Hi,

Ok, ive been reading up on power, and training etc today and ive come up with a possible work around that may or may not work, so im posting it hear to gather your thoughts.

At the moment I only have a hrm and sadly no plans this year to buy a power meter, but I still want a way of making sure im using the right intensity when doing interval training.

At the moment if im doing a 60min hr zone 3 tempo workout on the turbo, its taking approx 15min to get my heart rate into zone 3, so until its there I cannot judge how hard I should be pedalling. That 15min could be too high, or too low which is why its taking ages to get to zone 3, also for vo2max intervals, you cannot use heart rate as these are normally 4 - 6min long and heart rate is too slow. From my understanding heart rate is good for long rides, say 30min or longer but short intervals power is best.

So ive been thinking that the power community refer to levels as CP3, CP6, CP12, CP20, CP30, CP60, CP90 etc, and CP60 being your FTP.

So, my understanding (please correct me if im wrong) is CP60 is the highest power output you can maintain for 60min, and CP20 is the same but for 20min, CP3 is 3min and so on. If thats the case, if I ride max effort for 60min and record my average speed that speed would effectively be my CP60 speed, of FTS - Functional Threshold Speed?

Obviously this would only work on an indoor turbo training or rollers as there are too many variables outside to use speed, hills, wind, etc etc but when using a turbo it should be a good estimate shouldnt it?

If so, I could then use power zones, such as these http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblo...ing-zones.html replacing the power at CP60, with my average speed to work out approx speeds to achieve for each level of effort. Then when I do say a 20min interval I make sure im going at my CP20 speed?

With regular CP60 tests I could monitor my new speeds as I get fitter?

Does this sound right?