by Marci Titus Hall, USA Cycling Level 1 Coach

As a coach I am always encouraging my athletes to train with power. There are so many benefits to utilizing power that allow an aspect of control for both coach and athlete, that it makes training without power seem like antiquated guess work. So finally my busiest athlete agrees to check out the mountain bike PowerTap, and we will share with you his journey through wattage.

Chris doubles as an investment banker by day and a mountain biker, traveling the world competing in ultra endurance events and stage races, the rest of the time. You can well imagine that due to the current financial state of chaos, Chris is now busier than ever and training will have to take a back seat. It is even more important to make the time that he does have to train as effective as possible. My theory is that Chris can set a pace, continue it for 6-12 hours, and then repeat it for 2-8 days. A power meter will help to determine that pace, improve on it, and ensure training efficiency for the limited about of time he does have to train. It will be his training budget.

Chris’ training volume set back will certainly play havoc on his hard-earned endurance base, but Chris has two things going for him that will make all the difference: First, Chris has heart. His passion and motivation for endurance events is endless. Chris knows how to keep going when the going gets tough, and during the type of event he competes in, the going gets tough sooner than later. For example, Chris (and his partner) were the first to complete the Cape Epic, an 8 day stage race across South Africa, on single speed mountain bikes; Chris rode a rigid single speed mountain bike. He has passion; he is a stand-out athlete, and those are attributes that can’t be easily taught with coaching. Training for him is the icing on the cake, he could will himself to finish, but he does need to train to stay fast and fit, especially since this year he turned 50 and entered the world of masters cycling. Second, Chris has a great deal of experience in both endurance mountain bike events and also multi day mountain bike events. Through coaching and a bit of trial and error Chris has learned not to race off the line; how to eat and drink continuously to fuel for events; where to push and where to reserve energy; as well as how to recover day to day. Efficiency and pacing, along with recovery are key; these skills together with the utmost of motivation, are essential tools to keep Chris stage racing.

Training with power will give us the true exertion for each ride that heart rate and rate of perceived exertion alone can’t determine. For the first few days Chris or anyone new to a power meter, should ride around, check out power and compare efforts between HR, cadence and speed. Find out what numbers are easy to generate, what are hard, what can be held for any length of time, and how high you can get your power for a short burst. Ride on dirt, ride on pavement, ride on technical trails and see what happens to power. Try some specific efforts such as a 5min climb, a handful of power bursts, and a 5 minute steady time trial. Download your data soon after riding and try to get a sense of power as compared with your rate of perceived exertion for each specific effort. Once you are comfortable with the power tap it is time to generate some data and determine functional threshold power. This is the first ride of the rest of your life – this ride will help determine training data to build upon. Think of it as establishing your training budget. Functional threshold power (FTP) is akin to lactate threshold or ventilation threshold; it is the upper end of aerobic capacity. A good way to explain FTP is by trying to understand what happens just beyond this exertion. In a nut shell, when aerobic exertion goes into anaerobic exertion metabolic byproduct builds up faster than it can be cleared and causes increased, less controlled, heavy breathing, muscles begin to burn, and the time at this exertion quickly becomes limited. It’s like going too far over budget; bills start to pile up since money coming in doesn’t match money that now needs to go out. Since we are always producing some energy anaerobically, which has a higher cost in byproduct, training at the upper end of aerobic capacity is essentially training our system to become more efficient at clearing metabolic byproduct, even as the amount of anaerobic energy production increases with an increase in exertion level. It is like making a wise investment – even if you go into debt, if it is a sound investment you stand to increase your net worth. FTP is important to determine as the upper end of aerobic capacity since training at this exertion, though tough, is possible for extended amounts of time – it is a wise investment.

To determine Chris’s training budget I will ask Chris to do a 20 minute time trial for functional threshold power as follows:

Warm-up:
20-30 minute spin at endurance pace
3x1min fast pedaling @ 100rpm with 1 minute recovery
5 minute all out pre-time trial TT
5 minutes easy endurance pace
FTP task:
20 minute time trial
Cool down:
20-30 minute spin at an easy pace

Ideally Chris will find a road that is uninterrupted and either flat or slightly climbing where he will be able to sustain a consistent effort. It should be a location that is easy to get to so he can repeat this workout when we want to track changes and improvements in his fitness and power output. Once this ride is completed Chris can download the data, send it to me, and I will analyze his average FTP power and determine training zones.

Next article: Training Zones for an Appropriate Training Budget