If you're working intervals on the trainer right now, Pnorm isn't that big of a deal. Inside the interval, Pnorm will be super close to Pavg due to the steady state riding.
Ride at your goal watts, hold it for the time prescribed, recover, repeat. Love it!
Not sure if y'all already hit this point cuz I haven't been checking in as often. If so, I apologize for the redundancy.
I loves me some V02 bike intervals! 6 x 90" done at prescribed 1.20IF. Threw in a few more minutes in Z3 then done. I was getting "fidgety" on the saddle. I haven't acclimated to it yet since the bike shop tweaked the fit a little while ago. I wish I left it alone now!
Posted By Edwin Croucher on 08 Nov 2013 08:53 AM <p>John,</p> <p> The WKO+ does not give me NP for duration under 5 minutes.I have my garmin set to show me my lap NP while riding. The NP was the showing same recorded as the AW during those intervals. When I ride inside, any segment that is 5 minutes or more, I am seeing anywhere from a 1 to 4 watt difference between the NP & AW. The NP is the lower of the two. When I ride outside, my NP is always higher than my average watts. However, inside, I have very few zeros to average inside. My recent tests had the following differences: 5 min VO2 max NP of 284 & AW 288, the 20 minute FTP test NP was 273 AW was 274. The shorter the duration of the interval, the greater the variance between NP & AW.</p>
For Vo2 intervals, a good way to use Pnorm is to check it for the whole set, work and recovery combined. Done properly, your normalized power(IF) should be 1.0, or 100%. My head unit tracks current IF for any interval longer than 30 sec, so I look at that while doing VO2 intervals, trying to make sure it reads 1.0 at the end (will also swing to 1.0) as I end each recovery interval).
And, yes, avg power is a good proxy for NP for shorter intervals.
Ok, I haven't been able to get the computer much this week and had a bad start to the week. I was a day delayed but got in the Tuesday bike on Wed and the Thur bike today. Both are done and both continued to remind me why the term sufferfest is thrown around these parts. The 2 min at VO2 is rough, not sure why it is so much tougher than the 1 min (it is double, of course it is my sarcastic id tells me) but it really takes it out of the legs. I hit the paces, tried not to overachieve and tacked on about 15 minutes of Z3 after each. Looking forward to tomorrow's workout and some good weekend downtime. Enjoy the rest day everyone!
Al, Thanks for the info. Yesterday's workout was a very good effort. For my entire hour including the warm-up, my IF was .904. My IF was .984 for the work portion that included all the recovery and the last 9 minutes at zone 3. When I create a range of the entire 7 intervals including my RI, I get a NP of 264 (1.01). I keep the IF and NP on my headset and watch them during these intervals as well.
@Judson - your effort is exactly where it should be so no need to change anything here. Just in case you feel that these intervals are not "very hard" (Zone 5 / RPE very hard) you should turn up the volume a little bit!
There are some peeps here that use the calculated 120% of FTP for Vo2max - others use their tested Vo2max wattage from the bike test protocol. I use a combination of both because I know my Vo2max is currently higher than 120%
@Stefan: If I understand your comment correctly . . . . you are saying if the workout seems too easy he should bump up his watts to make it harder? If so, I remember a phrase Coach P said awhile back:
"One strong workout does not a FT bump make."
General rule is if bike workouts start to seem too easy to continue at current FT for at least another week (or two) to see if it remains that way. Need to make sure excitement/newness and/or overachieving are not the case. If after a week or two it still seems too easy then ping a coach and ask for guidance for a new FT number between tests.
We are only in week 2 of OS. We still have a L O N G way to go. Weeks 6 through 10 will get very interesting both mentally and physically for many of us. No need to making any more interesting.
If I am way off base here then feel free to slap me! It is still early in Cali and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
Rock on, brotha!
You got me wrong just a little but I didn't clearly state out what i wanted to say. I'm not talking about raising your FTP - I was talking about raising the target watts for the Z5 repeats ... and ONLY the Z5 - don't touch the other zones!
IMHO it's almost impossible to overachieve on Z5 - you simply won't be able to sustain the effort. Z5 is per definition "VERY HARD" so I really believe that these intervals must also feel like that otherwise you are most likely underachieving of what you are possibly already capable of.
Just to give you an example my actual FTP is 280W so the calculated Z5 for me should be at 336W. BUT the NP from the 5min all-out segment was at 375W (almost 134% of FTP) ... so I set my Z5 to a 350W (125%) which is more or less just an educated guess but my RPE told me that I can't be that far off.
Some great stuff going on here...I love being back in Da Haus!...rock on everyone
Amazing how working on my glute strenght and hip flexibility has positively impacted my riding...and riding position...I am now sitting almost 2 inches higher and slightly forward than when what I rode IMTX at....and think I can go higher but having some seat issues...but power, cadence, rythm are all improved...I'm feeling good.
I'm hacking the Intermediate OS ...so I decided to do this workout today...it just felt right
@Chris - Guess my old school EN (pre-trainer Road) ejucmacation is showing. Back in the day we were laser focused on the NP number on that little yellow CPU during each interval. TR makes it crazy easy now.
@Edwin - If you are using the WKO+ software on your PC you should be able to see NP for intervals 30 seconds or longer. Might be a setting in the software? I haven't used WKO+ in awhile. I use Training Peaks online.
@Everyone - Sorry for my chattiness. I have received a few PM's and emails with questions along these lines so I figured posting to the group may answer some questions.
OK, I was an athletic supporter for my buddy, Tom Glynn, yesterday as he is starting a swimming regimen. So I knocked out 2,000 yards with him and pushed the bike to today. Plus I love to swim so it was a win-win.
Started my 6 x 1.5's this morning and in the middle of the second interval I got a call from my sons elementary school that he crashed his bike on the way to school. So I jumped off the trainer and dashed to see him. He is fine. More shocked and embarrassed that he went down in front of his friends than anything else. He has a couple of scratches but he will live.
So . . . .
Got home and started over with Spotify cranking Daft Punk. So technically I did 8 x 1.5's this morning. Felt good the whole time but that 20' section at the end was a mental game. After 50' of Daft Punk I had to switch to some 80's rock. That got me through. Here is my graph:
John, You had my brain working overtime. I searched all through the WKO+ manual and nothing. So I contacted Training Peaks and this is what I was told:
Since normalized power is calculated off of a rolling average of power there must be at least 5 minutes of data for this calculation to be run. Since IF is a function of NP, and TSS requires IF, you will not see these metrics either.
"Just to give you an example my actual FTP is 280W so the calculated Z5 for me should be at 336W. BUT the NP from the 5min all-out segment was at 375W (almost 134% of FTP) ... so I set my Z5 to a 350W (125%) which is more or less just an educated guess but my RPE told me that I can't be that far off"
With the numbers you are posting, you made an excellent call. Also, the IF numbers you are posting, this is still very impresive. Since I am new to power, I choose to go with my tested Z5 at 336 and lower my tested FTP from 280 to 270. But if I get the same results again - similar to yours, I'll bump up as well.
I tend to focus on the FTP #, calculate the VO2 at 120% of that and use it for the z5 target.
Reason being...I've read in a couple of places that there's different benefits from working z5 (120%) and zone 6(?) with 'all out efforts'. The take home message was that doing the VO2 specific work, controlled 'down' at 120%, raised the roof and the z6 HIIT had a different 'purpose'. I can't recall at this moment what that was because I discarded it since I didn't need it for what I was trying to get better at.
Note: I think I read up on this in Training and Racing with a Power Meter, which is intended to develop cyclists as well a triathletes, as I'm sure you know. If I have time, I'll see if I can find the excerpt.
Now, having said all that, if you feel like your VO2 intervals are tolerable at 135% of FTP, then I'd have to think that your FTP might have room for a better test result.
Stefan, you're a beast, great numbers and great race results. I throw this out just as something to think about.
135% qualifies as overreaching. As strong as you are, you may get away with it, or it may take a while to catch up to you. Like I said, just something to consider.
Lego Robotics today with my kids and its an early show time, so that means an even earlier show time in my basement. Not the full assignment, but good enough for today. 2x10 @ 0.99 and 0.98 and 1x20 @0.83. Now to cheer for the 11 year old while keeping the 5 year old occupied! My turn to be the sherpa!
wow…underestimated the difficulty of today's bike. Don't know the cause, maybe it was because last night was the first night it froze outside and the dry air made it difficult to breathe on the trainer, but I got off the bike 3 min into the first rep of MS2. IF of .98 in rep 1 of MS1, and then the misery began. Had to stop pedaling twice during rep 2, wasn't able to maintain target FTP and then i threw the towel in rep 1 of MS2. Figured I would do the run and forget about the terrible bike workout, but that lasted only 8 min.
Time to move on with my Saturday, forget about this morning, and reset and perform well during tomorrows run.
as a newbie, you're gonna learn alot about EN work real quick. On paper, the workouts don't look that bad, but, in the real world of busy family/life/work, those 'short' intervals can humble the best of athletes.
you won't forget this Saturday workout...ever.
Each workout is like a mini cage fight. You gotta get your mind right well before you hit the start button. Fuel up with some carbs and caffeine 30'-60' before, not too much since the workouts are short, but enough to get you going. Hell, crank out a few pushups or jump rope to get warmed up before the real warm up. But, be focused by the time you start. Every time I'm half assing it to the Pain Cave, I have a horrible workout. I have to head to the cave like I'm about to wrestle a gorilla or fight Tyson. It's the only way I can 'hold my own' thru the EN stuff.
Don't sweat it, tho. It's a long year and you're gonna nail way more workouts than having this kind of thing happen again.
@Chris - "Each workout is like a mini cage fight." I like that!
@Jan - I had the same issue during my BIKE TEST last week. I was humbled and discouraged. In short . . . we all have those days, brotha! This isn't Slowtwitch where we say HTFU or call you a derogatory name for bailing. It happens to the best of us. Thanks for posting as I am sure there are some lurkers in here who have had the same thing happen. Or will.
Brush yourself off and live to fight a "cage match" another day.
Wow, that was the real deal. Just finished today's w/o. Hit the numbers, and it hurt like it should. I've learned to treat these Saturday w/o's like an in-season 4-hour ride - eat well on Friday and get to bed good and early!
Chris- I totally agreee on the mental factor. I was pysched up yet relaxed and nailed today's WKO. Also did some extra time which I rarely do.
Super WKO today!
2 x 10' @ 1.00IF 2 x 15' @ .836 & .852IF 1 x 15' @ .808IF
Overall about 90' .85IF, 20miles.
3miles on the 'mill. Started off slower than prescribed Z2 but eventually picked it up but not enough. About 30" off the targeted avg. pace. Still OK in my book!
I was up early this morning, banged on the run and then jumped on the bike. This week it seemed much easier to get the pegs going though sustaining seemed a bit more difficult. I think boredom starts to creep in with being on the trainer for that long. All in all, I hit the paces as stated (2x10 at z4, 2x15 at z3) and headed to the office. Time to bang out some work to get on with the weekend!
Got in a great bike workout and maybe it is time to re-test, or at least re-set my FTP from 270 to maybe 280:
2 X 10' @ Z4 = (IF/Watts) 1.06/286, 1.08/291 the 2 X 15'@Z3 = .93/252, .98/264
Now off to watch our hometown football DIV I team - University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) take on Tulane! Woo-hoo! My wife has decided to stay home and watch the Miss St (her alma mater) take on Texas A&M. Love these great fall football weekends!!
@Doug - did you really do 4hrs on a trainer? Really?
I find that some days my body just doesn't have it in it to do the scheduled WO and I just have to bag it. it could be for many reasons like too little rest the night before, a long stressful week, or maybe I'm coming down with something and I'm fighting that as well. On those days I do what you did and just give up and go on with the day. At least you got out there and tried to do it, keep that up and you will get in most workouts.
I must admit these Saturday intervals on the bike were quite tough. I rather do 6x 1.5 mins of VO2max than 2x 10 mins at FTP... Couldn't do the run as a brick, cause I had to play taxi to the airport. Well did it later on in the afternoon, after a nap Still I can feel my legs being heavy
@Mark@John @ Chris thanks for the support. Thats what I love about EN. Motivation was probably a factor too as I got up this morning and didn't give myself some time to get the day started. Anyways, def a humbling morning and a great reality check.
John, You had my brain working overtime. I searched all through the WKO+ manual and nothing. So I contacted Training Peaks and this is what I was told:
Since normalized power is calculated off of a rolling average of power there must be at least 5 minutes of data for this calculation to be run. Since IF is a function of NP, and TSS requires IF, you will not see these metrics either.
Edwin:
You are probably correct that you need at least 5' of data to get NP. That would be start of a ride (00:00:00) to the end of the first 5' of the ride (05:00:00), correct? I am not a deep-dive data geek. I know what numbers I need to hit and like to look at them over time. As far as how it all works, I really don't care.
I did a test this morning and did 2 x 32 seconds and got the following data in my TP online account:
Also take a look at this and the second paragraph:
Beautiful crisp, clear San Francisco East Bay morning so I decided to take my ride outside. As I know my outside FT is 10% higher than my inside FT and I didn't want to overachieve, I made sure I kept my FT work higher than indoor FT but lower than my outside FT on the FT MS. Seemed to work well. Also focused again on smooth pedaling. No spiking watts over the hills. Just steady on the ups and on the downs. My VI below shows success.
I rode a regular rolling hill route that is an out and back. Here are my numbers:
6:15am Swim with local Triclub, then came home and did the 30 min Z2/Z3 run and then waited for my crew to show up. The Pilons needed to do their bike test and Mike was looking for a ride buddy, so we got on the bikes around 10:30am. My workout went really well. Hit all my numbers but cut it short by 8minutes because the Delaney's showed up and we all had brunch togetha. Ah, OS. Workout followed by food and good conversation. Suhwheat. I really like the "cage fight" comment. I think that should be a NOS coined term. All in agreement say I.
Comments
If you're working intervals on the trainer right now, Pnorm isn't that big of a deal. Inside the interval, Pnorm will be super close to Pavg due to the steady state riding.
Ride at your goal watts, hold it for the time prescribed, recover, repeat. Love it!
Not sure if y'all already hit this point cuz I haven't been checking in as often. If so, I apologize for the redundancy.
Great work, friends!
Keep up the great work everyone. This is one inspiring group!
And, yes, avg power is a good proxy for NP for shorter intervals.
Al, Thanks for the info. Yesterday's workout was a very good effort. For my entire hour including the warm-up, my IF was .904. My IF was .984 for the work portion that included all the recovery and the last 9 minutes at zone 3. When I create a range of the entire 7 intervals including my RI, I get a NP of 264 (1.01). I keep the IF and NP on my headset and watch them during these intervals as well.
You got me wrong just a little but I didn't clearly state out what i wanted to say. I'm not talking about raising your FTP - I was talking about raising the target watts for the Z5 repeats ... and ONLY the Z5 - don't touch the other zones!
IMHO it's almost impossible to overachieve on Z5 - you simply won't be able to sustain the effort. Z5 is per definition "VERY HARD" so I really believe that these intervals must also feel like that otherwise you are most likely underachieving of what you are possibly already capable of.
Just to give you an example my actual FTP is 280W so the calculated Z5 for me should be at 336W. BUT the NP from the 5min all-out segment was at 375W (almost 134% of FTP) ... so I set my Z5 to a 350W (125%) which is more or less just an educated guess but my RPE told me that I can't be that far off.
Some great stuff going on here...I love being back in Da Haus!...rock on everyone
Amazing how working on my glute strenght and hip flexibility has positively impacted my riding...and riding position...I am now sitting almost 2 inches higher and slightly forward than when what I rode IMTX at....and think I can go higher but having some seat issues...but power, cadence, rythm are all improved...I'm feeling good.
I'm hacking the Intermediate OS ...so I decided to do this workout today...it just felt right
http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/...-Thurs-BEG
@Stefan - Got it! Thanks.
@Joseph - Welcome back, brotha!
@Chris - Guess my old school EN (pre-trainer Road) ejucmacation is showing.
Back in the day we were laser focused on the NP number on that little yellow CPU during each interval. TR makes it crazy easy now.
@Al - Perfect!
@Edwin - If you are using the WKO+ software on your PC you should be able to see NP for intervals 30 seconds or longer. Might be a setting in the software? I haven't used WKO+ in awhile. I use Training Peaks online.
@Everyone - Sorry for my chattiness. I have received a few PM's and emails with questions along these lines so I figured posting to the group may answer some questions.
OK, I was an athletic supporter for my buddy, Tom Glynn, yesterday as he is starting a swimming regimen. So I knocked out 2,000 yards with him and pushed the bike to today. Plus I love to swim so it was a win-win.
Started my 6 x 1.5's this morning and in the middle of the second interval I got a call from my sons elementary school that he crashed his bike on the way to school. So I jumped off the trainer and dashed to see him. He is fine. More shocked and embarrassed that he went down in front of his friends than anything else. He has a couple of scratches but he will live.
So . . . .
Got home and started over with Spotify cranking Daft Punk. So technically I did 8 x 1.5's this morning.
Felt good the whole time but that 20' section at the end was a mental game. After 50' of Daft Punk I had to switch to some 80's rock. That got me through. Here is my graph:
John, You had my brain working overtime. I searched all through the WKO+ manual and nothing. So I contacted Training Peaks and this is what I was told:
Since normalized power is calculated off of a rolling average of power there must be at least 5 minutes of data for this calculation to be run. Since IF is a function of NP, and TSS requires IF, you will not see these metrics either.
"Just to give you an example my actual FTP is 280W so the calculated Z5 for me should be at 336W. BUT the NP from the 5min all-out segment was at 375W (almost 134% of FTP) ... so I set my Z5 to a 350W (125%) which is more or less just an educated guess but my RPE told me that I can't be that far off"
With the numbers you are posting, you made an excellent call. Also, the IF numbers you are posting, this is still very impresive. Since I am new to power, I choose to go with my tested Z5 at 336 and lower my tested FTP from 280 to 270. But if I get the same results again - similar to yours, I'll bump up as well.
Reason being...I've read in a couple of places that there's different benefits from working z5 (120%) and zone 6(?) with 'all out efforts'. The take home message was that doing the VO2 specific work, controlled 'down' at 120%, raised the roof and the z6 HIIT had a different 'purpose'. I can't recall at this moment what that was because I discarded it since I didn't need it for what I was trying to get better at.
Note: I think I read up on this in Training and Racing with a Power Meter, which is intended to develop cyclists as well a triathletes, as I'm sure you know. If I have time, I'll see if I can find the excerpt.
Now, having said all that, if you feel like your VO2 intervals are tolerable at 135% of FTP, then I'd have to think that your FTP might have room for a better test result.
Stefan, you're a beast, great numbers and great race results. I throw this out just as something to think about.
135% qualifies as overreaching. As strong as you are, you may get away with it, or it may take a while to catch up to you. Like I said, just something to consider.
Good luck everyone.
Go get 'em, lil' Ezells!
wow…underestimated the difficulty of today's bike. Don't know the cause, maybe it was because last night was the first night it froze outside and the dry air made it difficult to breathe on the trainer, but I got off the bike 3 min into the first rep of MS2. IF of .98 in rep 1 of MS1, and then the misery began. Had to stop pedaling twice during rep 2, wasn't able to maintain target FTP and then i threw the towel in rep 1 of MS2. Figured I would do the run and forget about the terrible bike workout, but that lasted only 8 min.
Time to move on with my Saturday, forget about this morning, and reset and perform well during tomorrows run.
as a newbie, you're gonna learn alot about EN work real quick. On paper, the workouts don't look that bad, but, in the real world of busy family/life/work, those 'short' intervals can humble the best of athletes.
you won't forget this Saturday workout...ever.
Each workout is like a mini cage fight. You gotta get your mind right well before you hit the start button. Fuel up with some carbs and caffeine 30'-60' before, not too much since the workouts are short, but enough to get you going. Hell, crank out a few pushups or jump rope to get warmed up before the real warm up. But, be focused by the time you start. Every time I'm half assing it to the Pain Cave, I have a horrible workout. I have to head to the cave like I'm about to wrestle a gorilla or fight Tyson. It's the only way I can 'hold my own' thru the EN stuff.
Don't sweat it, tho. It's a long year and you're gonna nail way more workouts than having this kind of thing happen again.
@Chris - "Each workout is like a mini cage fight." I like that!
@Jan - I had the same issue during my BIKE TEST last week. I was humbled and discouraged. In short . . . we all have those days, brotha! This isn't Slowtwitch where we say HTFU or call you a derogatory name for bailing. It happens to the best of us. Thanks for posting as I am sure there are some lurkers in here who have had the same thing happen. Or will.
Brush yourself off and live to fight a "cage match" another day.
Chris- I totally agreee on the mental factor. I was pysched up yet relaxed and nailed today's WKO. Also did some extra time which I rarely do.
Super WKO today!
2 x 10' @ 1.00IF
2 x 15' @ .836 & .852IF
1 x 15' @ .808IF
Overall about 90' .85IF, 20miles.
3miles on the 'mill. Started off slower than prescribed Z2 but eventually picked it up but not enough. About 30" off the targeted avg. pace. Still OK in my book!
2 X 10' @ Z4 = (IF/Watts) 1.06/286, 1.08/291 the 2 X 15'@Z3 = .93/252, .98/264
Now off to watch our hometown football DIV I team - University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) take on Tulane! Woo-hoo! My wife has decided to stay home and watch the Miss St (her alma mater) take on Texas A&M. Love these great fall football weekends!!
@Doug - did you really do 4hrs on a trainer? Really?
Jan,
I find that some days my body just doesn't have it in it to do the scheduled WO and I just have to bag it. it could be for many reasons like too little rest the night before, a long stressful week, or maybe I'm coming down with something and I'm fighting that as well. On those days I do what you did and just give up and go on with the day. At least you got out there and tried to do it, keep that up and you will get in most workouts.
Take care,
Great job, everyone.
@ Joe - Heck no, just saying that I have to set my head like it's a long/hard workout. Best not to underestimate the intensity of the OS intervals!
I must admit these Saturday intervals on the bike were quite tough.
I rather do 6x 1.5 mins of VO2max than 2x 10 mins at FTP...
Couldn't do the run as a brick, cause I had to play taxi to the airport.
Well did it later on in the afternoon, after a nap
Still I can feel my legs being heavy
@Mark @John @ Chris thanks for the support. Thats what I love about EN. Motivation was probably a factor too as I got up this morning and didn't give myself some time to get the day started. Anyways, def a humbling morning and a great reality check.
Edwin:
You are probably correct that you need at least 5' of data to get NP. That would be start of a ride (00:00:00) to the end of the first 5' of the ride (05:00:00), correct? I am not a deep-dive data geek. I know what numbers I need to hit and like to look at them over time. As far as how it all works, I really don't care.
I did a test this morning and did 2 x 32 seconds and got the following data in my TP online account:
Also take a look at this and the second paragraph:
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles/cycling/normalized-power,-intensity-factor,-training-stress-score.aspx
Maybe we aren't talking the same thing here. But you had me curious so I tested the above this morning.
Rock on!
JOhn
Beautiful crisp, clear San Francisco East Bay morning so I decided to take my ride outside. As I know my outside FT is 10% higher than my inside FT and I didn't want to overachieve, I made sure I kept my FT work higher than indoor FT but lower than my outside FT on the FT MS. Seemed to work well. Also focused again on smooth pedaling. No spiking watts over the hills. Just steady on the ups and on the downs. My VI below shows success.
I rode a regular rolling hill route that is an out and back. Here are my numbers:
Overall: 1:23:05 // NP: 201 // IF: .983 // TSS: 133.4
Interval 1: 10:01 // NP: 214 // IF: 1.05 // VI: 1.01
Interval 2: 10:06 // NP: 210 // IF: 1.03 // VI: 1.01
Interval 3: 15:01 // NP: 201 // IF: 98.6 // VI: 1.02
Interval 4: 10:02 // NP: 207 // IF: 1.013 // VI: 1.03
Now on with my day.