Fred D Mentor Group Part III (Page 66)

Interesting. I haven't trained/raced with HR, but that is an interesting idea.

Definitely with you on a plan for the trainer. My wife and I have our workouts taped to the wall for now =)

Here is what I would do.

Train with virtual power all winter. Know your FTP, do your intervals, improve your FTP.

Then in April, test your FTP. Let's say it gives 200 watts

Then a few days later do a 60 min ride at 80% of that, so 160watts. Look at your HR. That is your target HR for HIM.

That is the high level view of it. There are details such as the fact your HR will be elevated coming out of the water....

Edit : in theory this could also be used by people with a computrainer that got rid of their powermeter to buy a bad tri bike.....if such a thing existed of course...

By the way, you can do virtual power on Golden Cheetah for free. The number of trainers is more limited however. They only support a handful. Kurt and Cycleops fluid are supported.

I never noticed that...I usually only look at NP for the entire ride.

Totally agree (but then again I'm also a computer geek).  I really love GC. 

And speaking to the `what to do with virtual power' question, I'd say that (for me, before I had a PM) the main benefit was being able to set up reliable targets for intervals on the trainer.  I'm less confident of translating indoor results of a HR test to outdoors -- my HR is quite different indoors from outdoors.  Once I took the training outdoors, I'd be inclined to do a LT test (outdoors) and determine race targets from there (as Marc said, also taking into account the various factors that can mess with HR).

If I am not mistaken NP is based on a 30sec rolling average, so it would have to either not display-wait 30 secs-start, or use the previous 30sec rolling average.

When you start your watch I think it takes 30 sec for NP to appear.

doing this by memory, so I may be wrong

Funny Fred, I just took a blood test for my insurance but I did a home kit thing.  Much easier, glad my company offers it as an option.

I have a trainer ride this morning and a run hopefully this afternoon.  I think I might need to break out not just the cold weather clothes (maybe even tights) but the rain cloths as well.  2C here right now (figured I would practice my Canadian in case I move back)

So this would be a bad tie to mention that I got a new 'super-automatic' coffee machine.  Press a button, and 30s later there's a cup of coffee.  Mmmmm.   (And dangerous...)

Planes, trains and automobiles for me today, so no workout scheduled. Done with the planes and trains bit though, so now just some driving left. Hopefully will be home tomorrow in time for a run... Safe training to everyone that can out to do it!

How did swimming with the band go Jason?

Thanks guys.  I like the NP lap info, since it seems to be a better indicator of actual power output vs average power.  The Garmin is set to lap every 5km, which I think is a good distance to make sure power is staying in line with expectations.

Jason - it could be worse, just imagine if you were an Auburn fan like me... Nice job on the run though!

Ih04 doing Sufferfest Angels. 242watts NP. HR abnormally high. 2 liters of water on the floor

Off to see James Bond.

Uh ... I simply AM primarily fuelled by coffee and Pop Tarts.

For long training sessions, anyway