Wednesday, June 4, 2008

intrigued by this power meter training thing

Ever since reading Your First Triathlon and following the training plan therein to help me finish my first triathlon, I've been a subscriber to Joe Friel's blog.

Joe's been talking a lot in his blog about using power meters to train better, and what he writes just makes plain sense to me. Today's post on the downside of power training includes this lovely rhyme when talking about trying to maintain speed into a headwind:
A watt is a watt. A mile-per-hour is not.
Until I start going long distances in my races (and have the time for the more involved training), I just can't see putting out that much money for a power meter (yet).

In the meantime, I'm appreciative of the frame through which to view my own training. In my own mind, at least, I think I'm moving from "I hope I finish" to "I hope I go faster."

2 comments:

Chris said...

If you're not going to buy a power meter, then don't buy an expensive bike. As a long time bike racer, I'd rather have a power meter than a lightweight/expensive bike. The power meter just makes your training much more effective since it doesn't lie, so you end up riding harder, which increases the effectiveness of the training.

Unknown said...

Excellent advice, Chris. I hadn't thought of it that way before (obviously) and I appreciate the perspective.

Maybe I should start saving my pennies for the meter.