"How's your training going?"

I wrote most of this post as an email responding to the question, "How's your training going?"  I thought maybe, just maybe, some of you all might want to know too. 

My training (especially with power) goes well.  I torqued my elbow doing non-tri related stuff (what was I thinking?), so my swimming has been derailed a bit.  But, I always am looking for a reason not to swim.  I'm still going to the pool, just not logging the yardage I was a couple of months ago. 

I've been playing road racer a bit this year.  Family obligations have limited my long distance training this year, so I figured a few sprint and Oly tris with a lot of bike races should keep me both in shape and active enough to not go nuts.  Plus it is way, way cheaper. 

What I have learned so far: 

1. I should have gotten a power meter before race wheels. 

2. The power meter allows knowing exactly what you need to do in order to survive a crit.  Being able to see what the actual surges are and then training for them is of immense value.  Seeing that just about every race sees 500w for 30 to 45 seconds for every lap has got me doing shorter intervals.  My tri mind didn't really foresee this. 

3. The little ring does not decrease your manliness.  The power meter shows very quickly that you can go as fast, or faster, up a hill while using less power if you check your ego at the bottom of the hill.  You can still be a man with a 39x26. 

4.  TT pacing with power is the way to go.  I did a solo 50 mile TT effort at a meager wattage (about 70%) to see what would happen.  I did not display speed during the ride.  Just power.  When I arrived home more than 10 minutes sooner than I expected and felt super-duper excellent to boot, I knew I had just learned something. 

5.  If I am going to ride a TT with a power of over the above wattage I need to get a bigger gear than 50x12 on my TT bike.  That 50 mile ride had me out of gears for a larger portion than I would have expected.  I have an 11 rear cassette that I will have to give a shot to.  But I may have to go with a 53 tooth up front on the TT bike. 

6.  FTP testing can make you sit at your desk because it hurts to stand up after. 

7.  When you raise your FTP your training gets harder. Looking for new numbers is fun though. 

8.  You can actually recover on a recovery ride if you stay under 60% of your FTP. 

9.  In my previous TT efforts I was way slacking on the flats and hammering the hills too much. 

10.  RPE is hard to pace off of.  In a test where I duct taped the computer completely and went by RPE only, my average power was lower than I would have thought and the normalized power was through the roof.  The data actually looked a lot more like a crit rather than a TT effort.  I'm not sure if this will change the more I ride with power.  But, it is the case now. 

So, as you can see I have actually learned a few things. 

I plan on collecting data for a few more weeks and that should then get me into ToAD with a plan that has me ready to race.

As always, we shall see.

 

Remember that the Bone Rise is this coming Wednesday.