Two Wheel Blogs

It's a fairly simple idea. Look at professional teams who play during the fall and winter and see if their location in terms of latitude shows any significant performance correlations. This blog appears to be exploring this simple idea. American football is an ideal sport to track since training starts in the late summer and the season begins in the fall and goes through winter. Check out his thoughts on recent super bowl winners.

If an amateur racing cyclist wanted to see if supplemental vitamin D could make a difference in their performance, here's a few things they could do.

• Get a 25 hydroxy vitamin D test in July to establish a base line and make sure you're not deficient. I would think if you are riding outside in the range of 8 to 12 hours per week, deficiency is not likely.
• Get another test in mid fall and see how much your levels have dropped. Start supplementing enough to get it back up (which may require another test or two).
• Keep up the daily supplements. Get another test in mid winter to be sure vitamin D levels have not decreased. If so, adjust the supplements.
• If you are able to maintain training time through the winter, take note of your FTP. It would be interesting to see if it stays the same or increases. It's possible that you would not see a drop and might actually be able to improve if the small amount of studies on vitamin D and performance are any indication.

Here in St. Louis, I know that the 25 hydroxy vitamin D test is available at local labs. I haven't investigated the cost but suspect it is in the range of $80 to $100. Depending on your doctor it may be possible to get at least one (or maybe two tests) covered by your insurance. So far I have struck out on this idea but I am looking for another doc.