New eyes, and zone troubles

I'll begin by announcing my return to contact lenses. I cannot recall how long it has been since I last tried contacts. Ten years, maybe? The big deal then was that I could get lenses that corrected for astigmatism. They worked well enough under everyday conditions, but on the bike they were, well, unpleasant. If you want more details, see my last post.

This time around I can get a useful amount of close-up focus, plus the material is thinner and more porous. Hopefully this will make them less of a challenge. Wore them last Tuesday on a run around Diamond Head. Also wore my Rudy glasses with clear lenses. Good thing, as the wind was strong. The close-up correction is not quite enough for up close reading, but the Rudy bifocal lenses makes reading my watch easy. Without the corrective insert the Rudy Ryder glasses are light enough for running. Tomorrow will be my first long bike ride with them. We'll see how it goes, pun intended.

Now onto the other subject of today's blog, zone setting. A perennial challenge.

I paced today's long run by RPE and Stryd power. I knew my Stryd zones has not be updated since December so I was not relying on them as much as watts, but most of the time when my watch indicated power zone one I felt like I was in zone one, and likewise power zones two felt like two. There was even a stretch on the second lap when I knew I was going too hard and sure enough, the Stryd Zones Connect IQ app indicated zone three.

Back at home I reviewed the data and saw some big anomalies. The TrainingPeaks HR zone graph looked good compared to how I felt, but the power graph was off. It had me running in zone four. I know I was not running that hard.

The new Stryd website makes it more difficult than ever to enter a baseline value manually. I call it LTHR, they call it CP; same thing. Stryd insists on computing it. On automatic the site reviews data for the previous ninety days, sort of like WKO. On manual the site asks for a recent run result or their special test result, and again, they compute it. Frustrating, because I want to use Jim Vance settings, which are a good match for Joe Friel's work. I cannot find a way to just set my own CP.

Just for kicks I switched to auto and Stryd came up with 144. Hmm. My last test gave 143, but I was sure it was too low. Obviously Stryd is looking at the same run. Is that really the value? Now what?

Well, when in doubt, look at WKO. The new version does a nice job of separating run and bike results. I let it update, and the hero bar gave me run mFTP 147. Hmm.

Let's come at it another way. Today's run from 40 min. on felt like a solid zone two -- 2Z. HR was in fact a solid mid 2Z. It was power that seemed wrong. So I got out my zone calculator, which I programed using Jim Vance zones, and started plugging in run FTP values until I got a mid 2Z for today's power. Guess what? I got 148. I actually do not like backing into threshold settings this way, but it is a useful method for validating test results.

So, what to do? I will adjust my TrainingPeaks run power threshold from 143 to 148. Not a huge difference, but enough to help reduce my confusion and perhaps make my future workout efforts more productive.

Now I hope it doesn't rain too much tomorrow. I want to ride with my new eyes.

Seeing better is better

In my previous post I wrote about my vision issues. I worked more on this issue, culminating in extensive testing on last Sunday's ride, and I have identified a major contributor. When the corrective lens is too close to the eye, chaos ensues. That is all this post is about, so if you are not visually challenged you might want to skip this post.

A brief history of my eyeballs

When I started riding I was already wearing contacts, only for cosmetic reasons. All I needed were some sunglasses to keep my eyes from drying out. When I figured out that cheap, dime store sunglasses didn't cut it I tried a fancy pair of Smith sunglasses, with interchangeable colors. Picked them up at Surf N Sea in Haleiwa after one of Pattie's triathlon practices. Better, but dry, burning eyes were not banished, so in time I moved on the a full frontal wrap design by Oakley. Probably saw them used at the Tour de France. Still had problems.

On a typical ride I would develop dry, painful eyes around thirty minutes in, followed by a period of excessive, blinding tears, then settle down for an hour or two. On long rides the dryness would return, making the finish miserable due to pain and blurred vision. Several times the tearing was so intense it washed the lens out of my eye. Lucky for me it always stuck to the back of the sunglasses lens and I could retrieve it, but I considered these episodes a crash condition. Not good.

Eventually I gave up riding with contacts and just used my everyday glasses. It wasn't long until the entire ritual surrounding contacts seemed out of place in my life, so I gave them up.

I think it was when I started doing triathlon that I decided my eyes needed more protection from the wind. Rudy Project began advertising about corrective sunglasses, so I looked into them. (No pun intended, but, hey, not bad.) Turned out my correction is too high for their corrective lenses, but they did offer an optical insert that fits behind normal sunglasses. I went for that, and yes, they cost a pile of money.

One more cool thing about Rudy Project: readers. Bi-focal lenses. I had been disappointed to learn I could not read my Garmin head unit with my sunglasses -- a set of reader colored lenses fixed that. More money.

There was always a problem with my Rudys. The correction was never quite 20/20. I never did a test but I would guess they were around 20/70. I took them to my optometrist and he said that on his measuring tool they were spot on, but on me they did not produce the same sharpness as my regular glasses. Plenty good enough to see where I was going, but it was hard to read street signs or make out people's faces. I could make the image sharp by moving the glasses further away from my face. Further than the nose piece could accommodate. Not a viable solution.

Another issue that turned up every now and again was double vision. Typically at the end of a long ride. The road center-line would split into two diverging lines. Manhole covers would be doubled, one on top of the other. Blinking helped. Closing one eye -- either eye -- would eliminate the shadow image.

On my tri bike in aero position I had another problem. The top edge of the frame cut right across my field of vision. When I fiddled with the nose piece to raise them, the double vision struck with a vengeance. Last year I was able to adapt, as I recall riding Pineapple Hill and Honu with no vision issues. I think it was more a case of putting up with it than fixing it.

At the start of this season I went on a campaign to find a solution. Roka was highly recommended, so I wrote to them and was informed that their corrective road glasses did not go that high. Oakley corrective glasses cost a small fortune, and they too do not support my numbers. I hit a dead-end.

During my break from training I rode with Pattie's group, and since we were going slow and stopping to look at stuff I decided to wear my regular, everyday glasses. Wow, it was so nice to see everything so clearly! This is what I wanted from my sunglasses.

Then inspiration struck. My Rudy aero helmet came with a visor. I did try it once, with my Rudy glasses, and it would not fit. Not even close. But what about my everyday glasses? That was the testing I did last weekend, using two different pair. The results were conclusive.

With the visor I was immediately pleased with how large my field of vision was. No blocking line across the top. At first I thought the glasses fit fine, until I began to feel an unusual pressure on my nose, above where the nose pads normally hit. I figured the visor was pressing against the glasses, pressing them back and up a little. It wasn't long before double vision showed up.

Back at the car I made some adjustments, eventually removing the visor. My eyes felt better, and no double vision. Without the visor I fear than the wind will be an issue, but for now, this is the best solution. I also tried my not-so-aero helmet, and that was good, too.

To summarize, the Rudy sunglasses always had the corrective lens insert too close to my eyes. Everyday glasses with the helmet visor also caused focus issues due to the visor pressing the glasses back and up. Everyday glasses in the correct position work best, but wind may be an issue. I'll know more after tomorrow's time trial.

That's it for now.