Interpreting race data on Garmin Connect

barry_kellett99

Just looking some input from folk who know...
Below is a link to a race I did last August. A fairly short club race, but I would describe the intensity of it as very high.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/236873906

I had tested my FTP at 291w about 4 or 5 weeks before that race.

I am wondering a few things here based on this race data - The main one being, is my FTP of 291 from that test likely to be a bit on the low side as my avg for this entire race was 322w?

I am also wondering how can my NP be 347w when my max avg 20 min is only 294w on the race data? And how can my avg of 322w be higher than my maximum 20 minute average???!

Confused and wondering if the garmin connect info is bobbins.

:?:

springtide9

I would agree, this looks a little odd (as in, how the 20 min average is lower than the entire race)

Maybe download Golden Cheetah (http://goldencheetah.org/download.html) and look at the data to see if this gives you different figures?

jibberjim

Garmin Connect appears to be handling 0's badly there. Downloading your file I get an AP of 289 (just under 51 minutes of riding) an NP of 327. Your average for the entire race there appears to be excluding zero values.

Your FTP is probably a little higher than the 291 tested (saying to the nearest watt is a bad idea as it suggests your testing is significantly more accurate than it can possibly be). That is the sort of course to encourage a very high NP though, so perhaps not too much above for steady state riding.

barry_kellett99

Cheers men, I will upload to GC tonight when i get home.
And I have readjusted my FTP to 290, thanks jim :-)

markwb79

I have seen similar odd things with my HR data after races when viewing my data in Golden Cheetah

amaferanga

As I understand it Garmin Connect average power for the activity is taken from the summary information in the ride file. So if you have your Garmin set up to exclude zeros in the power average then you get an inflated value for average power displayed on the device itself and in Garmin Connect. The other power metrics are calculated by Garmin Connect when the file is uploaded and are not (or perhaps better to say should not) be influenced by whether zeros were included in the power displayed on the Garmin (all the data including all the zeros are in the file).

But anyway, if you have invested in a power meter you should be using something more sophisticated than Garmin Connect to analyse your ride data. Golden Cheetha v3 is ace and free.

barry_kellett99

amaferanga wrote:

As I understand it Garmin Connect average power for the activity is taken from the summary information in the ride file. So if you have your Garmin set up to exclude zeros in the power average then you get an inflated value for average power displayed on the device itself and in Garmin Connect. The other power metrics are calculated by Garmin Connect when the file is uploaded and are not (or perhaps better to say should not) be influenced by whether zeros were included in the power displayed on the Garmin (all the data including all the zeros are in the file).

But anyway, if you have invested in a power meter you should be using something more sophisticated than Garmin Connect to analyse your ride data. Golden Cheetha v3 is ace and free.

Cheers
That makes sense.
I do use GC, but sporadically. Don't often get the chance to analyse stuff in detail at night and uploaded that one to garmin at work, hence my confusion about the data shown.

Still haven't looked at it in GC! Will do it tonight, I've promised myself.

Trev The Rev

Does any of this software account for how the athletes felt during the ride, how the legs felt post ride or how they felt prior to the ride? Is fatigue accounted for?

It is often how you felt that tells you more than the output figure.

amaferanga

Trev The Rev wrote:

Does any of this software account for how the athletes felt during the ride, how the legs felt post ride or how they felt prior to the ride? Is fatigue accounted for?

It is often how you felt that tells you more than the output figure.

:roll:

springtide9

amaferanga wrote:

But anyway, if you have invested in a power meter you should be using something more sophisticated than Garmin Connect to analyse your ride data. Golden Cheetha v3 is ace and free.

I'm still using v2 as the last time I looked at v3 it looked in beta and seemed to be missing a load of functionality of v2.

I must admit, I don't understand the difference between the two sites:

http://www.goldencheetah.org/download.html
http://goldencheetah.stand2surf.net/

v3 still looks to be in beta... and a lot of the links for the v3 site don't appear to work.
e.g. http://bugs.goldencheetah.org/projects/ ... 3_Features

Has v3 functionality now caught up with v2?

GiantMike

Trev The Rev wrote:

Does any of this software account for how the athletes felt during the ride, how the legs felt post ride or how they felt prior to the ride? Is fatigue accounted for?

It is often how you felt that tells you more than the output figure.

I've been using the ANT+ leg sensors for a couple of weeks now and they're a revelation. In GC4 I use the before/after 'Lactate Tracker' to record changes during my intervals. Before I got the leg sensors I just used to estimate how my legs felt but now I can actually quantify the changes throughout the workout and overtime.

In the last 2 weeks I've reduced LA build-up by 6% allowing a 12% improvement in 20min average power. Sweet.

dawebbo

v3 has NP and TSS, which is why use it.

Didn't notice losing any useful features from v2 when I changed over (didn't find that 3d histogram any better than quadrant analysis). Which missing functionality are you referring to?

springtide9

dawebbo wrote:

v3 has NP and TSS, which is why use it.

Didn't notice losing any useful features from v2 when I changed over (didn't find that 3d histogram any better than quadrant analysis). Which missing functionality are you referring to?

Just installed the latest version...

It's the PM (Performance Manager) that appears to be missing.... although I have struggled to understand this chart compared to Training Peaks (which I have now figured out)

GiantMike

The PM is in a different tab but it's still there. I can't remember where and I'm away from my GC computer.

amaferanga

springtide9 wrote:

dawebbo wrote:

v3 has NP and TSS, which is why use it.

Didn't notice losing any useful features from v2 when I changed over (didn't find that 3d histogram any better than quadrant analysis). Which missing functionality are you referring to?

Just installed the latest version...

It's the PM (Performance Manager) that appears to be missing.... although I have struggled to understand this chart compared to Training Peaks (which I have now figured out)

V3 is a development build. I wouldn't think of it as a beta as such. It's just how Golden Cheetah works in that it's constantly being tinkered with and new builds are released. My experience with it over the last couple of years is that every build has more or less worked. Only the official releases are 'guaranteed' to be bug free though.

The PM chart is definitely there, but you can only add it as a chart in the Home tab and not the Analysis tab. Not sure why you'd struggle with it though if you understand the TP one. LTS=CTL but using Bikescore instead of TSS. V3 has NP and TSS as well as the Skiba metrics.

barry_kellett99

So Golden Cheetah tells me:

Metrics*
xPower (watts): 309
Relative Intensity: 1.235
BikeScore™: 130
Daniels Points: 199
Daniels EqP (watts): 309
TRIMP Points: 125
Aerobic Decoupling (%): 3.55

Avg Power (watts): 286

Critical Power (watts): 250


I think I read that xPower is the same idea as Normalized power in training peaks?
How does the critical power value relate to the rest of it?

amaferanga

barry_kellett99 wrote:

So Golden Cheetah tells me:

Metrics*
xPower (watts): 309
Relative Intensity: 1.235
BikeScore™: 130
Daniels Points: 199
Daniels EqP (watts): 309
TRIMP Points: 125
Aerobic Decoupling (%): 3.55

Avg Power (watts): 286

Critical Power (watts): 250


I think I read that xPower is the same idea as Normalized power in training peaks?
How does the critical power value relate to the rest of it?

Critical power is similar to FTP so you need to set that for your numbers to make sense. xPower is similar to NP, but is usually lower by a few Watts particularly for highly variable efforts.

barry_kellett99

amaferanga wrote:

Critical power is similar to FTP so you need to set that for your numbers to make sense. xPower is similar to NP, but is usually lower by a few Watts particularly for highly variable efforts.

I thought after looking at it for a while last night after posting this that the Critical power was coming maybe from all the rides and subsequent data that I have uploaded. But you are saying that its a set number in the Athlete settings? I can't remember plugging that in but it was some time ago.
Will check it tonight.

Cheers again

amaferanga

Golden Cheetah will calculate a CP value, but whether it's right or not depends on if you've done truly maximal efforts of suitable durations or not. It's best not to rely on it, but to continue testing your FTP as you would do normally and set your CP manually.