Midyear Review

My 2008 training season started on November 1, so it's half time. With lots of power numbers flying around it can get tough sometimes to see the peleton for the cyclists. I think the clearest way to see long-term progress is by comparing mean maximal power (MMP) charts for two different periods. Below is a MMP chart comparing my MMP for the first 6 months of the 2007 season (dotted line) with my MMP for the first 6 months of this season (solid yellow line).



I've made progress across the board, but my improvement has been greatest for the short (less than 20 seconds) efforts. In that range, I've seen improvements of 130 to 190 watts. For most longer time intervals, my improvement has been in the 20 to 60 watt range.



Below the MMP chart, I have a mean maximal normalized power chart comparing the same periods. For time intervals less than about 50 minutes, I've improved my MMNP by 30 or 40 watts, which is significant. The fact that the increase in MMNP is bigger than the increase in MMP for the same time intervals means that I can recover more quickly than I could one year ago and put in another hard effort. But even out to the 4 and 5 hour ride duratoins, my increase is in the 25 to 30 watt range.