Power Zones Question
Hi all,
I just purchased my shiny, new Powertap through Rich and am getting geared up for a winter of pain on the bike. I'm working my way through the Power Webinar and related materials but had a question regarding the training and racing power zones that are used. I did a search of the Power forum this morning and couldn't find anything on point and haven't come across anything in the materials thus far that addresses this specific question. So, since I now have access to the collective braintrust of Team EN, I thought I would take advantage. My apologies if I've simply missed the answer somewhere.
As I understand it, the periodic torture testing is done to establish your FTP which is your normalized power in WKO+. Then, for training and racing purposes you target certain zones (training) and "power gears" (racing) that are a function of that FTP. Gotcha. But from a practical perspective, when the OS plan contemplates a 10 minute interval at 80-85% of your FTP, do you simply hit your stopwatch and monitor your current watts during that period, trying to make sure your constantly fluctuating output stays within that prescribed zone? Or do you set up a 10 minute interval on the powertap and monitor the average on the PT computer for that period?
My assumption is that you just monitor your current watts during the interval and that the same approach would hold true for racing with power - that is, you would simply try to keep your current wattage output close to the applicable "power gear" for the circumstances (flat, long hill, short hill, etc.) rather than trying to monkey around with averages and intervals in the middle of a race.
Is that correct?
Thanks,
Tyler
Comments
@Tyler - you're absolutely right, you keep your nose to the grind stone, or in this case the PowerTap computer or other head unit and learn to stay on your watts and not fluctuate during the interval (unless hammering oneself outside on hills in certain situations a la Coach Rich). You don't muck around with intervals and whatnot usually. Some people have found that having their head unit autolap can give you a decent idea of what your average power was for the lap, but it doesn't help you per se in maintaining your power just in knowing what it was. Does that make sense?
P
Awesome - thanks for the feedback Tony, Dan & Coach P!
Speaking of spending time on the trainer, we had our first dusting of snow this morning. And so it begins.....