Pace vs Effort.
Lately I've been doing most of my running up and down 10-12% grade hills. They're all around where I live so it's hard to avoid them. When I'm climbing the hills I'm putting in an effort similar to what I would need for threshold pace on the flats, but obviously I'm not going as fast uphill. Am I still getting the same benefit or will I not speed up because I'm not actually running fast?
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There's no way you can maintain your training/racing paces going up hills of that grade. You've got it right and PE is your friend here. This has been written about here in other places but I'm sorry I do not know where to point you. I believe both Coach P and Al Truscott have touched on this before, but you should get a "feel" for your TP, HIM Pace etc. and maintain that feel when going up a hill.
Hope that helps.
I can't avoid 'em either. I live at the bottom of a hollow, with three roads out, 8-12% up for 3/4 of a mile in all directions. Funny thing, there's an old school (actually, a newish middle-school) cinder track at the top of one of the hills, where I do many of my interval sessions.
You are getting a benefit from running up (and down) hills, but even if you run at an effort level equal to your 5K pace, you won't get the same benefit as you would running on a flat track at that effort level. The motions and angles your joints make, the length of your strides, and the length your muscles contract are all different on hills compared to flats. I didn't start getting faster until I added track intervals to the hills I was running all the time.
Thanks Al, that's kind of what I was thinking too. Unfortunately there's no track at the top of any of my hills, just more hills. I'll have to stick with the beach for my intervals. It was nicely made to be almost exactly 1km from end to end.
Also, hard downhill running is an excellent tool for building run durability. You need to be careful, and it doesn't take much, but I like to add hard downhill running as a way to harden my quads, to speak, without doing so through added volume.
P & P, I finally purchased my first Power Meter and it has massive fluctuations, it can say 84 and second, literraly a second later say 145, this is on a flat. I have some questions on that, but as far as effort, I cannot seem to get my power up to anything significant on flats no matter how hard I am trying, but get nice spikes on hills, is that normal??
It takes a while to develop a real steady riding style and even then it's still going to bounce around a bit. That's why some of the power meters have 3 and 30 second moving averages.
You'll get a feel for it eventually, it won't take long. I'd say just ride for an hour to see how the PM responds to different riding styles (standing, climbing, straights, headwinds, etc.).
You'll be amazed by the control you have over your effort in a relatively short time. enjoy!
Thanks Steve, I got the Cycle Ops Power Tap Elite+, I have a Garmin 310 GX. I can email you two different rides and you can see. That may be too much to ask, but one day I did 52 miles in 3:39 MPH average was like 15, then two days later I did different route, much more flat and did 52 miles in 2:29 24 MPH average, which is way fast for me, I mean way fast. I wasn't riding with anyone so couldn't have picked up another meter, one was really hilly and has tons of stops, I even had to walk my bike a mile (crazy congestion at a beach area), other was nearly flat no stops, but my average power was 90 on both (more or less) peaks or max power was 245 on one ride and 275 on another. But serioiusly I can look at it and it is like 84 and a second later it can be 144, no change in circumstances. I also thought it would pick up wind in my face, which really effects my effort , it doesn't that I can tell, but does pick up elevation. Hope this helps, spend a fortune and really want to know WHAT SHOULD MY POWER BE AND GOALS. I am 5'2' 100 pounds, and have had two knee replacements on same knee, so one knee does almost all the work (just a side note and I guess a bit of an excuse)
Thanks Cary, also good ideas, will try that as well. I am also trying to find out what my "goals" should be and what someone my age, height, weight actually "should" be doing. Guess I am saying is there a standarize number for beginner, intermediate, etc. I ride about 140 miles a week lately and somedays I am ON and somedays flat, that's why i wanted a power meter, so I could be honest with my "self". thanks again
Linda;
Everything you are experiencing is completely normal- there is nothing wrong with the PM. You just need to ride a bit with it and you will get used to it (as well as start to understand how it all pertains to you personally).
That said, I think you need to adjust your settings.
First- if the Display Rate is set too low (like 1 sec) it's going to jump around quite a bit more than if it is set higher. See this thread for more info:
http://endurancenation.us.dnnmax.co...fault.aspx
Second- I'm gonna guess the circumference wheel setting is not correct for your wheel. I'll bet you've got 650 wheels and the setting is set to 700s. Check the manual to find the way to adjust the settings, measure your wheel distance, and fix that setting. That will likely fix your MPH issue.
It looks like you've got a few more events this year, so you can start incorporating power in to your workouts when you figure out your FTP.
Have you gotten the Power Seminar from the store? There's a lot of good information in there.
As others have said, instantaneous power jumps all over the place. That's why looking at instantaneous power is pretty much useless.
Are you reading the Average Power from the Garmin or from WKO+? I've found that my Joule gives different values than WKO+ because it only looks at time spent actually riding and does not include time stopped, whereas WKO+ gives avg power calculations that do include the zero power during rest stops. If your Garmin is set to include zero power and time stopped in the AP calculations, it's not surprising that the AVG Power for both rides is close, even though you probably worked harder on the hilly ride.
Regarding the wind speed, I don't think Garmin makes a model that detects wind speed, so it won't give you that data. However, it doesn't really matter. Realize that at identical wattage efforts, you're going to go slower in a headwind than you will without one. Speed doesn't really matter here. With increased power will come increased speed.