I'm interested in others thoughts on training with a power meter. Previously I've trained with a HR monitor and I guess the training process is similar except to train within certain power ranges on particular days?? For example, if my LT power is 300W and I'm in an 8-week intense training period before a peak, and I'm currently training as follows:
Sunday: Easy ride, 2-3 hours, power range 180-250W
Monday: Hill/Force work, 5x6mins hills at 330W, recover at 180W
Tuesday: Easy ride, 1.5hours, power range 180-250W
Wednesday: LT/TT work, 2x20mins at 290-310W, recover at 180W
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Easy ride, 1.5hours, power range 150-200W, 3-4 x 2min efforts at 300W for pre-race loosen up.
Saturday: Race/TT
Any thoughts on this?
On easy days should I strictly adhere to the power ranges I'm setting and not go over 250W on hills etc..? I know the easy days should be easy, but if I hit some hills and drift to say 330 or 350W for 2-4mins, will this change the workout significantly?? My thinking is that training by HR was problematic because short efforts didn't show in HR changes but physiologically they still had an unwanted damaging/training effect (which ideally was to be avoided on easy days to save effort for hard days). I'm worried if my easy days include some efforts like this, say a few 2-4minute hills at 300W+, that all my training days start to look too similar rather than the easy days been very easy and the hard days (eg. LT work or hills) been much harder (maybe higher than the power levels I'm setting above)? This is my intensity/build training period after all??
Thoughts?