Watt a way to improve

Aside from the wonderfully pun-tastic title this post raises a bit of an issue I've noticed between 'feel' and raw data I've been getting from my turbo trainer. Back in August I bought a turbo trainer from Bike 24, when it finally completed its journey over the sea (Several return trips to from Dresden to Koln), I've been using it for some structured bike sessions. The trainer, a Tacx i-vortex, seemed to have everything I wanted, decent enough brake, it can do 7% gradients (and 800 watts), and had good reviews on feeling as close to real pedalling as you can get without spending more than I paid for my bike. I got the TdF edition, not because I have delusions of grandeur, but because it was a bargain.

Anyway, I don't own a power meter, its something I don't feel I can justify at the moment for the level that I train/race at. As with all these things, I try and think about what the value for money is to me at my level of racing. I would notice the difference between a £500, bike and £1000 one, but I doubt if the change from £2000-£5000 would be noticeable to me. So my only exposure to power data has been in spin classes and on the wattbikes in the gym. In the spin classes, I've noticed that my average power for the 45 minutes was usually around the 250 watts mark including the warmup/down with peaks anywhere from 400 to 800 depending on the intervals. Anything like 200 watts or lower feels very easy, genuinely spinning. These figures aren't too impressive. they certainly won't get me a green jersey, but on the Tacx 200 watts feels like a bit of a slog. I've pissed around with the calibrations, wheel psi etc. but it doesn't seem to make much difference. The Tacx's power is obviously measured at the back wheel, but surely I'm not loosing THAT much in mechanical loss? Anyway, it seems to be repeatable, if not accurate, so I may have to take these readings with a pinch of salt. I wonder how reliable it actually is?

So, whose to say the spin bikes aren't a load of crap. Well on Wednesday this week they had a wattbike challenge at the university travel fair. Not being competitive at all I threw my leg over and had a crack at it. The aim was from a slow spin to try and see what the peak wattage we could hit was. Having set it up I noticed I was spinning the pedals easily at 220 so I'm further inclined to believe the Tacx has its own special Dutch watts. Anyway, I had a couple of pushes and came away with 971 watts frustratingly short of the kilo. Respectable effort compared to those up on the board, but there were a couple who'd just broken 1100. Having not eaten yet I managed to stuff a tuna sandwich down my face and have a meeting with my research tutees's about their cycling infrastructure project (Hopefully more on that to come). This was followed by a trip for coffee with my friend Tim, which resulted in a return to the travel fair, for more free stuff and another attempt on the bike. In the mean time the uni cycling club had been down and there were a few more 1k+ with 1330 being the top of the pile.  Tim had a strong showing, just short of 900, but my second attempt I managed to push 1191. Who needs EPO when you can have a tuna sandwich and coffee!!!!   

 

Cardiff Half Marathon

Last weekend I ran the Cardiff half marathon for Cardiff Women's Aid along with quite a few other runners, as a group we were raising money for the CWTCH project (Cardiff Women Taking Charge) which aims to raise awareness of domestic abuse in the Cardiff area. I don't normally raise money for charity when running races like this but the charity does really good work and I know that any money raised will actually go to a specific project. Together the group raised well over £2000 so it was definitely a success. 

This was Elisa's first half marathon and she absolutely smashed it, getting a time of 1:57. I'm really impressed with how committed she was to her training plan, and how sensible she's been in building up her mileage. Training was trickier in Canada, but I think running in the heat (I know, not snow?!?), really helped.

I'd planned to race the Bristol half two weeks earlier and just enjoy Cardiff for fun. Unfortunately Bristol  clashed with Ironman Wales which I wanted to go and see so on race morning I was hoping to get a decent time in. The start was a bit hectic, and so I was rushing to drop my bag off when I probably should have been warming up. I managed to fight my way past the crowds to get to the pens. I'd hoped to drop in at the back of the faster group at the 1:45 cutoff aiming for around 1:40 but as I'd signed up with a time of 1:45 I wasn't allowed in that pen due to my bib colour. Note to self, don't be so conservative with my time next year.  So I was at the back of my pen with the 2:00 runners and we were off before I knew it. 

Cardiff is a big race, second biggest in the UK by all accounts and it was definitely more congested than Bristol. I spent the first 4 miles trying to get past people with limited success. I felt like I was running terrible lines and the stop/start speed-up/slow-down wasn't helping my rhythm. At about mile 4 I got stuck with a bunch of people running 8 minute miles, when I really needed to be doing 7:40s and my chances of running under 1:40 had pretty much disappeared. Towards mile 10 my ankle started to ache and I ended up running a couple of slow miles. I managed to drag it back a bit and was hoping to squeeze under 1:45 but my ankle just didn't want to let me sprint. So I was 16 seconds over which is pretty frustrating. I ran close to the same pace for the first half of the Manchester marathon so to not knock any time off is pretty abysmal. Still. Lessons learned. Get to races earlier!

Also, who wants cheese and onion crisps in their post race snack bag :( My milkshake was much more enjoyable!

My mile splits
7:58 
7:45
7:41
7:56
7:51
8:02
8:02
8:03
7:58
8:23
8:27
8:16
7:59
0:48

Watch time:
1:45.16   

Official chip time:
1:45.12