Obsession with Data

wiredued said:

she says powermeters aren't very acurate to how you feel.

I will agree with that. I exclusively use power (PowerTap) and will say that when I feel crappy I struggle to put out the same numbers. I may feel like I'm just chompin' the bit but look down and my numbers just suck. Feel and output are 2 totally different things. Percieved exertion changes with whether or not you recover well or not. At least that's my opinion...And yes, I am obsessed with data.

What's wrong with data?

Was she referring to how people may glance down at their watts/running pace to adjust their effort? I don't necessarily see anything wrong with that - especially in a time trial situation where the point is to not blow yourself up...

Racing will most likely bring the adrenaline out and cause people to implode themselves the first couple of km's - so a power meter is definitely a good tool to tell people to slow the [censored] down...

Power meters are absolute [so long as they are calibrated]. Our perception changes day-to-day.
Which one is reality? Which one should we subscribe our training plans to?

I found out this past weekend how obsessed I am with data when my PT hub batteries went dead 60 miles into an 80 mile training ride. But here is the kicker with my obsession. I have two computers on my bike so I was thinking that I still had some data available from the Garmin 705, but when I went to upload that data the programs that I use like Training Center would not accept the data because each program said the data was corrupted. 🙁

Saturday was a great training day, but a bad day for my obsession. 🙂

Felt_Rider said:

...Saturday was a great training day, but a bad day for my obsession. 🙂

Bummer, I had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago in a road race, my PT hub batteries didn't like the cold and gave up about a mile into the race. It was a fiesty race with a few touch and go sections and I surprised myself by winning the field sprint. I'd sure like to see my 5 second power for that sprint as well as my minute power for some of the attacks.

When stuff like that happens I have to remind myself that they don't give prizes for power readings and the only data that really matters is recorded in my legs.

-Dave

daveryanwyoming said:

Bummer, I had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago in a road race, my PT hub batteries didn't like the cold and gave up about a mile into the race. It was a fiesty race with a few touch and go sections and I surprised myself by winning the field sprint. I'd sure like to see my 5 second power for that sprint as well as my minute power for some of the attacks.

When stuff like that happens I have to remind myself that they don't give prizes for power readings and the only data that really matters is recorded in my legs.

-Dave

My PT stopped reading on a mountain climb and there was a cloud on the summit with ice pelting us. The PT started picking up a signal again when I got to the bottom and was in a little warmer temperature. Like you I was missing the data that I really wanted to see and for me that was the climb. I went ahead and changed the batteries the next day.

On a side note, that was the coldest that I had ever been on a bike. We were dressed for summer when we encountered sleet or ice on the summit. The descent was brutal with sweaty summer clothes.

Dave - I did get my Garmin data uploaded to MotionBased and at the moment the good folks at Garmin Support are working to see what the problem is with my raw data file and why I am having problems importing directly into the programs.

Since I was missing 20 miles of the power data I did not post that to my blog, but one of my friends did create a video highlighting part of the ride.

Blog Entry

Jesse
Very obsessed with data and ride reports 🙂

wiredued said:

Just listening to Chrissie Wellington talk about mistakes in training at about five minutes into pt1 I thought her comment would provoke some responses from the cyclists here. Near the end of pt1 she says biking improves running and vise versa. Is that true can any one back that up with studies? About a minute into pt4 she says powermeters aren't very acurate to how you feel.

Didn't watch it yet, but it cracks me up sometimes to hear people say that they were feeling bad on a certain day. To me, the powermeter is what tells me if I'm having a bad day or not. I've had days where the legs feel heavy and I'm tired and what-not, but end up putting out great numbers. That's what I'd call a good day. I also agree with roadster about feeling great, but crappy numbers. I don't know, maybe you're not supposed to push yourself when you think you feel crappy, regardless of what coach says.

Bikeridindude said:

I also agree with roadster about feeling great, but crappy numbers. I don't know, maybe you're not supposed to push yourself when you think you feel crappy, regardless of what coach says.

Well, you could always push harder on the pedals to get some "great numbers" but if you were too push that hard wouldn't you feel crappy but then have good numbers?

swampy1970 said:

Well, you could always push harder on the pedals to get some "great numbers"

I wish it was that easy

swampy1970 said:

but if you were too push that hard wouldn't you feel crappy but then have good numbers?

I don't want to mislead you with my scientific terminology: crappy. But yeah, I think you're repeating what I said.