Is WKO+ worth the cost?

azdroptop said:

Just wondering? Worth it to upgrade from poweragent?

Yes!

The PMC alone makes WKO+ worth the cost but it's also much easier to present custom graphs and charts the way you want to see them and I find it much easier to review a ride file in WKO+.

I've used Poweragent in it's various releases as a way to upload data onto my laptop while on the road and didn't really appreciate how much better WKO+ was until a friend wth a non-Intel Mac went first to Golden Cheetah and then to Poweragent. I was trying to help him review ride files and create the kind of custom charts I have in WKO+, it just doesn't compare. When I got a new laptop I spent the cash for a second WKO+ license just to have full featured power file review and my PMC charts on extended trips. It was easily worth it.

-Dave

Shill. 😄

daveryanwyoming said:

Yes!

The PMC alone makes WKO+ worth the cost but it's also much easier to present custom graphs and charts the way you want to see them and I find it much easier to review a ride file in WKO+.

I've used Poweragent in it's various releases as a way to upload data onto my laptop while on the road and didn't really appreciate how much better WKO+ was until a friend wth a non-Intel Mac went first to Golden Cheetah and then to Poweragent. I was trying to help him review ride files and create the kind of custom charts I have in WKO+, it just doesn't compare. When I got a new laptop I spent the cash for a second WKO+ license just to have full featured power file review and my PMC charts on extended trips. It was easily worth it.

-Dave

Meek One said:

Shill. 😄

Too true, but doesn't a shill get a cut of the take?

I knock plenty of products (and have had my go at some WKO+ features with Hunter) but it's nice when something really does what it's supposed to.

-Dave

azdroptop said:

Just wondering? Worth it to upgrade from poweragent?

[font=Arial Black]YES[/font]

I forgot to mention I'm a MAC User. Compatible?

Jono L said:

[font=Arial Black]YES[/font]

azdroptop said:

I forgot to mention I'm a MAC User. Compatible?

Not natively. I believe there are ways to use the windows emulation software (VMWare, Parallels) on a Mac to make it doable. There are a few threads on this.

Time to pay the man from Wyoming. :p

daveryanwyoming said:

Too true, but doesn't a shill get a cut of the take?

I knock plenty of products (and have had my go at some WKO+ features with Hunter) but it's nice when something really does what it's supposed to.

-Dave

I'm bummed to hear it isn't Mac compatible. Oh well, I can fire up the older Lap top. 🙂 Thanks all.

Meek One said:

Time to pay the man from Wyoming. :p

azdroptop said:

I'm bummed to hear it isn't Mac compatible. Oh well, I can fire up the older Lap top. 🙂 Thanks all.

I'm sorry that Coggan and Hunter haven't paid Dave yet... :p

azdroptop said:

I'm bummed to hear it isn't Mac compatible. Oh well, I can fire up the older Lap top. 🙂 Thanks all.

Still worth the extra effort.. hell I bought a cheap laptop so I could download files at camps and races.🙂

Meek One said:

I'm sorry that Coggan and Hunter haven't paid Dave yet... :p

Don't look at me - I'm not a principal in, or an employee of, the company that markets WKO+. 🙂

I bought a copy on Monday and have spent a little while porting over all the sessions stored in PowerAgent and getting all the little details correct...

Now I gotta learn all the Performance Manager stuff - TSS, CTL etc etc... and learn what they are and why they're important. It's like a foreign language.

I wonder if Rossetta Stone has a DVD available to help me translate into English. :p

swampy1970 said:

Now I gotta learn all the Performance Manager stuff - TSS, CTL etc etc... and learn what they are and why they're important. It's like a foreign language.

I wonder if Rossetta Stone has a DVD available to help me translate into English. :p

Here's the secret decoder ring....but don't tell anybody.

home.trainingpeaks.comwhat is the performance management chart.aspxOpen ↗
home.trainingpeaks.comcreating a performance management chart.aspxOpen ↗
home.trainingpeaks.comthe science of the performance manager.aspxOpen ↗

And so you don't get caught up in the "how much CTL do I need?" sort of thinking here's some thoughts I posted a while back on CTL concepts:

Quoted post said:

• There's no fixed CTL level that you need to achieve to ride
  competitively, but I certainly feel like my base is awfully shallow
  when my CTL is below 70 and personally have trouble maintaining more
  than 110. I've raced sucessfully between those extremes with 90-100 being pretty typical during race season when I'm spending my base
  
• CTL or TSS shouldn't be viewed in isolation without taking into
  account the training mix that led to that overall load. A CTL of 120
  built entirely on six hour L2 rides probably won't get you ready for
  general road racing or crits. A lower CTL with a better mix including
  an appropriate amount of high end work is generally a better bet.
  
• Trying to ramp your CTL faster than 5 to 8 points a week is tough
  for most folks and can lead to burnout, illness or deep fatigue. IOW,
  steady and slightly increasing training loads tend to work better than
  trying to pile on a lot of training all at once.
  
• When you're building CTL by definition you're a bit fatigued and as
  it sags your workload is relatively easy compared to what you've been
  doing so you're fresher. But sooner or later you spend away too much
  base and have to rebuild. So put plenty "in the bank" during winter
  and preseason training so you have some to "spend" when it counts. You
  still have to pay attention to specific training mix so finding a
  balance that works the right systems for your events and needs and
  still builds "enough" CTL is where training science meets art.
  
• You can definitely do one day events that result in a TSS well above
  your current CTL, but the bigger the difference the longer it will
  take to recover and the more likely it is for you to have power fade
  late in the ride. Another way to think about this is that with a CTL
  of 100 a run of the mill crit might be hard from a peak power or
  microburst recovery standpoint but the overall load will be similar to
  your average workload for the last 3 to 4 months and you should
  recover fairly quickly to race or train again. With a CTL of 60 a
  four hour road race ridden at Tempo and above will be several times
  your average training load and will dig a big hole that you'll have to
  recover from. It's not impossible, but hopefully it isn't day one of a
  stage race where you have to get up and do it again the following day.
  

Well, that's a start but the list could go a lot further. Bottom line,
there are no hard and fast numbers for daily workout TSS or overall
CTL. It's all a balancing act in terms of doing the workouts that
target the systems that will help you the most, getting enough
training load on a daily basis but not so much that it hinders future
training sessions and building your CTL high enough over time so that
you can handle the types of events you'll do and have some excess for
tapers but still fits into your available training time. Not an easy
set of tasks to balance, but that's where a good coach can come in
handy.

-Dave

So I'm trying the trial. 🙂

How do I look at my 'intervals' like you can in Poweragent?

azdroptop said:

...How do I look at my 'intervals' like you can in Poweragent?

Use the mouse to right click on any of your tagged intervals and select "zoom range" to view just the interval itself. To get back to full view just right click the main graph and choose "zoom fit all".

Use the mouse to select any region that's interesting even if it spans some saved intervals and right click the new selection (shows up as Selection in the left hand menu) and do the same zoom range to view just your selection. You can save the selection as a new range (basically an interval) by making the selection and typing ctrl-r then renaming the new selection as desired. So if you don't use your interval buttons on the PT CPU you can still tag intervals after the fact by noting when power rises or drops and saving a mouse selection of that region.

-Dave

Thanks Dave!

Problem is I don't see any Tagged intervals. ON the graph I always get a Grey section that I have no idea what it is. Alwo what the deal with the Powertap 1, Powertap 2 etc? Nevermind. Those must be the intervals.
Sorry for being retarded...

daveryanwyoming said:

Use the mouse to right click on any of your tagged intervals and select "zoom range" to view just the interval itself. To get back to full view just right click the main graph and choose "zoom fit all".

Use the mouse to select any region that's interesting even if it spans some saved intervals and right click the new selection (shows up as Selection in the left hand menu) and do the same zoom range to view just your selection. You can save the selection as a new range (basically an interval) by making the selection and typing ctrl-r then renaming the new selection as desired. So if you don't use your interval buttons on the PT CPU you can still tag intervals after the fact by noting when power rises or drops and saving a mouse selection of that region.

-Dave

azdroptop said:

...ON the graph I always get a Grey section that I have no idea what it is. ...

Sounds like you figured out the intervals, WKO+ calls 'em ranges but you get the idea. And of course the PT CPU doesn't "stop" an interval it just launches a new interval. So if you do a set of training repeats you get "on" intervals followed by "rest" intervals and that's the way they show up in WKO+ so it's typical that my even numbered intervals are simply rest and the odd intervals are actually of interest. That's not really a WKO+ thing, but worth remembering.

Regions of the graph are gray and sometimes hard to view unless you click the visibility (eyeball icon) on the ranges menu. Then the background for that section of the graph turns black and the individual curves are much easier to see. Again you can select with the mouse and save a new range then click the visibility for that entire range or for that matter the entire ride if you want the entire background black.

The visibility toggle is really nice when you do a set of intervals or hill repeats and just want to do a quick visual comparison of average power, speed or pacing across the set of intervals. Just click the eyeball icons on for the intervals of interest and leave the "entire ride" and other ranges so that that their eyeball icons aren't clicked. Then the ranges of interest will show up black and you can zoom so that they all fit the screen and quickly compare pacing/power fade across the set of repeats.

The visibilty icon is also handy when you want to quickly figure out when a particular high point occurred during a ride or race. If you view the entire ride and click the visibility on for say your peak 5 second or peak 1 minute range it will light up black and be easy to see. I've surprised myself a few times by hitting peak 5 second efforts attacking or covering an attack midway through a race and not necessarily in the sprint.

-Dave

Master, I thank you again. That really helps a bunch. 🙂

Rick

daveryanwyoming said:

Sounds like you figured out the intervals, WKO+ calls 'em ranges but you get the idea. And of course the PT CPU doesn't "stop" an interval it just launches a new interval. So if you do a set of training repeats you get "on" intervals followed by "rest" intervals and that's the way they show up in WKO+ so it's typical that my even numbered intervals are simply rest and the odd intervals are actually of interest. That's not really a WKO+ thing, but worth remembering.

Regions of the graph are gray and sometimes hard to view unless you click the visibility (eyeball icon) on the ranges menu. Then the background for that section of the graph turns black and the individual curves are much easier to see. Again you can select with the mouse and save a new range then click the visibility for that entire range or for that matter the entire ride if you want the entire background black.

The visibility toggle is really nice when you do a set of intervals or hill repeats and just want to do a quick visual comparison of average power, speed or pacing across the set of intervals. Just click the eyeball icons on for the intervals of interest and leave the "entire ride" and other ranges so that that their eyeball icons aren't clicked. Then the ranges of interest will show up black and you can zoom so that they all fit the screen and quickly compare pacing/power fade across the set of repeats.

The visibilty icon is also handy when you want to quickly figure out when a particular high point occurred during a ride or race. If you view the entire ride and click the visibility on for say your peak 5 second or peak 1 minute range it will light up black and be easy to see. I've surprised myself a few times by hitting peak 5 second efforts attacking or covering an attack midway through a race and not necessarily in the sprint.

-Dave