we experience stress. In manageable quantities, our body can overcome this and in doing so, it will become stronger (this is why we do the 23/5). However, too much cortisol causes a cascade of reactions to occur as the body goes into protective mode over restoring mode, resulting in your body not allowing the recovery process to ensue. Hence the “23 days of work” turns into 28 days of work and you enter the next Meso cycle fatigued and not ready to start the next block. So, with that I shall conclude this article, I hope that you have been able to find it informative and helpful in your own training endeavours and hope you can use it to go from strength to strength. I know these times have been trying, however I hope that you will continue with your training and enjoy being outdoors again, as I am not sure about you, but I shall not be taking it for granted from here on. Thanks again and I wish you all the best. Kind regards Stuart

P.S. It is really good to get out in the nature again!

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Stuart Marais - March 2020 Newsletter

Good day everyone

I hope you all had a successful March amidst the turmoil the country is experiencing currently.

Kamburg Classic

March was set to be an intense month of racing, with a race being held almost every weekend through out the month. The first race of March would be the fuel and gas Kamburg Classic. I was looking forward to this race as it was one that had alluded me for the last few years after always having clashes with alternative events held at a similar time and last racing there in my late teens.

The usual protagonists would be lining up on the day and with most of them having some idea as to where the course went, they had a slight upper hand on me. Within the first 20 km we had managed to whittle down the field to just three of us, Andrew Hill, Willie Van Eck and myself. It was at the KOM that I would make the decisive move managing to put in an attack, soloing to the finish line. I managed to win the Kamburg Classic, giving me a distinct lead in the Roag series for 2020, one of my goals for the season. 

We also managed to put together a race YouTube highlights package which you can see in the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_4HaXRKno4

The Lockdown

The good news was short lived, however, as 24 hrs later we would find out that the president would be implementing the lockdown that we are all too familiar with. This would mean that all sporting events would be cancelled or postponed for the foreseeable future. This has been a hard pill to swallow as these were key events that I had been building up to and was keen to get stuck into the racing season again. However, I do feel that this was a necessary measure to take and it is hoped that this will help South Africa to get through this pandemic quickly and efficiently. 

So, what has this meant for my season, well to be honest, my day to day activities have not change. On the onset I decided to take a few days off the bike as I had been training for a few solid months and had made good inroads into my fitness and conditioning with out much time off the bike since October 2019. 

Currently I am back into the full swing of training, I have seen this more of an opportunity to improve my fitness during this period. Racing, although this is what we train for, does tend to have a negative effect on your fitness levels with the tapper process, although bringing freshness to the athlete, results in a decrease in fitness and there are only so many times one can do this before needing to “top up” on the fitness side. I thus see this as being an incredible opportunity to build on what we have done so far and allow me to enter the race period, when it does start again, fitter and stronger than ever before.

Youtube and the Covid Cycling Chronicles

In the meantime, Willehonne has started a Youtube channel and we have been hard at work creating content. If you have a free moment, please go have a look at the channel, give it a like and follow as this will be a huge help in us getting the channel off the ground.

I hope you all have a great month, please stay safe, stay indoors and let’s get South Africa through this pandemic stronger than we were before.

God bless Stuart 

#GROWTHEPACK

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FTP

Hey Everyone

I hope you have all had a great month and are stuck well into your training regimes.

As all of you know this will be my second article and was asked to cover the importance of FTP, VO2 max and how we can go about calculating it when one doesn’t have access to a trainer.

Off the bat, lets try explaining the various acronyms and take it from there. FTP, or Functional Threshold Power is a commonly defined as the highest average power you can sustain for an hour, measured in watts and is often used to determine training zones when using a power meter as well as a good guide to measure improvement.

VO2 Max also known as maximal oxygen uptake, is the measurement of the maximum amount of oxygen a person can utilize during intense exercise. It is a common measurement used to establish the aerobic endurance of an athlete prior to or during training. It is somewhat improvable but tends to plateau and is largely based on genetics. So, I won’t discuss it too much but is good to know about.

Now that we have a basic understanding of what each of these entities are, the other day I mentioned that in the event of you not having a power meter, I did not really see the benefit of knowing it and I thought let me see if I can try explain the reasoning behind it. Because as great a metric as it is, I feel that media has blown it out of proportion to the point that everyone has put it as the be all and end all of cycling and everything revolves around it and this is not necessarily the best way of looking at this metric and I honestly last had my FTP tested on the 16th of January 2017 and we set it at 370 watts and its pretty much stayed there for the last 3 years.

So, why did I say that FTP is not as important as it is made out to be. FTP is used to determine one’s training zones usually set out from zone 1 up to zone 6 or 7 depending on which protocol you use. But the most important of these zones that we determine is your aerobic zone (zone 2 where you train in an oxygenated environment and used to maximize mitochondria) and your anaerobic zone (where you do efforts in an oxygen depleted environment). Now for those who train according to heart rate, you could work out your heart rate FTP by taking your avg. heart rate during a really hard interval session where the efforts lasted for around 45 – 60 min or use a really intense race and take your avg heart rate from that. Why I am not a fan of this, is that there are far too many variables to consider when using heart rate. For example, if you have caffeine it tends to raise you exercise heart rate, If I am dehydrated or been on the bike for an extended period, I will have cardiac drift that will slowly increase as the duration of exercise increases or if I am incredibly fatigued or fresh I will either have a suppressed heart rate or elevated heart rate. This is why it is best to be working out your ftp on a power meter, ideally one would go to a lab and do a vo2max test whereby they strap you up to equipment that measures your oxygen consumption and CO2 expelled and you will do a ramp test until voluntary exhaustion, this will accurately determine your FTP and consequently your zones but not everyone has access to these facilities and the tests are not cheap, so thus the easiest way to determine your FTP is to go out and find a 20 min uninterrupted hill and go all in, you should empty the tank and have to sit down when you hit 20 min and it should not be “fun”. You then take 95% of this value and this will give you your ftp. Plug this value in your Garmin and it will give you your zones. It is not the ideal situation and does not suit all cyclists but it’s the most basic test to do.

Now back to why I a do not see too much benefit in knowing your ftp, specifically when one does not train with a power-meter. As from above, this is a test that requires an all-out effort to determine the value. Now, once again, there are a host of things that can determine how “well” you will do during this effort. How was your build up, are you fresh or not, did you eat enough the day before are there external stresses in your life from work or family? All these will drastically affect your ability to push yourself and ultimately affect your achieved value and so the value should be taken in total context and not just as a standalone be all and end all value. This test is also really intense and uncomfortable and used to determine “training zones” so if you are not training to a power meter there’s no real need to know these zones and hence the only true benefit of doing an ftp test on a regular occasion is to determine if you are improving in your fitness at which point doing a test 2 or 3 times a year will show you a steady improvement in fitness.

A much better metric to use to determine your training zones, is simply RPE or rate of perceived exertion and is what I use on a day to day basis to train according too. We break it up to a value from 1 through to 10, 1 been a recovery ride and 10 meaning I’m going to throw up, 80% of your rides should be done at a level from 2 to 3, with the remaining 20% reserved for intervals. Today was a typical example of the disconnect between power and RPE. Normally I will do a zone 2 ride around 220 – 230 watts, however, I did some testing at Movewell (Biokineticist) yesterday that destroyed my quads and so woke up a little tender. Trying to hold 220 would have dug me an even bigger hole so I rode according to feel and rode at 203 watts for the session, nearly 10% less than what I would have normally done.

Another example is I did some intervals and my Garmin auto worked out my ftp because the interval went over 20 min and I did some amazing numbers that day and wanted to set my FTP at 385 watts. Most would increase their FTP and carry on training for the next few years. I rather see it as I am firing at this exact point of my training and shall be able to achieve good results, but in 2 weeks’ time, after my event, I won’t be doing those numbers and my FTP will reduce back to its original “370 watts” and my zones wont be set so high that I am now over extending myself trying to chase a number. That been said if I start to see too many of these natural highs, then I may need to set up a new VO2 Max test to see if my FTP has increased or not.

On a side not, a really quick way of determining your FTP is through an app on the Garmin Connect IQ store, it’s called the Xert app. And all you really have to do is go to a hill or on a trainer, does not matter the length, and do an effort as hard as your physically can. Basically, stop when you collapse, and it will work out your FTP automatically. Its been shown to be fairly accurate and so can give a good ballpark figure, but once again you’ll need a power meter. Sorry I know this has been a bit of a long article, but I hope I have been able to get across my point of view on FTP, it’s a good metric and I use it almost every day. But one needs to take it into the greater picture of things and not use it as the pinnacle of excellence. Because if races were won on FTP, our podiums would look a lot different than what they are now.

Stuart Marais

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Stuart’s Nutrition Tips

Hello WilleHonne

The reasoning behind this is from time to time, I will be putting together an information article relating to various aspects about cycling. I have been in the sport for a few years now and rubbed shoulders with some top-notch cyclists and have managed to learn some tips and tricks when it comes to riding a bike that just makes it that much more fun.

Without further delay, today I want to discuss on the bike nutrition with you guys. Contrary to popular belief, cycling nutrition is not rocket science and there is no need to over complicate it. Contrary to the banting movement, when it comes to exercise, carbs are king. If you want to go far do banting, if you want to go far and fast carbs are where it is at. The current studies have proven this time and again that a fat adapted cyclist is still slower than one eating a high carb diet and the main reasoning why people “run out of energy” is they just are not eating enough to sustain the work that they are doing.

With that been said let’s get into some numbers. The general rule when it comes to carb intake for cycling is that a cyclist needs to take on 60 g of carbohydrate in an hour period. Now this is a very vague number and most of the time dependent on a number of factors and hence I shall give a few indicators as to the strategy I would use on a day to day basis. A ride under 90 min, with no efforts/intervals is considered a recovery ride. A ride such as this I will take on minimum carbohydrate, probably around 0-30 g per hour, as a ride such as this is done at a low intensity ( which naturally will be fueled more by fat than carbohydrate) and in a glycogen (bodies way of storing carbohydrate in the liver and muscle) surplus stage. Thus, there is no real need to heavily fuel this ride. This goes for commutes, rides with your spouse, starvation rides (More on this at another time) or a walk. Once we start going past this threshold, the body can only store a limited amount of glycogen and hence fueling your ride becomes increasingly necessary to avoid the dreaded bonk. Anything over this time I would start fueling my rides with anything between 30 g and 90 g per hour of a multi strain type carbohydrate (Sorry just having coke isn’t going to cut it). If the intensity of my ride is fairly low I would tend more towards the lower end of the spectrum, taking into account the hours I am doing, if the session is of a high intensity or not and finally the training I have for the next day, I would consume closer to 90 g per hour.

So now that we have got the numbers out the way, what does this look like in food. As most of you know I am sponsored by Cadence Nutrition, so a lot of my strategy revolves around their products and what they supply me with. However, I will not limit it to just these products. So practically speaking if I were to embark on a 90 min recovery ride all I would take is a bottle of juice with one scope of Carbofuel which has around 40 g of carbs in it. This takes care of both my hydration and carbohydrate requirements for the ride. Once the hours start to increase and I have a 3hr ride, I would take 2 bottles of carbofuel with me at normal strength giving me 120 g – 160 g of carbs and I would then take one of their bars with me for the ride adding an additional 40 g and possibly a gel depending on the day which adds a further 21 – 23 g of carbohydrate making for a total of 160 – 220 grams of carbohydrate.

Now when It comes to racing or interval sessions, the intensity at which I race is basically as hard as I can go for as long as I can go and the same goes for intervals they are just more structured. This requires a huge amount of fueling to ensure that I can get to the finish line as well as prevent cramping. I arrived at this formula shortly after Sani last year and has been serving me well, and by simplifying the formula it made it easy for me to follow. Marathon style events take anywhere from 2h30 to 5 hours and thus require anything from 220 g to 450 g of carbohydrate. The way I go about achieving this is I start on the start line. I will consume either a bar or a gel 15 min before the race to ensure I’m topped up before we get going. I will then have a gel at 30 min into the race and things start to settle down whilst constantly sipping juice. At the top of the first hour I shall have a bar followed by a gel 30 min later and another bar 30 min after that. I will continue with this pattern of having a bar and gel every hour until the last hour of an event and things start to heat up at which point ill switch to just gels and will have one probably every 20 min, all this while having around 2 bottles every 2 to 3 hours. As you can see this is an exorbitant amount of fuel to be taking on and I honestly would not recommend just going out and doing this when your next race comes along. The gut, like your muscles, is highly trainable and you are able to, over time, teach your body to process large quantities of carbohydrate fairly easily. It just requires gradual introduction of more carbs into your rides. This been said, the body can only absorb around 60 g per hour of a single strain of carbohydrate and so it is vital to mix the source up. Cadence has taken care of this by having a 2 to 1 ratio of fructose to maltodextrin which allows me to consume large quantities of it. However, for those of you who would like to fuel your rides through other means, it will just require some for thought into how you go about fueling. Bananas are an excellent form of carbohydrate ( preferably erring more on the over ripe side as the carbohydrate is more easily absorbed), peanut butter or Nutella sandwiches with white bread, rice cakes ( I will try find the recipe to make them as its not the cardboard version you find in the stores) and home made date bars are all really great ways of reaching your carbohydrate intake, they do tend to carry a lot of fibre with them which will slow down absorption to some degree and can lead to GI distress if large quantities are consumed but unless you at the pointy end of the race I don’t see this been to much of an issue.

I know this sounds like a large amount of information to sort through, but I would really recommend finding out what works for your body and what you are able to enjoy on the bike. Once you figure this out do a handful of your bigger rides and slowly work your carbohydrate intake up until you feel like when you finish your ride you don’t need to inhale the fridge at the end of it. This, in my opinion, is when you know you have fueled right and helps prevent you overeating at the end of the ride. For those who would like the date bar recipe, take a handful of medjool dates, some dried fruit (I like cranberries) and some almonds or mixed nuts. Put them in a food processor until the mixture combines (can take a while depending on the blender) roll them into ball or bars and enjoy.

Hope this helps everyone and please don’t hesitate to ask if you need some help.

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Stuart Marais - Feb 2020 Newsletter

Good day everyone

I hope you have had a good month, And like that another month has come to an end, and it has been a busy one. After Andrew’s and my success at the Pe2Plett race at the start of the month, I have managed to go from success to success.

A week later, I lined up at the first round of the ROAG series, the Wartburg Classic. After a hiccup at the start of the event where Andrew and myself took the slower single track of a duel track and landed up at the back of the pack and had to fight back to the front. We managed to maintain the intensity and Andrew, Tyrone White and myself managed to get away from the rest of the field. I then managed to drop both Tyrone and Andrew up a climb at around 40km in, after which I knew I had the upper hand. I allowed Andrew to catch up again as it was a bit far out to be soloing to the finish, but I managed to drop him again up a steep little kick and never looked back. I managed to win the first round of the ROAG series and has given me a good bunch of points leading into the series.

A week later was the first round of the KZN XCO series to be held out in Amanzimtoti in Durban. The XCO series, I’ve found, has become a good place to mingle with the youth who participate in these events and although the competition is not that high, unless some of the other local pros arrive on the day, I do find them to be of great value from a PR exercise. The day before the event, I generally avail myself to the nippers, sprogs and those who may be struggling with a certain aspect of the course at which point I shall help them out and show them lines and how to tackle various obstacles. The race on Sunday, I decided to race “myself”. I was not expecting too much in terms of competition and just used the race as a hard training session, trying to keep my lap times as consistent as possible. I managed to achieve the goals I set out for the race and consequently won the event as well.

I have around two weeks off now before the next round of the ROAG series, the Kamburg Classic, to be held on the 14th of March. After that will either be the Berg100 and a Cat1 XCO event held up in Namibia or the next round of the KZN XCO series. However, there have also been date issues with the AFCON XCO Championships, which I’d like to attend, having disappeared off the calendar. They were meant to be held in March, but we are waiting for CSA to sort out the issues in terms of when they will now be held. Once again thank you for your continued support, it really is great to have partners on board who are interested in my development and progress. Kindest regards Stuart