@Paul Hough That’s my assumption. Right now, I’m doing 2.5 hr ABP rides every weekend, and I’m looking at my 90 min and 2 hr power, and making sure that it’s creeping up. I’m assuming as I ride longer, I don’t necessarily need to see the wattage go up, but ideally would like my power to maintain at those same numbers. In other words, if I am successfully training to hold 80% of my FTP as my rides get longer, then I can reasonable expect to target that number for an Ironman bike leg. And to @Robert Sabo’s point, while one hour power is FTP, you’re not going to see your one hour power at FTP as part of a 2.5 hr (or more) ABP ride. But if that number is also increasing during those long rides, then you know you’re getting closer to your target Ironman bike goal.
@Alicia Chase - I am truly impressed by all you numbers people! My eyes tend to glaze over when the tri-geekery gets too deep. I just hammer as much as possible and the magic seems to happen despite my non-rigorous approach. E.g., beyond TSS and the amount of elevation I've climbed, I don't pay much attention to my power profiles.
@Paul Hough Sounds like me until this year. Well, maybe not always seeing the magic happen Actually, saw some chatter here in the forums about “five hour power” and decided to start tracking my power numbers—just to see what they were. Funny thing is, then I started actually tweaking the Zwift wkos to be sure I’d hit the numbers. Then, I tweaked to make sure they’d be a little higher than last week. We’ll see come race day whether it makes a difference or not.
@Paul Hough@Alicia Chase I listened to great podcast by Matt Dixon about being careful to not be shackled by data and gizmos. I hear what your saying Paul and yet I find myself doing what Alicia is doing. When I put in a good hard session I want to see it in my training files. In a twisted way it validates my effort. The OS brought my FTP back up after a year of injuries. But I believe my VO2 is staying put. Genetic and age play into that. Besides, for long course threshold power numbers are more important. Need to keep doing the hard stuff!
@Sheila Leard@Paul Hough I agree that too much info from data/gadgets can be a distraction. TBH indoor cycling and “body metrics” (sleep, resting heart rate, etc.) are the only things I’m doing the deep dive on right now. Not only overwhelming, but it’s also time-consuming. Speed work on the run has traditionally led to injury for me in the past, so other than testing, I just run and briefly look at pace and HR during and afterwards to see where I am. Swimming has always been the red-headed step-child of the three disciplines for me. I wear the watch to capture the data, but looking at it just depresses me. Cycling has always been my favorite of the three, and indoor cycling with a power meter and Zwift allows me to control a lot of variables. Contolling the variables relieves some of the tedium of winter trainer work. And I’m kind of curious to see what actually works and what doesn’t, rather than guessing. I would’ve thought that my VO2 wouldn’t budge, and I’d improve FTP. But, my data so far is showing the opposite. Interesting...
Too much data is just noise. At least that's what I tell my clients. Lately my only data source has been TrainingPeaks; power analysis from individual rides is helpful; and Dashboard metrics are good for TSS / TSB trends. Also been watching 2018 peak power numbers, but only the ones for 2 minutes and under
I focused heavily on climbing this outseason ... as opposed to other markers ... and will continue that focus from now until my IM on 1 July. Partly that is because the virtual cycling software I use (Rouvy) has a ton of climbing challenges and partly because the bike leg at IM Norway will have over 6500 feet elevation gain.
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