computrainer « TriathlonMike

Well I thought I ought to sort out my laptop to connect to my CompuTrainer for the upcoming winter indoor training which ought to take place. As it turns out, I ran into a few issues as my laptop has been rebuilt since I last used the CompuTrainer connected to my laptop. I’ve been using the CompuTrainer handlebar control for varying the power rather than courses or 3D videos.

Anyway the bits of software I’ve installed are:

CompuTrainer 3D

http://www.computrainer.com/html/improvements_to_3d_v3.htm

Download the latest version (v3.0 2010/08/05) and install. Make sure to install into C:\ and not C:\program files.

Coaching Software CS

http://www.computrainer.com/html/coaching_software_support.htm

Download and install into C:\ aswell. This is now free.

Topo GPS

http://www.computrainer.com/html/TopoUSAsupport.htm

Download and install. I also needed to download the “other” topogps.exe from

http://www.racermate.net/forum/download/file.php?id=157

which was included in the forum post at

http://www.racermate.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3516

Without this update I was unable to view/edit 3DC files, as described in the forum post. The error in the application’s fatal.log file was:

Error in X:\_f\lib\velib2\willcourse.cpp at line 113:
nlegs error

This is a great piece of software which allows one to convert .gpx files into .3dc files which can be “ridden” using the CompuTrainer 3D software.

I am considering getting the updated RacerMate One software which has recently been released. I do wonder how useful it wil be though. Hopefully DC Rainmaker will do an indepth review of the software in the near future.

Well I did some simple statistics pulling from WKO+ for the past three seasons. I based a season from December through to end November of the following year.

date from       01/12/2010    01/12/2009   01/12/2008
date to         30/11/2011    30/11/2010   30/11/2009
run duration    45h47:02       82h01:12    65h07:36
run distance    527.126km      957.505km   727.656km
bike duration   15h28:04       115h46:42   158h04:18
bike distance   260.632km      2409.497km  4337.618km
swim duration   6h04:00        30h26:00    36h58:00
swim distance   18.45km        94.031km    104.613km

(Yes, I realise we’ve not quite got to 30/11/2011 yet… so will update the 2011 season once it completes)

The figures include treadmill and Computrainer sessions along with training sessions and races.

I hope that I manage to do more training over the 2012 season – probably slightly down on the 2009/2010 season due to less free time these days. Maybe I should set some training targets for the 2012 season?

The bike average speed varies somewhat due to extensive use of the Computrainer in the 2009 season – due to the ERG training I was doing at a relatively higher wheel speed than on the road the average speeds are inflated. So the times are probably more useful to compare than pure distances.

It’s a month since my last blog posting. How scary that time has flown by so quickly.

Firstly, some stats (according to my TrainingPeaks profile) from the month of February:

13150m swimming
543.1km cycling
52.45km running

The worrying thing is that those 543km of cycling were all on the Computrainer. I do need to get out on the road soon! My usual cycling buddy’s programme is not fitting in with mine unfortunately. Our ride durations or intensities are not in sync and hence to ride together would be tricky or involve us foregoing our planned training session.

The plan for yesterday had a 40min swim followed by 3hr cycle scheduled. I did a 43min swim (2100m) and then started on the cycle. Within the first five minutes of the cycle session I knew it was going to be tough. I took a 2 min breather at 2 hours and then battled through till the end. It was not so much that I was on the trainer, but my legs just did not have the juice to keep going. What a tough cycle!

With February having been and gone I see that it is just four months till Ironman Austria 2009. YIKES! My training programme for March has some big training weeks and weekends planned. The ramp up to IMAustria has begun!

So it’s been fairly quiet recently on the blog front. No excuses really. The training front has been more happening than the blog front you will be pleased to hear. I have had a good few weeks since the last post.

I did get a complete 30 minute swimming time trial completed with a good result. Average pace of 2:02.34/100m. Am chuffed with that. Not great in the grand scheme of things, but am I happy with it for me. Hopefully will get to under 2min/100m in the next couple of months.

I am enjoying the Computrainer rides. I find they are very useful from a “productivity” point of view. Program in the .ERG file or choose a course and head off. No traffic, no pot holes and no rain. Just pure leg work to get through. I think the Computrainer is one of those “must consider” devices. The real benefit is it’s reproducibility. Time trials are a doddle. Keep the same warm up protocol and the same course to ride and results are immediately comparable to previous efforts.

The TrainingPeaks WKO+ software is starting to give some good figures with my CTL climbing nicely. I am also interested in watching the ATL peaks and the visible intensity increases over the easy, build and hard training weeks.

I have noticed that my aero position is not quite right. I think I need to adjust my saddle slightly forward so that I am not stretching quite so much. I’m not sure how much I will be able to adjust it with the saddle mounted drinks cage in place.

I was debating bike choice with a friend recently for upcoming races. For Austria 70.3 my TT bike was a great choice. It is debatable if Monaco 70.3 competitors would be better off with a road bike or not. Given I don’t own a road bike I had to use my TT bike. This was a fine choice as there are a few few flat sections when aero bars are a useful additional. Since I did a fair bit of hill training on the TT bike I didn’t have any issues on the way up the hills. Going downhill was a little different though as the downhills were steep and twisty. Just a little scary though, not sure a road bike would have been any less scary though. Would I be happy doing Monaco 70.3 again on a TT bike -most certainly!

Anyway, training volumes are creeping up as the races draw nearer and hopefully I will have some interesting things to blog about….

Well the good news is that I have been keeping up with my training so far this year. My swimming seems to be getting nearer the end of last season’s levels and I am feeling “easier” in the water. What I mean is that I am feeling less like a sinking ship. I can tell that my catch is not as efficient as it was as my times are not quite what they were, even for short 50/100m bursts. Maybe it is just overall fitness levels that are lacking, but I think it’s mainly swim technique. I guess it’s time to get some more lessons booked in.

Yesterday I did a 20 minute “time-trial” on the Computrainer. My coaches use this to estimate my FTP based on 95% of the 20minute time-trial average power. I have decided to use the “Computrainer 10 mile time trial” course for these tests. At the moment I am not completing the 10 miles in 20 minutes so it’s safe to use until my cycling increases! I did notice a 4w difference between the SRM and Computrainer figures which I don’t normally see – I’m guessing a mis-calibration of the Computrainer as after the time-trial I re-did the Computrainer calibration for the warm-down and the figures were more in alignment. Hurray for SRM and boo to Computrainer… 🙂

As an aside, I’ve noticed a number of the searches from Google hitting my blog looking for the course profiles of the races I’ve completed. I’m not sure of the best way to provide these, but am considering an upload of a GPX for the race courses for interested people. If anyone has ideas on this, please drop me a comment.

Well this is a technical note rather than a training related one. I seem to have come down with a touch of flu over the past few days (thanks work colleagues!!) and am out of training for the moment.

Since I have some down time, I thought I’d do some data converting. I have created two Computrainer .3dc files, which are for the Ironman Monaco 70.3 and Ironman Austria 70.3 races. There might be some overlapping of roads (causing some display oddities) but this should not affect the session.

They can be found as follows:

All Racermate free courses

Ironman Monaco 70.3

Ironman Austria 70.3

I am considering uploading some of my more interesting training or race tracks if I can find some time and some good GPS records of them.

TriathlonMike

Tag Archives: computrainer

CompuTrainer bits-n-bobs

Three years’ stats

Where did February go??

Quite times

Good start to the year so far!

Computrainer courses