I was fortunate enough to return to racing this past weekend at a local 70.3, about 4-500 participants. Non competitive transitions but a real race under any other point of view. I like to track my progress over time, particularly important post lockdown I find. For the bike, I like to track (beside the usual IF, VI, NP etc) average power/HR to track fitness across races(the higher the better), avg Watts/realize CDA to track my position etc. My big question is whether I should be using Normalized Power/HR or just average power/HR. In theory NP should a better measure of metabilic costs, however if I use it I get regularly much higher numbers for older hilly courses, even though I think my fitness should have improved. For the run Stryd only gives you average power so not so hard there - I track power/HR for fitness and pace/power for efficiency/form (along with leg spring stiffness etc).

Any views out there on my question as well as other interesting metrics I should be tracking? I don't use WKO5 etc so may be missing stuff. Much appreciated thanks!