Apus, post your mean maximal power curves from from when you started until now. that's some crazy improvement.

Have had the powertap for 2 weeks now lot's of information to absorb...

question... I get 2 good 2000+ kj rides in on the weekends and during the week I'm pretty much toast..
would love to get some 2x20's and pyramids in during the week but seem to end up in recovery mode most days.. My heart rate is very low but the legs don't cooperate..

Former crit racer (1980's)
Background: old 44
Large 200lbs
power 5sec 1296 30 sec 800's 1 min's 600's 20 min + low 200's (i'm sure my ftp totally sucks)

When do you train during the week?

If you can train earlier in the day, that might help you feel better.

Are you eating/recovering right? That might be why you're feeling fatigued.

I weigh 145 lbs and a 1600kj ride takes a lot outta me, but if I eat well during/after the ride and rehydrate well, I can ride again hard in the next day or so.

I'd say that if you have too much volume to reach your training goals, the answer is pretty obvious...

When do you train during the week?

Too late at night tue,wed,thur

If you can train earlier in the day, that might help you feel better.

I am sure you are right... Will try mornings instead of nights



Are you eating/recovering right? That might be why you're feeling fatigued.
If anything I eat too well... recovery I haven't totally figured out maybe I need
to drop intensity to get more hours in?


I weigh 145 lbs and a 1600kj ride takes a lot outta me, but if I eat well during/after the ride and rehydrate well, I can ride again hard in the next day or so.

M: off
T: L2/3 ride
W: hard ride; maybe with a group, intervals, etc.
Th: L2/3 ride
F: off
Sa: hard ride; maybe with a group, intervals, etc.
Sun: Long steady ride

^^ decent template to follow.

Yeah, I hate training at night if I can avoid it. If I want to get a good hard workout in, I have to be hammering in a group after a good cup of coffee.

I'm in college, so early classes make it hard to ride in the AM, but I set up my schedule so I can get a 2-3 hr ride in every tues/thurs morning. I race /ride early or in the afternoon over the weekend and ride in the evenings at weekly group rides or if it's too cold during the day.

Figure out what works best for your body. Also, that much of a workout might mean that you're going way too hard too early. Have you been adding on distance/intensity gradually or did you just dive into it?

Due mainly to limited time I have been pretty much doing the weekend thing only for the past year. I guess I never built a proper base for the speed work so maybe working on endurance/recovery during the week wouldn't be a bad idea?

QUESTION: I went out yesterday and did a warmup on my pt, then cleared it for my race, then cleared that data for my cool down thinking I would get 3 seperate workouts. When I plugged it into my computer all that was there was the cool down... I held down both buttons until -clr- came up. Is this the wrong way to do it? This is how my buddy showed me to clear a workout but there has to be a way to do multiple workouts without downloading onto the compy each time... right?

Holding both buttons down clears it clean. If I have multiple workouts (that don't involve intervals), I start a new interval per workout. Use the interval function to separate workouts if you need to.

Hold the mode button to switch to interval view and then press both buttons for a short time to switch to a new interval number for a new or different workout/cooldown/warmup/race.

The clr will clear every single data point in memory.

To change the interval, you just hold them down simultaneously for a second. If you hold them down longer, it will go to find, which is okay, if it goes through find and onto clear, you need to keep them both held down until it goes through that mode.

thanks guys. I am kinda bummed because I kicked my own a$s in the race to get a good first workout to learn power agent with... about 25 miles. All I ended up with is a .99 mile cool down :(

a few more questions:
I should always have my unit set in interval mode whenever I need more than one workout?
What is "find" used for?
How many workouts can my head unit store?

Find is for "finding" a HR chest strap. Not sure what else it can find though.

Your unit is always in interval mode, if you don't see the #, just press and hold mode and the interval # will show and remain on.
"Find" is only used for HR on the wired unit.
I think 18, I'm not sure on that, after 9 it goes back to 1 and starts again, but when you download, they show as 10, 11 etc.

what type of terrain do you do your 1 minute, 5 minute and 20 minute tests on?

I'm finding that I never go hard for 20 minutes. Too many hills that are 5-12 minutes long, followed by flat/downhill.

can someone also explain to my how it is possible that the mean maximal power curve is not monotonically decreasing with time?

I had trouble with this one at first as well. You can have a period of lower power capped by higher power. Such as say two 1' intervals with 5' rest in between. So the 7 minutes including that rest would likely be higher than the 5' rest interval itself.

ok, I can see how the numbers might workout, especially with strong delta-fn like zones separated by interesting time differences.

New records for me tonight (although I've only been using a PT for a few days now):

5s max 1363
1m max 485

Both of these were done during the course of a normal ride. The 5s max is probably close to true as it was a sprint up a steep incline but the 1 min will be higher as I didn't do a true WRI. I'm excited for my numbers as I've only been back riding for about a month after 4 months off due to injury.

Not bad for a Cat 4 who sucks and weighs 230+....If only I were 165 with those power numbers

You've got me by over 200 watts on the 5s, but my 1m today was about 70W higher (I was doing an interval, but not a single all out test). Did you go hard for a minute, or was it just in the middle of a fast section?

Middle of a climb that I can get a good running start on and then keep up a high pace. I'll test in a couple of weeks...this hip injury has really killed my muscular endurance so a 1 minute test would kill right now...My MMP stays above 1200w for 15seconds though. Just remember though...i'm 230 lbs so my 5s is relatively weak...

One note on the 5" power, you might see if you can do better on a completely flat course, with a tailwind. I can get 50-100W more in those conditions. My theory is that the cadence decrease helps me overcome some of the blowout from the initial jump.

Interesting...being a big guy, my theory would be that the tailwind would turn me into a sail and I wouldn't have to push as hard.

I figured 5s is so short that in order for me to hit big numbers I need to be standing and sprinting and then hit a climb....230 lbs hitting a climb at 25-30 mph I would assume would generate a lot of power.

I tried a similar sprint to what you described yesterday but sadly my PT decided it was going to cut off halfway into my ride and I lost the last half of data.

I'll try out your idea the next time I ride.

I also think i'm holding back some because i'm worried because i've been lifting my rear wheel through the top of the pedal stroke...I mentioned this in another thread. When I sprint near the max power I start pulling the whole rear end of the bike into the air. I'm afraid I'll crash so I'm sure I'm not going all out.