POWER to the ROBBY!

First of all... check out my eyebrows man!  Holy CRAP!  Those suckers are exactly like my Grandpa's!  When the heck did THAT happen!  I need to take the weed-whacker to 'em!

No, this post isn't about my eyebrows.  It's about my power test!  Coach Liz had me do another bike test today... with the Power Tap!  What was really weird about this test was that I had no idea what I was getting into.  I mean, you could tell me that you push 2.4532 watts for 2 hours... and that would mean absolutely nothing to me. The good thing about being ignorant is that you can't over-analyze... you just GO!  You just go as hard as you can without collapsing in the first couple of minutes.  SO... I set up in my really fancy training studio... aka my garage... and got to it. 

The test consisted of a 30 minute warm-up, (just spinning in the small ring), followed by 30 minutes HARD, followed by a 30 minute cool-down.  The only portion where I collected data was in the middle... where I was going hard.  Liz wanted me to record average watts, average HR, and total mileage.  So here are the results:

• Avg Watts: 207
• Avg HR: 156
• Total Miles: 9.3

Ouch.  Yeah.  Nauseous.  I didn't smile... not even once during this test.  SO... besides a lot of sweaty clothes... what did this little test get me? Information.  That's it.  It's information that Coach Liz is going to use to make me stronger on the bike.  I now have a power base-line to work from.  She'll set power zones for me that I'll be training in from here on out... without the variability of heart-rate!  A watt is a watt is a watt regardless of how hot it is, how stressed I am, or if I ate a 1/2 lb cheeseburger 3 minutes ago... there's no cheating with watts.

Regardless of what the above numbers might say about my current cycling performance... I KNOW that I'm going to be making some HUGE leaps in biking fitness over the next month or so!  I'm PUMPED!

Tomorrow is a 1 hour zone 2 run!  I'm curious to find out how many miles I can put in in an hour in that HR zone (154-164 bpm).  Ought to be fun... except for the pouring rain and chilly temperatures... I know I know... I'll put away my pink tutu and stop whining.

Hope you're all doing well!  Thanks for stopping by...

Breathe...