Saturday Team Ride Stats

Neal's PowerTap graph from Saturday's Team Ride:

My heart rate distribtion from the ride:

My power distribution from the ride:

It was great catching up with everyone on Saturday! As you know, now is the time to be building up a good foundation for next season. Summer wins come from fall and winter work. In general, it's a good idea for everyone to think about trying to keep 60-70% of their riding in base (OD) range...which is about 50-75% of threshold (maximum hour) power. It should feel easy. You should also do about 15-20% of your time in the endurance range (75-90% of threshold power) and UP TO 10% of your training near threshold (sub-threshold tempo would at 95-100% of LT power is best for now)...and a touch (about 1-2%) doing sprinting or VO2 max efforts. The effort up Rabbit Mtn was 2 minutes of VO2max effort...out of 3 hours total, that's only 1% of the ride that was really hard. Throwing in a weekly workout with some high cadence or very short sprints (5-10 seconds long...with 5-10 minutes between sprints) is also a idea throughout the winter. For quality work (tempo and threshold), I recommend a weekly trainer ride...as it's very specific and you don't need to worry about bundling up and then overheating or freezing coming down a climb.

Above are some screenshots from my PowerTap file from Saturday. You can also view and download it here:

Below are some graphs for my 2008 season (since January). First off, no - it is not optimal training...but something to check out. One thing you'll note is that heart Rate underestimates the amount of effort that you are doing compared to the power output. As you know, I'm a firm believer in using both power and heart rate, as well as perceived effort to guide your training. Doing base work doesn't mean ONLY steady aerobic miles, but it SHOULD be the majority of the focus at this time of year. Most master's riders should also be doing some strength training a couple of days per week as well...which is good since daylight hours are limited. Oh year - this time of year is good for testing...we're not testing to see how good you are (that's what racing is for), but to determine your training ranges to make sure you're not overdoing it...and also to be able to track your progress again in the Spring! Happy riding, Neal

Power distribution for 2008 Season (since January):

Heart rate distribution for 2008 season (since January)

Training manager graph (from CyclingPeaks Software) for 2008: