Power Based-Training, Day 8 & 9: First Races with the Power Meter

On Day 8 I did a 55-mile Road Race and on Day 9 I did a Criterium in two different categories.

Day 8

Racing with a power meter is different because it gives you another thing to pay attention to. Another thing it does is that it takes a lot of attention away from heart rate. With all that said, at least 94% of my attention is devoted to the actual race, so having a power meter is not a distraction whatsoever.

The numbers I saw during the road race were low in the beginning half of the race and that's because the pack was going easy. It wasn't until the 2nd half of the race where I was actually able to use my power meter to pace myself, especially up a steady climb and during a moment where I needed to bridge up to the lead group because I had dropped my chain at the beginning of the climb.

My chain didn't drop significantly, but the group surged so losing the 4 or 5 seconds it took to put it back on was pretty significant especially since I was in the back of the pack. However, I was able to keep the lead group in sight, so when it came to rolling sections, I paced myself with the power meter to avoid a thrashing chase group that was burning matches. Thus, I caught on without the panicky group and saved a lot of energy. I also glanced at my heart rate which was a little high...close to max, but my power numbers or RPE weren't too close to maximal, so I felt the need to hydrate well since it was also a little hot.

I knew that I could catch the lead group because 1) The power numbers I were putting out were right under my best 5-min power effort and 2) because I knew the pack would slow down eventually, based on the racing pattern I observed throughout the race. So with that said, it can be said that my judgment on bridging to the lead group was based on integrating the power-based pacing and reading the race.

One of my race goals was to not work and to pedal as least as possible. After the race, I looked at a power distribution chart and found that out of the two and a half hours of racing, I only pedaled for an hour 50ish minutes. Seemed pretty cool to me!

Day 9

The power meter wasn't too much of a help during the crits unlike in the road race. It was only interesting to look at the numbers and see its relativity to hearts rate. But since criteriums require more focus than road races (ie to stay safe) then that's totally okay. The real analyzing happens after the race, but I've only used Garmin Connect and Strava to do that. With that said, I really had nothing to do with the data except look at how much I didn't pedal again which was 25% of the Men's B race.

My Garmin lagged in starting before the E3/4 race, so I only have 18 minutes worth of data which includes the end, so I need to look at that set more.