Feb 4, 2013

Blind Watts

Every other week I do a training block at PowerWatts' Premier Studio in Montréal Québec.  Those weeks, are my favorite ones.

This is one of those weeks.

Today part of my workout was a blind prologue effort.   A prologue is a very short time-trial that is often the first event of a multiple day stage race.  Blind means that I wasn't allowed to look at my power data.  In other words, how hard my Quarq powermeter said I was pushing.

The goal was to pace myself over 6 minutes at the correct power output.  All that I had to go by was the feeling in my legs though.  This is how the game worked: I could check my average power output after the first 2 minutes of the effort, and if at that point I hadn't hit the proper numbers, I would have to start over.

Two minutes into the first attempt I was 8% over my target power.  I was pushing too hard.  I had to start over.  The second attempt, I over-corrected myself and had pushed 14% LOWER than my target power.  I had to start over.  The third attempt, I was bang on, and pushed through the final 4 minutes.  And when I tried for a fourth time I was in the correct zone too.

This part of today's work out was a cool exercise for me to get better at understanding what it feels like to push a certain number of watts.

The rollers I chose to do my training on today at Power Watts' Premier Studio
The area of the Power Watts Premier Studio where I recovered with my Travel Roller after grabbing a quick bite

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