Hello All,
Well Sunday was pretty interesting, more so by the fact that I was in bed at 10:00p on Sunday night. Maybe I am growing out of my college aged antics. Ummm, nope. So I got up finally around 9:00a on Sunday morning, and then decided that I would get on with my ride. At first I thought I was going to do a brick, but by the time I got ready, drove to the Silver Comet Trail, and got ready to ride, it was too hot to brick, so I just biked.
This is now about the part about how crappy I am. I rode the ride in 37min 17 seconds, which is ALMOST two minutes better than my previous time in last year's race. I think that I will do better in the race when I have someone to lock onto and catchup, rather than just riding solo. I did, however, find out a few things on Sunday.
1. The slight elevation change that I mentioned about the course happens mostly on the way out on the ride (West) and then on the way back (East) comes slightly downhill for the ride. This was confirmed by the average speed of my new bike computer I was telling you guys about a week and a half ago.
2. The other thing was that I finally got the rolling distance calculated on my bike computer, and when I measured the distance of the course versus the signs, it was exact. I mean exact to the bike as it was passing each distance sign. So to answer my post from a few weeks ago, nope, it is me, not the signs that are screwed up, so I suck. The only thing that I can do is just get out there and bust my ass every day that I am supposed to be on the bike.
This is what I feel is going to happen to me during the race at this point. During the swim, I am going to pull out an 8:00min 400 or faster (7:45 tops) which will shave at least 4:48 off of last year's swim time. T1 I should be able to cut it down to about 1:20-2:00min, which will take off about 1-1:30min off of T1. The bike right now is what I am worried about, since I think at this point i will only improve my time from last year about 2-3 minutes. The only way to counter act this is to make a race against people instead of the clock, and reel in every person I see, or find a person that will go fast enough in front of me to keep my avg speed above 18-19mph. I really need an aero bar to help this out, but cannot afford one right now. The run now is the big question. I have been able to run some sub 22 min 5K's lately, but that is without doing anything before hand. Otherwise we are talking about 2-3 minute decrease, again trying to reel people in game to keep my speed up. Oh and T2, take a minute off of that from last year. This will leave me with a time somewhere in...
1hr 12-13min. Does this best my time last year? Yes. Does it get me in the top ten? It should compared to last years numbers. Does it get me on the podium? Probably not. But that is what I want. Is there anything I can do about it? Not taper maybe, and then take a 2-3 day break before the race. Might I do that? Yes. Is it a good idea? Probably not. We shall see what I do.
Let's just say that if I can somehow pull off a sub 1:10:00.00 performance, I will probably be throwing up gatorade on the kid that takes my championchip off after the race. Hey I don't mind, after last year when they almost took my leg off like rabid dogs after a crippled animal, and fell on them, I will be happy to oblige with some recycled gatorade if they attempt to take my leg off again.
I will say that due to the number of entrants this year, they are moving the transition are to somewhere closer to the start so that it is more of a loop that a point to point on the swim. So that will basically reduce the time for running (I had to run about 75-100 yards last time to get in the area, then another 20yards to my bike) to my transition area for the bike and the run. Am I thinking about the upcoming race too much? Of course! Don't we all. I mean I am only 18days 11hours and 22 minutes away from the race as of posting this............
Murtha...
1 comment:
Hey, you don't suck...but I know what you mean. If we don't set constantly higher goals, we fall into laziness. Good luck in your race!
To answer your question, NP=Normalized Power. Most power meters will show you average watts for an interval (including mine), but average watts will skew towards the low end if there are any downhills or if you get a tailwind. Whereas Normalized Watts (Normalized Power=NP) takes into consideration only the watts when you are actually pedalling, so it's a better number to use when evaluating the "goodness" of one's watts. The Ergomo power meter shows you NP while you are riding, whereas with other power meters you have to download the file into Cycling Peaks which will then calculate it for you.
However....if you know what you are doing you can sort of figure out where your NP will be based on your AP. When I'm doing intervals, my goal is to be pedalling and working constantly, even if I catch a slight break on a downhill or get a bit of a tailwind. In those cases, if I'm able to, I shift up so that I can match my effort to the resistance presented. The place I do my intervals has a few really short hills and a stretch of down, but I don't let that stop me from putting out the effort, and so my AP is usually close to my NP.
Hope that helps!
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