This weekend I was out on the Lake Placid course, one of the advantages of living less than 2 hours away, and I had a solid weekend full of self inflicted pain! However, this was not a normal weekend training camp. My bike training (and hopefully racing) was totally revolutionized…why? For the first time ever I rode with a power tap . What an enlightening experience!! Now with a grand total of 3 rides under my belt with this tool I am still very much in the learning phase and, believe me, knowing the power you are producing minute to minute is awesome, but there is much, much more to training and racing with power than just watts.
There is a lot of science and theory that also must be incorporated into training with power. For example when I uploaded my file to my computer I was able to see histograms of my ride including power output (seen below), heart rate, cadence, speed as well as some estimates of the physiologic stress of my ride. The following chart was also spit out…Oh man do I have some learning to do.

Lake Placid Second Loop:
Duration: 2:35:14 (2:35:15)
Work: 2134 kJ
TSS: 140.8 (intensity factor 0.726)
Norm Power: 240
VI: 1.08
Distance: 56.14 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 684 222 watts
Heart rate: 0 0 0 bpm
Cadence: 29 193 91 rpm
Speed: 0 54.5 21.0 mph
Pace 1:06 0:00 2:51 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 297 85 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 797 207 lb-in
Regardless of the fact that I am a newbie to power I am already aware of the amazing amount of information that can be gathered and analyzed using a Power Tap. My coach, Kurt Perham, is being very patient as I ask a million questions and begin to wrap my head around the power of this tool. Training with a Power Tap will definitely taking my training and as a result my racing to the next level!

Train Smart! Rest Hard!