Two Wheel Blogs

This is what I like best about training with a powermeter on my bike. I can look at where I am now and compare that to where I was last week, last month, or last year. In my case I can go back almost 5 years now.

This time of year it doesn't do a lot of good to compare current numbers with last year's numbers. Mostly training this time of year is just making the miles. Putting in the hours so there's plenty of depth to draw on when the watts count.

Even if I did do a maximal effort every year at this time, what good would it do? With no big events in sight it hardly makes sense to evaluate one's ability under maximum effort, does it?

But what does make sense to evaluate is progress from month to month. (Or cycle to cycle or block to block, depending on what you call it in your program.)

Today's workout wasn't substantially different from the one I did about a month ago. I rode the trainer for a little over an hour at a moderate pace. Both workouts were work, but not hard work. When I log workouts like this I typically say "Easy, smooth. Felt good"

Those were essentially my words for both today's session and the one I did at the end of last month. But look at the difference in power output. The time spent in the Threshold level is much higher now than it was a month ago at the same effort level.

Call it an informal power test. This time, I passed.