SBR Utopia Season II - OPEN (Page 108)

I saw that this morning too - I'm going to have to try it as well.  Looks neat.

from Ray's review: "Or, probably more practically it can just be used to quickly see what your own fit angles are, and documenting them."

That alone is worth 3 bucks to me.

I did a 2:39 half at 170 watts the year before last, so maybe he needs some work? .  Actually I agree a lot of the numbers will vary depending on the course and how you're moving through the field.

This is really making me want to blame the bike so I can get a new one ...

Very cool Jay - I'm going to have to try this one out on my wife's phone.

Mark - I also remember you had a solid bike at IMC on similar type watts.  Just keep making me jealous...

I'm going to play with the above app and post what I come up with over the next few days.  But I'm quite sure that part of my problem is I'm too comfortable when racing - meaning I'm not paying enough attention to my position, and getting too high, where I should be turtling more often.  At least that's a guess.  I'm 6'1, but slight, so in my mind it's about making myself lower.  I don't think I can get much narrower, my pads at the moment are a bottle width apart, and any closer I feel a lot of pressure on my shoulders.

I don't ride super low but I've tinkered with a few things in my setup using my power meter to check them.  Which, btw, is something I recommend for everyone who has a power meter.  I live about a mile from a velodrome so I can always get out there for some fairly neutral outdoor testing.  This was from Tahoe:

My arms aren't super close together but my elbows are in-line with my knees, and I have a torpedo bottle between my arms.

Jason, you're a lot younger than me and went into IM in better shape, but it took me abou 6-8 weeks before I felt like I was getting "normal" workouts in again

As for 2014, season slowly taking shape

June 1 - Escape from Alcatraz

Oct. 5 - Silverman 70.3

other things on the table

April - New Orleans 70.3

May - Wildflower 70.3 or Oly

September - SOS if I get in the lottery....

Yeah Mark, that is crazy! On my last "normal" rolling HIM course I went 2:29 on 195w (205 normalized) and I thought THAT was pretty good....

Neil - following my fitters advice 3 years ago I did a fair amount of testing in the way Mark describes using my power meter on a controlled course (not a velodrome though) and  found out that I was slightly more aero overall with my arms actually wider. I am kinda small (5'10" 155lbs) with narrow shoulders but a little larger chest and apparently the slightly wider elbows allow my head/neck/spine  to sink between my shoulders much more comfortably.

Good stuff guys - interesting on the wider arms piece.  When you're outdoor testing are you using the Chung method. I've never really looked at it closely because I understood that you basically needed calm conditions in order to make it work for you - plus you had to have a slight downhill without traffic.

There's actually a velodrome just over an hour away from me, but they only allow track bikes - nothing lese permitted.  But by the end of next year the new velodrome for the pan am games is going to be completed - 5min from my house.  Hoping they allow other bikes on that track.  But for now, I'm curious to know what protocol I can use that is not uber-complicated.  I know Marc is knowlegeable on the Chung method.

Neil - it may have been a dumb way to do it, but I basically did a fixed speed test at a 3 different speeds  and a number of runs (3 at each speed) and then just looked at the power numbers for each set up. Very flat, slightly uphill if anything - which seemed to make it easier to do a fixed speed test to me. I used my coaches running metronome and stayed in a fixed gear for each test (i.e.: rode by cadence), so it was very easy to hold my speed and position without fumbling around with or watching my computer. I can't remember exactly, but the runs were maybe about 3/4 of a mile long and the data was trimmed by a couple of seconds at the in and out points, I think to isolate the hitting of the lap button from the good data.

Testing this way was down and dirty, but it seemed to give reasonable information. Biggest issue I think is that it is only good for what it is - you can't simply change your setup  and repeat it on a different day without repeating the whole test.

Thought this post by Steve McGregor over here was rather interesting. The topic was on Zone 2 training on the bike and a comment on Z3 possibly being "junk".

TO my coach's dismay I turn many of my L2 workouts into L3 versions....

yeah, I am pretty sure my coach assigns me z2 workouts because it is the only way he can get me to do Z3....

It isn't necessarily a problem if you're still able to hit the Z4 & Z5 work sets ok.

Do you think his comments are specific to cycling or are intended to include running as well?

Think so too. I tend push the edge of Z2/Z3 for my running as well.

Can someone school me on how to quickly get that info from TP?

Ok, I found a chart.  I'm well over 50% in Z2 - probably closer to 60-70 many weeks.

Edit - found another chart (I shoudl check this stuff out more often - lol).

Z1 - 8%

Z2 - 58%

Z3 - 21%

So do any of you rely on HR zones when running, or are you strictly paying attention to pace zones or RPE (but you also collect the HR data)?

I watch all 3.