Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Well, the results are back from the first real training ride outside with the PowerTap and the data is interesting. The first thing is that I was definitely right about the data being a lot noisier. I'm not really sure how to interpret it beyond looking at the averages right now because there are lots and lots of spikes due to variations in terrain. The second thing I learned during the ride was that I tend to go too hard early on climbs and then blow up near the end. Several times on the hills yesterday I would really punch it at the bottom of a hill and push my power up over 450-500 watts. I could hold that for a minute or so but I would tend end up having to back off and only being able to ride at 250 watts at the top. Once I figured this out, I would hit hill and try to stay between 300 and 350 watts and I would do a lot better. I knew this for long hills but I was surprised to see how true it was for shorter ones as well. The third thing I learned was that I seem to go a lot harder outside than inside on the trainer, at least in terms of the power I put out. The ride yesterday was the best ride I've done in terms of the averages and was better by about 5% than my indoor trainer test. I'm not sure why that is. It could be that I get pretty hot riding inside and so maybe my heartrate is a lot higher for a given power output. I could be that with the trainer I don't get the little mini-rests you get out on the road. That I had higher higher average power for all the different time intervals was a big surprise because I don't really feel like I rode all that hard in terms of riding at my LT heart rate. The cool thing was that my energy burned for the ride was nearly 2000 Calories. I was tired near the end but not wiped out.

So, I guess I have a lot to learn about this training with power thing. Fortunately, the book I ordered, "Training and Racing with Power" by Allen and Coggan came in yesterday. I've looked at the first couple of chapters and they are definitely well-written. In skimming the third chapter I realized that there will be lots of numbers to keep track of. Last night at 10:30, it seemed a little overwhelming but I imagine it'll be like the first time I read Friel's book. At first there was so much information that I had a hard time keeping track of it all. After a couple of times through the material in bite sized chunks, I got a pretty good handle in things.

This leads me to another topic having to do with riding and racing. Some guys I know are complete geeks about the data and numbers and all of that. They measure everything they can measure and evaluate their performance based on that. Other guys couldn't care less about the data. They just want to ride and base their training on perceived effort and how it feels. They have a certain elan or passion when they race. I tend to be somewhere in the middle. I understand that without the data, an objective measurement of performance and improvement is next to impossible and in this sense, the more data one gets, the better. On the other hand, I ride because I love how it feels in so many different ways. When I think of going fast, I love how it feels to have my muscles and lungs and heart all working together to create power (which is part of why I love time trialing...you go fast and you're solitary-just feeling your body and it's response to the command of "go faster"). In a way, I want the data but I don't want to be overwhelmed by it or controlled by it. I can understand why guys hire coaches to do this sort of thing for them. They just want to ride and if the coach can look over the data and say, "Next week you need to do this and that and we'll look it over from there." then that's the way to go.

Since I can't afford a coach at the moment (but soon I think) I'll have to do it myself. I hope the book will teach me what I need to know and I'm guessing I'll have to subscribe to the WKO+ software out at TrainingPeaks at some point in the near future since it seems to have all the tools to track everything I need it to (and it goes well with the book).

Today is a recovery day after three hard days of training. I'm tired and my muscles hurt a bit today so that's a good sign I need a day of easy spinning. The only bad thing is that I'm going to be on campus for most of the day so I'll have to spin on an exercise bike in the gym on a beautiful day which seems like a waste. I will get a little light lifting in so that's a silver lining I suppose. One nice thing is that I felt like I got stronger each day during the mini-block so that bodes well. Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be another three day block before I settle back into my more normal rhythm of Monday and Friday being recovery days. I'm not totally sure what I'll be doing but I think Saturday will be a two-a-day since I have a wedding to be at in the middle of the day. Maybe two 25 mile TT efforts. Sunday will be a long ride, maybe a century, in order to work on the endurance side of things and maybe to see some roads I don't see as often as I'd like.

Thanks for Reading.

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