Race Rehearsal 1 - Bike
Last Saturday, I did my race rehearsal for New Orleans 70.3. I went out to a "flatter" area of where I live and road out 14, came back to my truck and refilled my bottles like at an aid station and then went out the other direction for 14 and then came back. I rode the entire ride based on my watts, which seemed to work out pretty well. When I got off to run, after about a mile I felt as if I had not even biked, which I'm assuming is the idea. As far as nutrition, I did one bottle of infinit and a pack of shot blocks for the first 28 and then another of both for the second 28. - No issues there. The only thing that bothered me was when I first started riding, my heart rate jumped up quickly to the 180s and 190. I stopped, readjusted and then started back. It did it again. Finally, I stopped, took the monitor off and re-wet it. After that, it seemed to work perfectly, so I'm hoping that was the issue hehe.
Anyway, this is my first go 'round with training with power. I figured I would post my power file and see what y'all think, cause I'm not all the way sure yet what I'm looking at hehe. I like the watts idea and am definitely becoming a believer. The wind was absolutely BRUTAL. At one point on a flat section, riding my watts, I was going 8 mph. 
I used this same area for my race rehearsals last year and averaged about 2 mph faster for the entire ride. So I guess my questions are, should I have ridden a little harder? Do I look at my normalized power for the entire ride or the average watts for the entire ride? What should my goal tss be? Thanks, as always.
Lap 1:
Duration: 44:44 (46:10)
Work: 451 kJ
TSS: 54.8 (intensity factor 0.862)
Norm Power: 181
VI: 1.08
Pw:HR: -4.34%
Pa:HR: 7.39%
Distance: 12.836 mi
Elevation Gain: 259 ft
Elevation Loss: 289 ft
Grade: -0.0 % (-33 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 359 168 watts
Heart Rate: 75 190 134 bpm
Cadence: 30 186 76 rpm
Speed: 0 29.1 17.2 mph
Pace 2:04 0:00 3:29 min/mi
Altitude: 106 314 169 ft
Crank Torque: 0 919 191 lb-in
Lap 2:
Duration: 44:24 (45:09)
Work: 435 kJ
TSS: 48 (intensity factor 0.806)
Norm Power: 169
VI: 1.04
Pw:HR: 0.21%
Pa:HR: 11.66%
Distance: 14.069 mi
Elevation Gain: 286 ft
Elevation Loss: 232 ft
Grade: 0.1 % (54 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 453 163 watts
Heart Rate: 109 144 132 bpm
Cadence: 30 231 80 rpm
Speed: 7.2 33.4 18.6 mph
Pace 1:48 8:19 3:13 min/mi
Altitude: 98 291 152 ft
Crank Torque: 0 666 177 lb-in
Lap 3:
Duration: 44:17 (44:29)
Work: 434 kJ
TSS: 47.7 (intensity factor 0.804)
Norm Power: 169
VI: 1.03
Pw:HR: 4.24%
Pa:HR: 6.4%
Distance: 13.573 mi
Elevation Gain: 276 ft
Elevation Loss: 292 ft
Grade: -0.0 % (-18 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 534 163 watts
Heart Rate: 115 147 137 bpm
Cadence: 52 201 81 rpm
Speed: 6.8 32 18.0 mph
Pace 1:52 8:52 3:20 min/mi
Altitude: 103 284 168 ft
Crank Torque: 0 594 171 lb-in
Entire workout (162 watts):
Duration: 3:03:08 (80:14:46)
Work: 1777 kJ
TSS: 200.8 (intensity factor 0.813)
Norm Power: 171
VI: 1.05
Pw:HR: 6.28%
Pa:HR: 3.68%
Distance: 55.04 mi
Elevation Gain: 1329 ft
Elevation Loss: 1208 ft
Grade: 0.0 % (121 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 534 162 watts
Heart Rate: 75 190 134 bpm
Cadence: 30 246 78 rpm
Speed: 0 33.4 17.8 mph
Pace 1:48 0:00 3:22 min/mi
Altitude: 98 316 162 ft
Crank Torque: 0 919 178 lb-in
Comments
My thoughts....by the way, I'll be at NO with you, looking forward to it.
1- Write up a RR plan next time, if you haven't already. This makes you think and plan the entire workout in advance, ie, power goal first 30', then thereafter.Cover EVERYTHING as if you were getting ready for a race, down to what you do the day and night before.
2- You will use normal power for the ride. For a flat course, if you pace properly and are diligent about not pushing hard early and on climbs, you should be very close to 1.0.
3- Wind will probably be a factor in NO...so be sure to restrain your effort to the proper "gears" when riding into wind. Sounds like, based on your legs during run, you may have undershot the watts a bit, but 81% for 3 hours is a good HIM effort. Your TSS will be a function of how long you spent at what intensity. Check out the EN podcast and PP slides on that.
4- You didn't talk about run pacing...be sure to review the EN guidance on that based on your 5k testing. You can find it in the Train Map section.
5- Everyone is different with nutrition, but thru trial and error I've ended up with Infinit only on bike and gatorade/coke/water on run. Simple is better.
Hope this helps and I look forward to seeing you in New Orleans !
Bill
It looks to mee like you might have gone out in that first half a little too strong, and then maybe gotten things back under control (first lap IF=.862 w.VI= 1.08, last lap IF=.804 VI=1.03). Do you recall if you were doing anything different in that first lap?
Yes- the run should feel easy. But that is actually a huge challenge because you will easily be going faster than you "should" be running. So it's really important to understand what pace you need to be running and practice controlling yourself to run that pace.
P
As for "What TSS should I be shooting for?" question. Go back and review the execution Racing with Power stuff and use the calculator to give you that answer. You should have gotten that information when you established your Watt Gears.
Branan, you are correct, the edge 500 does not show NP, but like you said if you focus on the real-time watts NP will work itself out just fine.
Definitely focus on your pacing on the bike. The first 30 minutes should be your lowest NP of the day and the last 30 minutes should be your highest.
Great job sticking to the run plan... it is very hard for most people to go out slow on the first 3 miles, but you did. Stick to that on race day and it will pay dividends come mile 10 of the run.
Also, now that you have a power meter, the wind is your Friend. Stick to your watts. If you are only doing 8 mph but at your watts you will be at a huge advantage over your competition. Most of them will push really hard because they can't stand to see 8 mph. Let them go by you and stick to your plan...you see them again when they are walking on the run and you run by.
EDIT: it looks like you NP for the first segment was higher because of the higher IF. You could still focus on trying to get your power a little lower at the begining, but I can tell you were trying to follow the gears.
http://www.endurancenation.us/en_forums/showthread.php?t=2741
There are downloads on the Train Map under Race Execution: http://www.endurancenation.us/members/train/execution.php
These will give you what your target watts and TSS should be...
For the HIM, the TSS should be around 170-180. There's a wattage calculator in those downloads that will give you what your goal watts should be.
The first lap of your ride looks like you went out a bit too hard. The VI is a bit on the high side for a flat ride too. The goal is to ride steady and try to have the normalized power as close to the average power as possible (thus a low VI which NP/avg power). The value of this is explained much more eloquently than I could do it justice in the Racing with Power download.
As for the wind, ignore it. You have a powermeter, a brain, and EN execution knowledge! Just stick to your wattage goals and you shall triumph over all the others on the race course who will burn themselves out trying to fight the wind.
As for nutrition, sounds like you didn't have any issues. How many calories per hour is it? How much (mg) of sodium an hour? How many ounces of fluid an hour?
Lastly, how/what was your pace for the run?
I don't have much to add being new to power this OS. I'll state again watch the VI especially on the first lap. You want to be as consistent with pushing the watts as possible. The efforrt to push higher watts in not linear. I've believe I read somewhere that a good VI for a flat course is 1.01, 1.02. So lap 2 and 3 would be acceptable but 1.08 is a little high.
Gordon
Good RR.
I want to reinforce what Gordon was pointing to. The VI for your ride was good but sections were a bit higher that you want to target. For a hilly course I use a target of VI = 1.04-1.05 based on the guidance I have seen in the house. I have a relatively hilly ½ IM (Kansas) and hilly full IM (LOU) under my belt with power and stayed below VI of 1.05. In reviewing other race reports we had house members at VI=1.04 for these courses .