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Having scrimped, saved and got a returns deal from Merlin I can just about get a Stages powermeter. Running the same cranks on both bikes so can get max use plus speaking to Merlin they seem to be very switched on to good service on any water ingress/battery life issues.
The question is what gains are possible training with power? From what I can gather it may allow me to:-
a) stop slacking on intervals by running past my target HR and then taking it easy until it comes back down (particularly the case on hill repeats)
b) give me more up to date zones to train to
c) in effect ensure my intervals are harder/of better quality (and I want to pay for this?!) and allow me to get slightly more benefit for the same time.
Anything else?
Identifying where you're not very good and where you should be targeting your training time. Quantifying performance gains. Providing a meaningful pacing tool.
But it'll only do any of that if you know what you're doing with it, definitely worth doing a bit of reading and research.
Thanks - if you have any links I'd appreciate it.
They are also useful for tracking training load. After a while you should be able to predict when you will come into form/how much training you can handle.
You don't need to ride to a power on every ride to get a benefit from recording the data.
Start with 'Training and Racing with a Powermeter' and take it from there, really. I've been using power for about 8 years and have found it invaluable, despite getting on a bit I'm now faster than I was when I was in my twenties. I use the meters on the road predominantly as that's where most of my training is done, and I certainly never have a head unit in sight during a race - you need to just get on with it then! However, in a very short time you'll be able to 'feel' a power output to within 10W or so.
I've recently got into using a power meter but it is being used exclusively for training on the road. Like njee says, you really need to know what you're doing and I was very lucky that my brother is actually a half decent coach so he's been analysing my data and helping me structure training around it.
Strava is actually a pretty useful resource once you start to use power data; I hadn't realised just how useful it was and had already taken a premium membership before I started putting power data in. Then I realised why the premium membership is actually pretty compelling.
I used power data to really useful effect on the weekend; hopefully this will illustrate the use.
The structured interval sets I'd been doing had basically highlighted to me where my 1-hour power threshold was most likely to be. I knew that 290 watts was going to be too high and that 270 watts was the least it would be.
I knew that my max HR was almost certainly 191 so my 90-92% threshold level was doable for one hour and that meant I needed to be targetting something around 275-280watts for a one hour effort.
I rode my first 25 mile TT on Sunday with my Garmin showing actual watts, average watts, HR as a % of max and total distance. I ignored time and any indication of speed.
I was up to 90% of max HR within about 30 seconds; by 10km in I had averaged 290 watts so even though I was within my HR limit I knew I would be unlikely to sustain that tempo for one hour. I eased off a little, the average wattage came down over the next 20km to 280 at which point I knew I was OK for the hour.
Came in almost dead on the hour for 25 miles at 277 watts avg (normlised to 280, which is a way of removing the dead spots where you're not pedaling because you're turning to give you a more accurate indication of work done).
So now I know my FTP - the work I can do over one hour and I can build training sets around that. I can also use Strava to see what I need to be able to do to under the hour on the same course by comparing myself to someone in a similar weight category who went under the hour.
It's fascinating and very useful.