Sometimes if I’m supposed to be at, say, 236w for an interval, and I start out too hot and notice my lap normalized power is up around like 270. What I’ve been doing is backing off until it comes down to 236. Also doing the same if I notice I’m under my goal NP. I’ll ride harder to bring the lap NP back up. Is that what other people are doing?
I switched from average lap power to lap normalized power on my power meter. Good idea? Also I notice NP doesn’t reset to zero sometimes on new laps and is slower to respond than lap average power. Anyone else notice this? I have a Wahoo ELEMNT bolt. Thanks!
For intervals you should be using lap average or looking at average actual power, especially with any interval under 60 minutes. Try riding steadier during your intervals and control the place. Shift gears, look at the route you are riding and pick one that allows for this. Make sure the variable index (vi) is as close to 1.0 as possible.
Some riders will put there power to show as a rolling 3 second average to help them out as it will bounce around a bit. Also don’t forget even if the target is 235 watts, most zones are pretty wide range, ie Vo2 max Zone 5 intervals can range from 105 - 130% of your FTP. So during intervals you want to stay as much in this range as possible.
If on group rides and you are doing freestyle sweet spot you can look at norm power for the duration of the ride to give you an idea of how hard the ride is.