Hi Chuck: 

Thanks so much for your time on the phone.  And of course many thanks for your CompuTrainer.....it is the single biggest reason why my cycling has gone from my relative weakness to my relative strength in the past 12 years.

Simply put, I am a happy 'slave' to that wattage display.  Every single bike workout I do is built around target wattages.  And every year, I work extremely hard to nudge those wattage numbers upward.  When John Howard introduced me to a Computrainer in April of 1996, I could only do long rides at a wattage of 200, tempo rides at a wattage of 280, and a set of 3 minute long intervals at a wattage of 330.  But I was (and am) so motivated to 'grow' those numbers, that I trained more and more intensely as the months and years went by.  And I think as my body adapted to the increased intensity, that this then allowed me to be able to train a little bit harder and more intensely still in the years that would follow. 

I looked in my 1999 log book, and the numbers had grown by then from 200 to 230, from 280 to 310, and from 330 to 370.  By 2002, I was now racing as a pro, and the wattage display read 240, 320 and 400 respectively.  In the last 5 years, improvement has come more slowly and with huge effort and application, but I'm at my very best on the bike as we speak. 

Still posting wattages of 240 on the long rides, but I can tempo 330 for 45 minutes in training and start a set of 3 minute intervals at 400 watts and 'descend' them to 430 watts.  Admittedly I am blatantly anaerobic on these short intervals by the end of them, huffing and puffing like a locomotive, and seeing my max HR on the monitor (which happens to be 185). I know of no harder workout than that one, although my run intervals and my sets of 400's in the pool come pretty close.

It's hard work, but it's fun, and part of what makes these types of hard work workouts fun is that they are "measurable", and it is fun to challenge the clock, and challenge the numbers, and in essence challenge yourself.  The greatest thing about your Computrainer is the indexed and accurate wattage resistance that it offers the rider and displays.  I believe the Computrainer is the biggest reason why my cycling has improved over time and indirectly why my swim and run have improved also (though sadly not quite as much)!  The Computrainer has taught me to train at greater and greater intensities across the board.
 
The results speak for themselves.....a 10 win/8 course record triathlon season in 2006, 3 course records and all-time PB's already in 2007.  I swam 17:31 and 23:24 for my swims on the past two weekends (for 1500 metres and for 2k).  All my bike splits this year have ranged between 39.5 and 44kph (24.8mph and 27.5mph), for race rides that have been anywhere between 34 and 90 kilometers in length.  I have come off the bike first in every single triathlon I have raced in since the end of the 2002 triathlon year, including two triathlon races against world champ Craig Alexander and his fast Australian colleagues here in 2007.  That's a total of over 30 triathlons in the past 4 1/2 years, and I largely owe it to Computrainer that I got to do a little "Neil Armstrong" to all 30+ of these run courses.  :)

Thanks Computrainer!

Sincerely,
Len