My (New) Favorite Training Partner

We all have our preferences with whom we most desire to train. You go through phases of competitiveness, camaraderie, and solitude. Some people out there are luckily enough to be paired with individuals who are similar in skill, training phase, and goals...they are most often called "Professionals". For the rest of us, we find balance. We all go through phases of training where growth seems slow, you can't meet up with others, or it mentally gets difficult; in all these cases it is important to stay on course and keep the consistency. Since I began training, there has been only one scenario in which I have had constant training partners: track/XC teams. That is the beauty of scholastic athletics (HS or collegiate); over four years these 'guys' you may never have met share thousands of training hours, injuries, failure, success, and just about every non-academic (and many academic) minute together. You are destined to being a family before you know anyone's name. I loved this aspect of being on teams for over 10 years. There is nothing that can match the support and friendship of people who have seen you completely destroyed, physically and emotionally, after that one workout every year that tells you exactly how much better you are than last year.

Fast forward to almost two years after my departure from my track team a UR in 2010 and how do I feel? I miss the team, if you couldn't have guessed from the above description. It's impossible not to. But I would be lying if I said I am worse off training on my own. I have learned a lot more about myself, my limits, exercise physiology, nutrition, and training planning. I have become a lot smarter of an athlete, both in training and competition. I had a huge training streak over 250 days because I was smart and remained uninjured while improving steadily. I still will always miss 'the guys' though.

Back to today's training. My training partner is no longer a team, or a few people I meet weekly, but a little thing called an SRM. Don't ask me what it stands for, I can't come close to pronouncing it haha. It's German and badass, like most things German. Over the last year of cycling I have heard the more-than-just-buzz word "Power" thrown about alongside the buzz words of "FTP", "Weight Ratio", and various other technical things that confuse many people. This is of massive interest to me: I'm an engineer, I love data, and the more numbers the better! So I started looking around for Power Meters, my top choice was shaping up to be a Quarq, with SRM being a close second....then basically nothing else. Quarq's are new and probably are still having minor kinks worked out and there are few used so the price tag is well above $1000. SRM has been around for a long time, they have different models, and many are used and resold - as reliable as the day they were bought. As a friend, Drew Scoles (MD PhD in Biomedical Engineering), told me "German engineering usually doesn't have an expiration date". He was right, I'm not sure how old this SRM I picked up is, but at a bare minimum it is 7 years old from the former data files on it. I'm guessing it is older because I sent in the serial number with an inquiry to SRM, and they said the number did not seem to be from an SRM but actually a head unit! Anyway, I purchased the SRM on slowtwitch.com, it is a wired model with the SRM crank arms and a PCV.

It has definitely entertained the engineer in me. But even more so, it will become a critical aspect of my training giving feedback to my coach and myself, allow for determination of progress, and give information that will essentially dictate my training. For example I did a cycling field test today, to measure my power output 2 times over a 3 mile course, with 10min rest. This allowed me to compare the effects on slight injuries and a bunch of time off from serious or structured training. These effects were fairly negative, but that was expected. My power average dropped by 8% and (due to weight changes) my power to weight ratio dropped by nearly 10%. I refuse to publish the numbers due to their inherent weakness, and there can be big differences between measuring methods and devices. The test will provide a baseline for my training over the next month or two, and will be something that I can easily retest and monitor fitness changes. I will say that the second 3.03 mile effort took 7:30 @ 24.2MPH, and that is a course with a net gain of 125ft and it was pouring and windy today!

What do you look for in a training partner? Obviously someone you can spend many hours with, who pushes you to a new level, who supports you, gives you targets, and, among many other things, makes your training flat-out better. My SRM is now my training partner. In collaboration with my coach, it makes my training much more meaningful, pushes me, keeps me honest, gives perspective, and (probably) most importantly ensures that I go hard when it's time to go hard and go easy when it's time to rest. It doesn't provide much conversation, or verbal motivation (if you saw my field test today, you would know it motivates quite well), but it never missed a ride.

For the couple weeks I've been using the SRM, I have never trained easier nor harder - all of that leading to 'better' in every respect. With the dictated plan of a coach and his feedback, the SRM will take my training and thus my fitness to a new level. Once someone throws a Quarq (or PowerTap) my way, I'll do a review that includes those devices, too. But for now, the SRM is an excellent and surprisingly reliable device that gives continually accurate data. It comes with an excellent program for analysis that allows you to look at every single data point that is recorded (if necessary). I have not a single complaint. Calibration is simple (and fun!), cleaning is easy (avoid pressure water/washing - I will NOT be testing this out), and the UI of the PCV is very good. I have but one complaint as yet, I wish it had a backlight: but that just means I get to find a cool way to attach an LED to my stem/head tube so I can read the display at any hour of training...because training and feedback never stop. There's so much more to say about how the SRM aids my training, recovery, and analysis...but the fact is: It Does It All. I am so glad I got the SRM and don't ever see myself seriously training without power.

Upcoming: My first run in over a month on 10/16 (uh oh), back to the SMR (Sat Morning Ride) 10/15!

Next entry: TBD