First outdoor ride of 2011

Well, a combination of the lack-luster weather in Chicago for the past month with my challenging work schedule has resulted in an inability to get my bike off of the trainer. Finally my schedule aligned and I was able to get outside and enjoy a nice spring day on the lake front. The wind was present but not too strong out of the south west and for the most part was overcast.

The weather was also beautiful over the weekend and I was able to go for a nice relaxing 8 mile run on the lake front path. I ran south from downtown and while there might have not been as many people to look at, it was nice to see a different part of the city as opposed to the typical Belmont to North ave run.

Today was also the first time that I was able to ride outside with my new power meter.

The cool part is that when I get back from the ride, I plug in my Gamin 500 to the computer and all of the data immediately downloads to my computer. I can then look at all of the squiggly lines. The truth is that I am still trying to figure out how to interpret any of this data.

Here is the first screen shot with HR, power, speed and cadence....

I can also just look at the time that I spent in different zones. I was hoping to spend the majority of my time in zone 4. I was creeping into zone 5 for a little and dropping into zone 3 as well. The truth is that I was just looking to see what might happen. I also hit some high watts a couple of times on the ride as I was trying to see what I could do sprinting up some hills. It becomes apparent though that those efforts were very short-lived.

One thing that I have quickly learned is that if I am going to go out and ride based on power I will need to pay much closer attending to what is going on instead of just riding based on feel. It is also really difficult to maintain a specific wattage for any extended length of time as there are always things on the path that interfere (crosswalks, people, construction, wind gusts, etc).

I'm going to keep reading the Training with a Power meter book that I have been trying to read. Maybe I'll go back to the beginning of the book and see what I can learn with more data in hand and try to figure out how to better plan outdoor work outs now that I can't just set the watts on the computrainer.