Power/Weight Thread

Golden Cheetah dudes, 3.2 is out with some nice changes as listed in spoiler below.
IMPORTANT.... Backup your athlete DB directory in full before running 3.2 for the first time, it is going to re-convert your dir to full JSON so better safe than sorry.

MAJOR NEW FEATURES

Multisport Support
Support has now been included for running and swimming; including the CV and D’ as well as new charts, metrics and device support.
Pace Zones - Running and Swimming
Garmin Dynamics - Running and Cycling Dynamics
GOVSS, SwimScore, TriScore et al
CV Model

Moxy Support
The Moxy Muscle Oxygen Monitor is supported including direct download, data series charting and new metrics.
Direct download from device
Import CSV (moxy + peripedal) and FIT format
Merge Tool changes
Shift S+C to Smo2/tHB
Derive HHb and O2Hb from SmO2/tHb
Chartride, 2d, 3d, histogram

Train View Update
The train view has been updated to support real-time viewing of W’bal and new series from Garmin pedal power meters as well as support for the Tacx Vortex turbo.
Tacx Vortex Electronic Trainer Support
Vector Support
Moxy Support
W'bal as you ride
New file format and import process at end of ride
New turbos supported

Interval Discovery and Analysis
The train view has been updated to support real-time viewing of W’bal and new series from Garmin pedal power meters.
Interval Navigator in Performance Plot
Interval Auto-discovery; Peaks, Hills, TTE/Sustained, Routes
Plot Sustained Intervals on CP chart (ride, season, compare)
Sustained Time In Zone metrics
Create intervals on the map
Drop Segments onto Compare Pane to add all matching intervals

OTHER CHANGES

General Updates
Improved Merge
PMC Any Stress Metric
W'bal Zones
PMC Metrics on Summary and in Filters
CP Estimates use rolling 6 weeks not 2 calendar months
Added Ward-Smith PD Model
Lots more Fix Tools (Elevation, Power, Moxy etc)
Automatic importing of files
Hide curves via legend in LTM Plot
Improved performance for W'bal calculation
Export 'heatmap' of rides for Google Maps
Core Temperature Data Series Added
Improved Chart editing in Trend View

Technical Updates
NoSQL - RideCache in memory with backing store
Directory Structure - /cache /config /activities etc
Use Native File Format - json
CLucene deprecated
KQOauth lib replaces libOAuth
File Quarantining
Google Calendar API v2
Measures db deprecated for a Withings cache
Preferences changes update optimized

Download here - http://www.goldencheetah.org/#section-download
Video showing brief overview of what is new - https://vimeo.com/135905103

And here is a link to Mark Liversedge's videos which are great for an all round usage and understanding of different functions within GC - https://vimeo.com/user3992403/videos/sort:date
 
292watts for 22mins on a mountain climb yesterday :)
Been weighing in at 58/59KG's as well this week = 4.94W/KG

I reckon I am right around 300watts @ CP on my next rested and proper test over 20mins which puts me over the magic 5w/kg. GC has modelled my data to a 306w CP as well so it's all coming together :)
 
Thomas. PLease. said:
xdcx, you're a bit of a pro with Golden Cheetah, why now everytime I open 3.2 it does the whole upgrade to 3.2 thing, again, each time.
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I haven't went to 3.2 yet purely because I run GC via Windows at home but Linux at work and sync my athlete DB over Dropbox. There is no 3.2 package yet on Linux so I am just waiting for it rather than mucking around with 2 different versions between my machines.

From what I read, first launch of 3.2 should look at your athlete DB and convert everything to JSON. So typically it created a .bak from your device for the .fit and then generated a CPX and a JSON file for each ride.

When you open 3.2, let it do its thing and keep it open once finished. Then jump to your athlete DB dir on your machine for me and let me know what the state of that is? Does it retiain everything as .bak once it converts or does it actually trim the who data structure down to 1/2 .JSON per ride you have in there?

Purely off top of my head as a thing to try though would be to open GC 3.2, let auto convert occur. Keep GC app open and then copy/paste the now converted JSON dir structure into a new directory somewhere on your machine.... Then once that copy/paste finishes, amend your GC settings to change your athlete DB and workout lib (tools>options and bottom of the general tab those 2 boxes) to the new directory you created with the converted JSON data structure.... Close and re-open GC and see if it now points at the new location and obviously you'll see if it does a re-convert of the data structure yet again.

If you are still getting issues I will upgrade this Windows machine and just go 3.2 as there is some nice changes I want. I can re-build my GC on my Linux box at work from source and stopping being lazy waiting for a package and then I will be much more help to get it sorted out for you if needs be :cool:
 
Thomas. PLease. said:
I'm not at home at the moment but will probably have a crack tomorrow afternoon. Liking it so far though. The W' numbers being the most interesting. Think that'll be the next big thing tbh. Would be awesome to know what's left in the tank at a particular time in a ride.

That and just the ride page with added marked intervals on etc.
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I done my Windows machine, it crashed on first run and I got worried but it seems OK and stable now. It is MUCH snappier now that everything is natively JSON which is welcomed. Finding a few little bugs but certainly didn't replicate your issue, my folder structure and data all converted OK and remained so.

Once you get back to your computer, check your athlete DB for me and let me know if it is restructured totally with the new directories (activities, import, cache etc etc etc).
 
In case anyone runs GC on Linux.... Sigh, this has been fun!
The documentation they have on GIT for Linux installs is not updated, there is no published packages for 3.2 yet and it's a pain.

I had to figure out what dependencies 3.2 had and it is alow compared to 3.1. So if you run Linux you will need to manually add some qt5 modules before carrying out the build on your box. qt5-script, qt5-webkit, qt5-multimedia and once you have these run qmake it will moan about translation files being missing in the config.... It's pointing to wrong files, pretty dumb!!! I don't care for German, French and Spanish so I binned the ref. to those translations in the config and it has now compiled.

Not out of the woods yet I don't think but based on the above just stick with 3.1 if you run Linux until they either package it all for us properly or at least publish some updated documentation on the bloody dependancies....
 
^^ Mr Modest, I have updated you on page1 ;)

Thomas, did you get your GC profile all sorted with the instructions?

I had a problem with mine, it randomly binned all my custom charts! Lucky I took a backup, replacing all my XML data sorted them all out but I am still clueless as to why it could even do what it done and hoping it really was a freak bug and won't happen again.
 
Thomas. PLease. said:
I had a look at it last night, and then binned it off to do another time as I couldn't be bothered to be quie honest. :o

Will try and have a look tonight. What custom charts do you have, out of interest? I think the only ones I've customised are the peak power metric trend graphs, which are nice to look at, when things are going in the right direction!
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No worries, let me know how you get on :cool:

I have custom PMC (I done a wee tutorial at some point earlier in this thread for that one) and weight tracking, HR zone time, W/KG curve, Power zone time and one that shows distance/time riding/elevation.... All of these are based on date selction on the left pane so are very informative for whatever date range you specify to them. I'll try and get some time to do a wee post here and if people are interested I can export the charts specifically or give info on configuring them to a bae on which you can custom them yourself but they aren't anything exceptionally complicated or anything.
 
On the mountain climb with touch at the weekend I pushed 5W/KG for just over 15mins, based on being 60kg but have been around 58/59 past fortnight. I reckon I am right on track for 5W/KG at my CP if I do a test in the next few weeks. Pretty pleased with how it is progressing (on paper ha!).
 
Berger said:
Bloody lightweights! :p

You seem to have been able to increase your w/kg a lot quicker than Thomas or I. Have you got a specific training program, or do you think it's your light weight that's helping you! You need to get racing to see how you do, if you get punished on the flat and out of the corners or not, if you can hang on to the hills you'll do fine.
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I was running at a pretty high level and had to give it up so got a bike in April and just been doing 230+ miles every week since then and more recently 260+ each week. I do very little sessions and don't follow a plan as of now really, my thinking being this year and through winter will be my massive base phase to build a general strength base for cycling before doing high quality work and a plan as of spring 2016. I lift weights/core work 5 mornings a week as well in the gym.

I joined the local club about 6 weeks ago, been doing their chain gang rides every Thursday and that's brought me on a lot. Done a few specific sessions with the race group on a Sunday but beyond that, each week I will do a session of hill climbing, or something like 5/4/3/2/1 with short recoveries. But vast majority of my training is Z2 and Z3 steady riding right now and will be until Spring.

I have done 2 road races now. And believe it or not in the first one I got dropped on a hill! Second race last week I missed on the split in the bunch but finished in the 2nd group on the road. Once I can live with the flat pace and use less energy doing so, I will be much better, my bike handling, descending and climbing is good enough for CAT3/4. It's all learning for me in races at the moment, to follow moves, or not follow them! And just read the race and other guys in there before I will be able to place well. I am very lucky to have became good mates with touch from here, he's very handy on the bike and has lots of racing experience so he helps me out big time!
 
Erm, yeah. So another 20min CP best from the Cairngorm HC TT this morning which is basically 8 miles of flatt-ish, gradual uphills into a 14minute mountain climb.

Up 21w from previous 292w to 313w..... I actually pushed 308watts for a full 30 mins, so I reckon all out for a CP test on fresh legs I am upwards of 318w for 20mins at this point.

5.21W/KG for 20mins.
5W/KG for 30mins.

313*0.93=291w FTP... 4.85w/kg.... I like numbers :D
 
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Ride done early and now burning some brain calories. I made a spreadsheet based on the Coggan chart to mark your profile. Coggan documents and detals how this is useful to determine which "type" of rider you are from sprinter, TT specialist, all rounder etc.

If anyone is interested, let me know and I can do yours for you if you let me know 5sec,1min,5min and your FTP (I can get most of this from profiles on page 1 but not all). Or I can send you the spreadsheet in .xlsx if you want it if it will be helpful for you to keep and maintain yourself.

Here is mine, based on this and recent 20min bests I can see working on my sprints will be very beneficial to me. Sessions based around maximal power output and 20-30seconds maximals would be worthwhile. Which I kinda figured anyway :P

Capture.jpg
 
I have returned from my 2 weeks of getting drunk and fat.
Peteh and Solo will add you guys to first page this evening :)

Berger, at least we can live a race season through you whilst we all moan and put up with winter. Got Strava for the climb in the race? 7km @ 5-6% avg after 80km pushing >5wkg is impressive. Is the climb close to the race finish? I can imagine balls out to bottom of that climb and then obliteration of the bunch, you must be racing against some seriously strong guys, is there a lot fo guys in the bunch who could push >5wkg on a climb like that after hard racing or are there a few standout guys racing in your area who will contest that for a win?
 
I done some reading up on "carb backloading" recently and I think it seems a good idea and it makes sense in my stupid brain.... Protein and fats all day with very very little carbs and then eat carbs AFTER your workouts. The info I was reading did say that anything over 90mins you should fuel with some carbs before hand but the main principle being your body is glycogen depleted after your 60-90min workout so the carbs you eat after the workout are used to fuel recovery/build and are not stored as fat.

However, on thinking about this. I think you would need to balance this very carefuly, yeah, your body is using the carbs after as described but then for your workout the next day, where is glycogen coming from? Your body would have to store something, right, or would fuelling all day on fats and proteins be enough to get you through another 90mins the day after?

I am not sure, I am keen to give it a try. I found some good examples of guys (cyclists!) doing it and they reported getting incredibly lean with no muscle loss or lack of energy. You guys who know more about nutrition can maybe tear it to pieces or maybe even promote it some if you tried it? I am not saying to do it, just starting a discussion.

I had a bad time recently, was off the bike and eating and drinking like a moron. Now that I am back training, I am insanely hungry and bonking on the bike even though I am eating VERY well and how I was when training at my peak. I don't understand it, is this my body crying out because it was used to mega carb amounts for a few weeks + no exercise and now I am eating clean and doing lots of training my brain is telling my body it's struggling? Or am I feeling starving when my body shifts to burning the fat I have put on as its source?
 
I am 5ft 8 and when at "race weight" I am 58/59kg.
Right now whilst fat after falling off the wagon for 2 weeks I am 62kg.

At 58/59kg though I feel I am too bulky up top, I have been lifting too much weights during the summer. I want to trim down for racing next season, I reckon I could stay as strong/fit at 56/57kg if I work on aerobic and drop weights to 3 times a week.

When I was at my peak running I was 9 stone and the Sport Scotland bloke at Hampden during my V02 maximal and lactate test said he wouldn't even use calipers to get my BF% as it was way low. So I dunno, I want to get full composition done in race shape around May/June time next year but I'd reckon at 58kg around 6/7% BF purely guessing.

I want to say I don't care over the winter but it's BS and lying to myself as usual. I'm in the "always fit" category, or trying to be at least because my stupid brain. Drinking is my problem, I cannot help or stop it recently due to everything but I need to stop it.
 
Berger said:
Split with the mrs? Start taking this new drug called "single" it means you can ride 500km a week without getting a headache!
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:D:p I have been a single man for a very long time. My cycle buddies hate how much time I have to get all my training done whilst they have to clear it all with PITA women! :o
 
FrenchTart said:
I drink too much too tbh. And I've also been single for a while :p (this isn't me hitting on you y0).

The 3-4kg you've put on in your weeks off won't all be fat. There's a good portion of it that will be water retention. You'll find at least a kg of it will slip off extremely quickly as you get back into things.
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Sup girl? ;)

I was up at 63/64 and was down to <62 within 3 days of eating well and exercising again this week. It really is a mental thing, when you are used to be very lean all the time you feel like a whale very quickly :p Pizza and whisky for the winter blues!
 
First page all updated guys, well done! :)
Good to see some of us are still making gains at this sucky time of year :)
 
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