Hello,
I think I can say that we are in similar situations and to save you alot of money that I spent, I can give you my experience and you can decide for yourself.
I believe that when starting out the most important thing is to get a decent bike and a professional fitting. This may sound like a "ofcourse I know that" but many shops really do not know how to do it correctly and a coach would be really good for that.
Once you have that I would just go with the book Training with the Power Meter, understand it, take the ftp test and than based upon that download a training program to improve ftp. Do the 8 week program or another one depending on your situation and time, see how it works for you. During that time you will get bettter at Bike handling skills as when you put in that many hours it will just happen on some level. Also if you are lucky there will be some group rides or pack rides near you or it seems now you have a buddy to ride with based upon your post.
Next enter a race with your buddy so you can work together...see how you do. Do another race and another...if you seem frustrated and stuck in a problem area than go and find a coach. He can take your workout, abilities, problem areas and adjust to have you perform better. You may than become part of a club??
After a long time and money I see this would have been the best method for me. I really think going for the coach makes you spend more and if you are in such an early stage, the coach will not really do much more than the downloaded plan will so save the money. Next it will also test your dedication, I was also going to the gym most of this year and finally only about two months ago I finally gave up the gym and every workout is on the bike. I finally have taken the complete plunge as it is the only way I will get the proper results,,,,there is a personal life for most of us so you need to see if you can only be a weekend warrior or more or less....
Running a business for me with a staff of 50 mouths to feed is tough and keep the business aflot...the $20 you win at the local race is cool but kind of hard to put the daughter through college
I hope the aboive helps and do not get too frustrated in the beginning...
Two other things I forgot...one is get the CP WKO software, a must so you really know how you are doing and can compare results to the book and your coach if any good would already have this software and can examine the results.
Next your background. You see I was a non-exercising person most of my adult life and never played any type of organized sports. Now if you are the guy in the other post with 4% bodyfat and ex-football player...lets just say he has a headstart!! and is more mentally and physically ready.
Lets see the most experience I had was a bike messenger for 2-3 years in college ... 20 years ago. So do not get down when you see these gym rats do what they do...they just keep going from sport to sport to sport until their body stops letting them...
-Js
samf526 said:
Hi everyone,
I have two options to do my training around and I could use some advice as to which would be more useful.
1) Virtual coach - I already have a subscription, and i can set up the system to my own specifications and let it do all the work for me
2) A training plan made by a coach for a friend of mine who is in a pretty similar situation to me. I figure I can use the perscribed workouts but change the wattage so it is more applicable to me.
some have said either will work well, just pick one. I tend to think the training plan would be the better option, as it has been tried and shown to be successful in past seasons. the virtual coach just seems too much like a standardized program to me.
thanks