Maybe I am just looking at this wrong but when I add up the times in each power zone in the summary after a Zwift ride they always adds up to far more than the total length of the ride ??? thanks
What tool are you looking at? Eg trainingpeaks, intervals.icu?
On Zwift, when you finish a ride you get the opportunity to look at your stats and on here later if you want The at Home Cycling & Running Virtual Training App. If you add up all the time spent in the various power columns the total time adds up to a lot more than the total ride time??
Tedious, but I just spot checked Power in Zones on two recent Zwift activities and also HR Zones in one and they added up just fine.
Thanks for taking the time to check yours. I will add up this one a get back wit the results… cheers
Hi, can’t get my head around this, obviously on second look the time at a certain power overlaps with the previous one so on the above example 250-275 was 18 mins and 12 secs. The previous “power zone” 225-250 was 29:28 and the one before that, 200-225 was 44:38. Clearly adding those up is not the correct way to get the proper power in a certain zone as a total. How do you from this chart work this out so the power in zones amounts add up to the ride total… thanks again
Ah, I thought you meant adding all the times for each bar was more than the total time ridden.
Yeah, it kind gives you garbage since it breaks up the bars cleanly at 25 watt intervals which won’t align with your zones… you can’t get the data there precisely. I can see the time in Zones in Strava, but I think that is a paid subscriber-only feature.
In Zwift, they provide a " 25W Power Distribution" plot, with the optional “show Power Zones” overlay.
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apologies in advance because (a) i know this isn’t what you’re looking for and (b) i’m gonna be a wet blanket, but the good/bad news is that outside the context of a structured workout, the detailed time-in-zone data is mostly not that meaningful, and to the extent it is, you can get what you need by eyeballing what you see here or from free tools like intervals.icu.
Why do i say this? Because the zones are mostly meaningful in context. One function is to describe proper pacing so that you can execute workouts correctly, but those workouts also have duration, rest and maybe even other parameters that need to be aligned in order to get the benefits. Like for example Vo2max. You could be in the zone 5 but if you’re only there for 30 seconds to a minute at a time, with multi-minute of easier pedaling between, even if the TIZ shows (let’s say for example) 25 minutes in z5, how much vo2max work should you be credited with? Unfortunately probably 0, because you didn’t execute it in a way that would properly elicit the central adaptations that are unique to vo2max work.
some things i think ARE useful:
i. time above FTP, not from training perspective as noted but from fatigue perspective, because efforts above FTP are non-linearly more taxing (that’s what FTP is) and also testing fatigue resistance (e.g if you did a long ride with >>hour above FTP, you know your fatigue resistance is good and fueling is dialed). You can probably see this from eyeballing the zwift distro or probably from free tools like intervals.icu
ii. time in z1/2 on an endurance ride, it’s an indicator how well you paced. Again you can probably get what you need from eyeballing the zwift distro or the free tools
Obv you already mostly know TIZ during a structured workout because you know the intervals and know whether you hit them. Where it breaks down a bit is semi-structured, like when you go out for a ride and do intervals but of varying durations because you don’t know how long the hills will last or what the terrain will be like. For this i haven’t come up with any real good solution other than using the lap button on my garmin to demarcate the work intervals and trying my best to remember how much i’ve done.
edited for clarity and my bad typos
Thanks, I have intervals.icu and have found where I can view all the times/power etc in zones now. cheers
Yes, that is what I was getting at and even forgetting the zone aspect the times do add up to far more than the total ride time. Anyway, had a look at intervals.icu, which I already use and have now found how to check my time/power etc in the various zones… many thanks
If I understand your question, you want to calculate the total average power based on the time in zones. To do that, multiply the time in a zone by the middle of the zone range. Add those together, then divide by the total of the time for all zones.
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