FAA Part 25 aircraft certification refers to performance standards for airliners and business jets. Every time you or a loved one purchases a ticket with either an airline or a business jet charter company, the management team, pilots, and aircraft manufacturers are guaranteeing that if an engine quits while on takeoff roll, the aircraft can stop safely on the remaining runway. If the engine quits shortly after takeoff, they guarantee the paying public that the aircraft can climb to a safe altitude.
That's kind of a nice feature to have in my opinion...clearing terrain is always a good thing!
There have been many airlines and charter companies that have been forced to cease operations because they didn't meet these performance standards, so they do their best to review performance data to ensure your safety. Money is made and lost with performance data in aviation, and lives have literally been lost because it was disregarded.
Perhaps it's my background in aviation, the fact that I love to chart an athlete's progress, or maybe it's my propensity to give into the dark side of obsessive/compulsive disorder and try to chart, analyze and forecast everything to the "nth" degree. However, I think it's far more captivating to chase a number on a powermeter during a four hour trainer ride than just to pedal into oblivion not knowing whether I'm making progress. I also think it's more encouraging to see that Athlete "A" has improved their threshold pace from a 8:10 mile to a 7:15 instead of waiting for that "one big race" to see if they've improved. Besides, the finishing position is always dependent on who shows up for the race, but the measurement of lactate, heart rate, and wattage are not subjective. They're black and white.
Recently, Bill Robertson completed an eleven month training cycle that culminated in a 9:36 finish time in his first Ironman event. Bill trained with a power meter, GPS pace watch and heart rate monitor all year, and had tons of data from all of the files that he has collected and uploaded during the course of those eleven months.
One of the neat things about all that data is our ability to forecast a finish time for a race. Since Bill had completed 99.9% of his intended training, we knew that he could swim "X" pace, ride at "Y" watts, and run at "Z" pace as long as he executed his nutrition plan according to schedule (which he did).
We predicted that Bill would swim under one hour, and were hoping for a 58 minute swim. He actually swam 59:50 due to some congestion.
Deviation: 00:01:50
We predicted that Bill would come in under five hours for the bike, and were hoping for a 4:58:00. Bill actually rode a 4:57:59.
Deviation: 00:00:01.
We were shooting for a run time under 3:30:00. Bill's running has come a long way, and he was able to hang tough and finish in 3:33:32.
Deviation: 00:03:32
After over nine hours of racing, Bill finished within 5 minutes of what we had predicted. Bill's ability to stay on his nutrition and pacing plan allowed us to forecast this so precisely, but we would never have been able to be so accurate if he hadn't used a power meter and GPS watch during his build.
While data does help make your training more precise and effective, it doesn't mean you always have to hit a certain goal wattage or nail a certain pace. We certainly need to listen to our bodies when it comes to rest and recovery, and on those days it's sometimes a good idea to just use the device to collect the data but not let it direct our effort. In other words, sometimes we need to chill out!
However, there are other days when (in the words of Jens Voigt) we need to tell our legs to "shut up" and stay on pace and wattage. This is something that comes with practice!
In summary, the next time you're hesitating uploading your files for later review, remember that it really does help your coach to determine your progress, write an effective plan, and forecast a race performance if they have the data to analyze. Although we're not trying to clear obstacles at the end of the runway, we can certainly use technology to our advantage during our training sessions.
