I am happy to report that after spending a week on the road for work, I have managed to lose another pound, putting me at 182.8 lbs (down 14.2 pounds since I started trying to lose weight).
It was a recovery week, so I only did two 45 minute easy workouts this week. I had to make sure I cut my food intake as well in order to balance the lower level of exercise, and it worked.
I did everything I could to relax this week. I spent a lot of time after work in the hotel reading and doing homework, usually with my feet up or while laying down. In this morning's time trial, it paid off.
One of the joys of training with a power meter is that I have a much more objective way to look at my results. With speed / time alone, all I see is the time, not whether there were massive head winds or not.
Today, we did a slightly shorter course than usual to avoid a walk-a-thon registration line that was forming for an event later in the morning. It cut the course down by about 0.2 miles or so, with my bike computer reading 8.1 miles for the total course.
On days like today, with a slightly different course and higher winds in the last mile, it's nice to be able to compare my performance against last week.
The recovery week did me a world of good.
Last week, I did the time trial with an average speed of 23.3 mph at an average heart rate of 163 BPM and an average power of 224 watts.
This week, with high winds in the last mile, I did the time trial with an average speed of 23.6 mph at an average heart rate of 170 BPM and an average power of 240 watts.
The real number of interest is the average power of 240 watts. To increase by 16 watts (about 7%), in one week is HUGE.
It's also interesting to see how much higher my heart rate was when I was well rested. That's a sure fire sign that I was pretty tired last week.
This is an image with the kind of data I get from the Power Tap, with both a summary and a chart of speed, cadence, heart rate, and power. It has a TON more data for analysis, but this is as much as I feel like describing right now :-) :(click on the image to see it full size)
Next week, I'll be doing the 19 mile Blueberry Time Trial, so I'll be training harder early in the week then taking it easy later in the week. My biggest worry is that I'm on the road again this week and flying home from the west coast on Friday. I should be able to get a few good workouts in at the hotel gym. I'm more worried about Friday. Nothing like a 5 hour flight the day before a race!
