First, I don't have a power file to share from the GamJams CompuTrainer TT Throwdown p/b Sweat GUTR. Regular listeners know I use the iBike power meter. You can actually use the iBike with a trainer. You calibrate it against the resistance coefficients of the trainer and the iBike calculates power based on how fast you're riding against the trainer's resistance. But it doesn't work with a CompuTrainer because the resistance is varied by the computer - 20mph might be 225 watts on a 0% grade, but 400 watts on a 6% grade. So I couldn't use it yesterday, and have no pretty graphs to post.
But the CompuTrainer setup does show wattage. And in the multirider setup, you can see on the screen the current speed, watts, watts/kg and average power of yourself and your competitors, and also what place you're in, and how far ahead or behind the others you are. The screen also shows changes in elevation using colored bars: a red bar means it's going to get steeper, a green bar means it's shallowing out. If you're even the least bit data-inclined, it's impossible to look away from the screen during the race.
It's also fun as hell, particularly after weeks of solo indoor riding. I went into it thinking of it as a race, not just a workout. And this one was like two races - I was going mano a mano with three guys in the room, but also knew I was putting up a time to compete with 20+ others in my category. And the third race was the one within my team, which was never actually called a race, though I think we were all pretty interested to see how we stacked up against each other (read as "who on the team we could beat").
I raced on Sunday, so I knew the best times put up from the day before, but stopped a little short of setting a specific goal. My training time - while focused - has been a little thin. In my mind I'm on a 5-6 hour a week program, but in truth over the past two months it's been 3 - 3.5 hours per week. On the one hand, I've felt pretty good. But there's always this nagging doubt that I haven't been working hard enough (which doesn't go away even with large training volumes, in my experience). So my goals were more tactical than time-based. I wanted to make sure my second half was as strong as my first half, and I wanted to use up everything I had.
Without the downloadable power file, I needed to track my wattage on the screen in real-time, which isn't easy when you're trying to use up everything you have. But I had the faculties to check my average power at 5.0 miles, the halfway point. It was 301 watts. For the third quarter I dialed it back a bit, knowing that the 8.0% kicker was looming at the finish. For a stretch my average watts dipped to 298, and then I frankly forgot to look at it until the end. The kicker was hard and about 30 seconds longer than I anticipated. I would have liked a lower gear (I had 39-23), but managed to push the last 5 minutes or so pretty hard. I finished at 301 watts average, with a time of 26:40. Good enough for 6th place, which I was encouraged about. But then I realized that 4 seconds faster would have put me in third place, so now of course I'm pissed.
I raced with Kyle from my team and we were neck and neck the whole way - almost always within 5 feet of each other. What's interesting is that we weighed in at exactly the same weight. His average power at the end was about 15 watts lower than mine, yet he beat me by 2 seconds (he punked me on the finishing climb). He was going harder on the hills than I was, so he was making up time there, like a real TT. He could then ease up on the flats and downhills but not give back as much speed as I was giving away on the climbs. The CompuTrainer is pretty smart, it seems. You win by racing against the clock on the terrain, not by pegging an average watts number and trying to hold it.
We're looking at doing this CompuTrainer TT Throwdown again, so leave comments here or on GamJams or by email if you have any feedback.
