Quote: Originally Posted by
bradg .
Understood--note well that I'm just asking about this, I'm not trying to brag about any giant power output on my part. Hopefully you're not accusing me of such! Not that I'd even consider 684W an impressive number for someone my size.
RDO: it was the normalized power reading from Training Peaks for that 60-second block. In Peaks, when I selected that 60-second duration, the average power for it was 540W, and the NP was 684. Like I said: it struck me as too much and inaccurate. I suppose part of the problem might be from using TrainingPeaks in the first place. From what you're saying otherwise, I'd just assume test my CP1 on the CS-1000 or a half-mile stretch of open, flat road then. I will assume that this race data isn't helpful for determining any "targets" in a test.
Andy: Thanks, that's what I thought but I figured I'd check regardless. I would also like for WKO+ be Mac compatible
Still at Wash U? You made it up to Penrose at least once this season, right?
There are a number of reasons for NP not being a sensible value for inspecting short duration performance, both physiological and mathematical. Software that shows this value for 1-minute makes no sense at all.
In terms of the mathematical, keep in mind the NP algorithm is
in part based on a rolling 30-second average power as a first step, IOW it requires at least 30-seconds of data for the algorithm to "kick in", and the way it handles the final 30-seconds of data also impacts the NP number it spits out (not sure the algorithm is clear on precisely how that final 30-seconds should be accounted for). e.g. when I calculate NP, the final data point only gets included in one rolling 30-second average, whereas the 30th last data point is included in 30 individual rolling average values (using a one-second recording rate). The same issues applies to the initial data points, i.e. the first data point only counts to one 30-second average, the second to two, and so on.
As a result, the beginning and end of the power data stream are to some extent underweighted, hence this can artificially impact the NP number, moreso when the overall duration being considered is short.