Shared Zone

After the high intensity of the Battle, it was time for a good recovery before doing anything even slightly intense again. It suited me. It was also time to sit down and try to digest the data that has been collected with the power meter in the last month (I need to thank Sandra and Michael with all the Q&A).

Gathering data isn't too hard, it just takes getting on the bike, pedalling and downloading the figures when back home. That's when the huge amount of information appears on the screen, some very familiar (eg. distance, time, hr, average this and that...) but some very new to most of us. I am certainly not too familiar with the best 5" output or average torque, to mention a couple.

It will take some time to understand and fully take advantage of all the possibilities provided by such tool and software (I am using WKO, btw). However, there are a few things that can be looked at from early days which will give a good notion of where I am and what I have to do to achieve my goals.

It is looking like lots of hard work ahead!



This first image is pretty much what I have been doing for the last 6 or seven weeks. The Yellow line showing my training loads and how fatigued I became after the ride and/or race, Red indicating my form (or how fresh I am) and the Blue line telling me what my level of fitness is. That's an easy one to follow. The hard part is to train correctelly so all these lines can get to where they should be comes an A race.

Again, it looks like hard work ahead.

The next image, the Power Profile Chart, is what my friend Mick (old training partner from Cairns) told me is what I should be looking at, primarily. This chart ilustrates my strength and weaknesses by determining a watts/kg ratio for certain key efforts (5", 1', 5 min and FTP) and placing me in pre-determined categories, keeping in mind the parameters were not set for master riders. Interesting.




It's early days. But it is great to have a more accurate tool to see where I am and where I am heading with my training.