Today's Early Computrainer Ride

Today I officially kicked off my training for next years Ironman Wisconsin with an early morning ride. It was a fairly easy ride on the Computrainer, focusing on maintaining a power/hear rate level at or near the Aerobic zone.

I'm including a graph at the right showing Power, HR, and cadence data from the entire. I rode a pre-built, rolling course that had a few minor hills. Overall, my goal was to keep my effort level in the upper aerobic (L2) to lower Tempo (L3) zone for most of the ride. You can see that my HR (the red line) gradually rises toward the end of the workout. Power data (the pink line) is fairly stochastic, but you can tell overall trends. For example, there's a section at about 5-10 minutes where the power levels are between about 160 and 180 watts. This was a simulated downhill section, where it's hard to keep power levels high. If my speed sensor had been working, you'd see that my speed was relatively high over that 5 minutes as compared with the surrounding sections of the power graph.

There's another section at about 27 minutes to 37 minutes on the x-axis where power output is relatively low. This was a very long descent, where I shifted to a much higher gear in order to try to maintain higher power output. My HR hovered around the upper 140's here until I hit the "bottom" of the "hill" and then started to climb. That's where the power level spikes quite a bit. As the climb continues, you can see my HR climb up to the 160's.

I did manage to maintain my cadence (the green line) between about 85 and 95 rpms for most of the ride. I feel most comfortable at about 90-100 rpms. When climbing in the saddle, I'll drop as low as 85 rpms. Much lower than that, I tend to feel better out of the saddle.

All in all, a good ride. 45 minutes of aerobic activity. Time spent in training levels as follows:

Power:

Zone	Minutes
L1 (0-153 W)	1.52
L2 (154-208 W)	22.07
L3 (209-249 W)	18.30
L4 (250-291 W)	2.62
L5 (292-332 W)	0.35
L6 (333+ W)	0.28
Total:	45.14