Bill Gates
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- Location
- West Sussex
So what does knowing your power over a measured time or distance actually do for you?
So what does knowing your power over a measured time or distance actually do for you?
Disagree. Pace judgement is a skill you learn from training and racing, and is a constant. I wouldn't be intimidated by a number on a screen to either increase or decrease my effort just because it said so. But I do accept that there are pros and elite amateurs who do use this tool. However when the adrenaline takes over in a race I would be surprised if they stuck to their number so to speak.One man or womans 6/10 on an RPE scale is not necessesarily anyone elses 6/10, 250W for example is always 250W but where that is on RPE is variable, where both relate to HR is also variable.
The humble Watt is the only training constant if you have a reliable way of measuring it, knowing what it means and adjusting training to are different ballgames
Rather than ‘guessing by feel’ power gives you nailed down numbers, it’s far less likely that you’ll screw it up, because your balls swell above your ability.I've won a few 100 mile TT's in my time and I used to break it down mentally to 4 x 25 mile segments. This involved holding back in the first two segments from the effort produced for a 25 mile TT and then building the effort on the third to a flat out effort as though it was a 25 mile TT on the 4th segment. Knowing wattage practically useless.
That’s a very good point. I don’t really care too much about zones / VO2 max etc etc blah blah blah. They are what they are, they are a curiosity at best for me, nice to know, but a bit ‘meh’ in the grand scheme of things. What I do find very useful, is the recovery times that are generated, and supplied in glorious technicolour, by my cycle computer, far more accurately with power.It allows you to target threshold, sweet spot, VO2 max, recovery, endurance etc.