Friday Training Ride

This Friday my family and I went to Charlotte. My Dad and I were going to ride the course of the recent May 2nd Dilworth crit, a race I couldn't go to, while the rest of my family were at a park in the center of the race course.

While we were at the course, we did a 45 minute long crit simulation workout around it, racing the last 15 minutes of the workout. Although we had to stop a couple of times because of an intersection on the course, we got in a good workout and I barely beat my Dad at the end.

After that I rode a while longer to get in 2 hours. I went hard a couple more times, then cooled down.

Today I downloaded my Powermeter on the Cycling Peaks WKO software. I am really liking the software and recommend it to anyone who has a power meter. On the software you can highlight any given section of the ride with ease and view your peak power output for any length of time.

Entire workout (131 watts):
Duration: 2:01:19 (2:03:31)
Work: 948 kJ
TSS: 139.8 (intensity factor 0.835)
Norm Power: 174
VI: 1.32
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 35.132 mi

The Norm Power Item is probably my favorite feature of WKO. It is a great training tool because it shows exactly how intense your workout is, no matter how steady or sporadic it was. When used in conjunction with the length of your workout, it creates a precise guage of how hard you worked, called training stress score (TSS). TSS is a much more exact way to measure work than Kilojoules (KJ), mainly because it uses NP * time instead of Average power * time. TSS is based on doing an hour long TT at threshold, which is worth 100 TSS points. For me, a TSS score of more than 110 is usually hard work.

Here is a 30 minute section of the crit sim workout. Look at all the lower power outputs and even complete stops because of traffic and other varibles. Notice the relatively low average wattage (178 watts). Thanks to Cycling Peaks WKO's N.P. feature, however, I can clearly see the normalized power of 196 watts and know that I put in a good workout and am riding well.

Peak 30min (178 watts):
Duration: 30:04 (30:12)
Work: 320 kJ
TSS: 44.4 (intensity factor 0.942)
Norm Power: 196
VI: 1.1
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 10.401 mi