I love gizmos, especially gizmos that help me see when I am (or am not) making improvements. I now have two ways to measure power on the bike, my CompuTrainer stationary system that's in my basement, and the new PowerTap hub that I recently picked up. The two work together nicely - CompuTrainer inside, PowerTap outside, and they both output data that I can load into CyclingPeaks, which is software that proceses it. Actually I'd like to give kudos to the CyclingPeaks folks here. My long (5hr) Saturday rights are a little daunting with the weather, plus it's dark and sometime icy when I'd like to get going. So I've been doing 2.5 hours on the CompuTrainer, then doing 2.5 hours outside. It breaks it up nicely. What impressed me about the CyclingPeaks software is that it handles this perfectly. When I add the PowerTap data, it recognizes it's from the same day and just adds it to the CompuTrainer data so I get one nice file that shows me the whole workout as one. It just works.
It's very motivating to have quantitative data that says the work you're putting in is paying off. It's one thing to say "I'm feeling stronger" or "I think I'm climbing better", but to see it in pure data is something completely different. When you're running, pace is a good measure of work. As a runner, your pace isn't that affected by wind or terrain. These things make massive differences on the bike, so it's hard to compare one day to another. Measuring power output is immune to all of these problems. It's the Decider.
I’ve been doing a lot of volume down on the bike lately and the CompuTrainer/PowerTap + CyclingPeaks combo is pretty powerful. Specifically this graph below which shows two things: 1) the average intensity of my rides and the 2) average overall training load. What this software allows you to do is to visualize improvements that you’re making in an objective way. So I like this graph because it shows that I’m not only absorbing a lot more volume (green line) per week, but I’m getting stronger. Note the dip is because the current week isn't complete. It should be end up near-or-higher than last week's come Sunday. Strength gains are slow, so having the orange line stretched over 4 months makes it look horizontal, but it’s really not, it’s slowly trending upwards.
You can really see the build/rest cycle here. Two to three weeks of increasing work, then a back off week, then repeat.
Good stuff!
This graph is just the full view of my 2.5 hour workout yesterday morning. Note how much stuff jumps around, that's why the averages are so important in measuring what you're doing, rather than a snapshot at any given moment. I did some "big gear" intervals at the end - think of it as weight training on the bike - which is why the last few minutes have such major swings. The red line is heart rate, the yellow line is power. You can clearly see where I took a break to refill water bottles at abou 1:15 in. You can also see my warmup (15min) and warmdown (5min). Another good thing is that power stays stable for the whole workout and HR doesn't creep too much. It does a little though, as I continue to get fitter that will also improve. Being stationary definitely comprimises the body's ability to disperse heat as well (even with a fan), which contributes to the rising HR.
So at the end of the day all of this stuff is obviously not necessary. But it does help and it's fun to be able to dissect exactly what you did. I'll have a lot of this data for the Ironman race itself, so that should be very interesting to look at.