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Race The Training Thread

So time attack is "just" trying to set a PB on that particular climb? Sounds like a fun way to train, and should teach a lot, e. g. when to add power to keep momentum and when to use a feature to rest a little.

Judging from the picture in the Strava activity you posted here, his W/kg must be through the roof … 🤯

Yes, just learning how to climb quickly. How deep you can go, if and where you can recover.

I want him to understand his heart rate more as this is the best way, assuming your fresh, to pace a technical climb like this.

But today was just about following the wheel, the lines etc.

I've been telling him to sit on mine and Yamada's wheel on climbs and just look at the cassette.
Mimic every shift. That's a really good way to learn how to climb efficiently and effectively.

And of course, there is the big motivator of beating your own time. And then understanding how you did it. It's too early for recent training to take effect. Today it was due to proper rest and good pacing.

The fact that he is motivating me to train hard is just a bonus!

Andy
 
Yes, just learning how to climb quickly. How deep you can go, if and where you can recover.
Indeed, that takes quite a bit of practice. I reckon it is quite hard to pace for him, you probably want him to go slightly beyond what he thinks he is capable of without really going beyond what he is capable of.

I noticed that during the race is cadence was quite low. Do you also do some cadence drills with him to expand his cadence range? Or does he just naturally gravitate towards lower cadences?
 
Indeed, that takes quite a bit of practice. I reckon it is quite hard to pace for him, you probably want him to go slightly beyond what he thinks he is capable of without really going beyond what he is capable of.

I noticed that during the race is cadence was quite low. Do you also do some cadence drills with him to expand his cadence range? Or does he just naturally gravitate towards lower cadences?

Yes it's the old truth that the best training partner is someone slightly stronger than yourself. I paced him well today but it will difficult if he continues on this trajectory.

His cadence today was 85rpm. Which is good.

Mine was 78rpm which is a little low and probably due to overgearing. Need to get a long gauge derailleur and a bigger cassette! Although I seem to be running out of gears less recently as I am practicing on road climbing more these days.

Andy
 
His cadence today was 85rpm. Which is good.
For a climb that's good. Probably close to my self-selected cadence on road climbs if gears permit.
Mine was 78rpm which is a little low and probably due to overgearing. Need to get a long gauge derailleur and a bigger cassette! Although I seem to be running out of gears less recently as I am practicing on road climbing more these days.
Yeah, no reason to torture yourself.
Although I reckon if you want to go all out for one climb, you could shift the burden to your muscles. (That's what I do to finish VO2max workouts that push me to my limit.)
 
Last week's training started great, but once more I struggled with the over-unders. It seems I am simply running out of energy, and I am not sure what to do. Next week, I'll front-load my over-unders and see whether that will change anything. I feel like I am running into a brick wall repeatedly, hoping for a different result.
  • Currently, I train about 8–11 hours per week. The exact number depends on the length of my weekend outdoor ride. If I don't do an outdoor ride (e. g. because of the weather), it could be 7:30 hours, two weeks ago, I did over 14 hours. Typically, I have 4 90-minute training sessions per week and either 1 outdoor ride or another 2-hour indoor session. 3 days are hard (2 x 60 minutes + 90 minutes), and I pad the two hard 60-minute workouts with 30-minute endurance work.
  • I am not convinced I am doing too much: at the beginning of every week, I feel refreshed and the first two hard workouts are always in the productive region, i. e. they feel easy or moderately hard. Even when they feel harder, it is usually on the mental side of things like "Oh, another 12 minutes of this?!?" And then I do it. I even challenge myself to finish mentally hard, long intervals without breaking up the monotony by e. g. varying the cadence.
  • I think my FTP reflects my lactate threshold quite well. The constant threshold intervals feel challenging, but my legs never load up with lactate (at least they don't feel like that). If anything, I feel as if my lactate threshold is higher than the current FTP I base my training on (not surprising, since I am getting towards the end of a cycle).
  • I also did a "mini training camp" (really two hard rides on consecutive days) a while ago and while that felt fatiguing, after I recovered, I felt like I benefitted from it.
  • Sleep is also quite good, I usually go to bed between 9 and 9:30. Sleep quality currently depends on the weather, if it is hot and muggy, sleep quality suffers.
One hypothesis that could make some sense is that my power tower has gotten taller, but its base hasn't broadened accordingly. My body has a certain amount of energy to give during those hard efforts, and at a lower FTP you can spend more time to divvy out this energy, but at a higher FTP that just means I have less matches.

Do you guys have any input for me as to what I can do? Ideally, I know I could add more endurance rides, but I don't know that I have much more time I can allot to training. I am quite happy with my power, but I'd like to have a bit more oomph and resilience.
 
Last week's training started great, but once more I struggled with the over-unders. It seems I am simply running out of energy, and I am not sure what to do. Next week, I'll front-load my over-unders and see whether that will change anything. I feel like I am running into a brick wall repeatedly, hoping for a different result.
  • Currently, I train about 8–11 hours per week. The exact number depends on the length of my weekend outdoor ride. If I don't do an outdoor ride (e. g. because of the weather), it could be 7:30 hours, two weeks ago, I did over 14 hours. Typically, I have 4 90-minute training sessions per week and either 1 outdoor ride or another 2-hour indoor session. 3 days are hard (2 x 60 minutes + 90 minutes), and I pad the two hard 60-minute workouts with 30-minute endurance work.
  • I am not convinced I am doing too much: at the beginning of every week, I feel refreshed and the first two hard workouts are always in the productive region, i. e. they feel easy or moderately hard. Even when they feel harder, it is usually on the mental side of things like "Oh, another 12 minutes of this?!?" And then I do it. I even challenge myself to finish mentally hard, long intervals without breaking up the monotony by e. g. varying the cadence.
  • I think my FTP reflects my lactate threshold quite well. The constant threshold intervals feel challenging, but my legs never load up with lactate (at least they don't feel like that). If anything, I feel as if my lactate threshold is higher than the current FTP I base my training on (not surprising, since I am getting towards the end of a cycle).
  • I also did a "mini training camp" (really two hard rides on consecutive days) a while ago and while that felt fatiguing, after I recovered, I felt like I benefitted from it.
  • Sleep is also quite good, I usually go to bed between 9 and 9:30. Sleep quality currently depends on the weather, if it is hot and muggy, sleep quality suffers.
One hypothesis that could make some sense is that my power tower has gotten taller, but its base hasn't broadened accordingly. My body has a certain amount of energy to give during those hard efforts, and at a lower FTP you can spend more time to divvy out this energy, but at a higher FTP that just means I have less matches.

Do you guys have any input for me as to what I can do? Ideally, I know I could add more endurance rides, but I don't know that I have much more time I can allot to training. I am quite happy with my power, but I'd like to have a bit more oomph and resilience.
Do more under-overs! lol
 
Last week's training started great, but once more I struggled with the over-unders. It seems I am simply running out of energy, and I am not sure what to do. Next week, I'll front-load my over-unders and see whether that will change anything. I feel like I am running into a brick wall repeatedly, hoping for a different result.
  • Currently, I train about 8–11 hours per week. The exact number depends on the length of my weekend outdoor ride. If I don't do an outdoor ride (e. g. because of the weather), it could be 7:30 hours, two weeks ago, I did over 14 hours. Typically, I have 4 90-minute training sessions per week and either 1 outdoor ride or another 2-hour indoor session. 3 days are hard (2 x 60 minutes + 90 minutes), and I pad the two hard 60-minute workouts with 30-minute endurance work.
  • I am not convinced I am doing too much: at the beginning of every week, I feel refreshed and the first two hard workouts are always in the productive region, i. e. they feel easy or moderately hard. Even when they feel harder, it is usually on the mental side of things like "Oh, another 12 minutes of this?!?" And then I do it. I even challenge myself to finish mentally hard, long intervals without breaking up the monotony by e. g. varying the cadence.
  • I think my FTP reflects my lactate threshold quite well. The constant threshold intervals feel challenging, but my legs never load up with lactate (at least they don't feel like that). If anything, I feel as if my lactate threshold is higher than the current FTP I base my training on (not surprising, since I am getting towards the end of a cycle).
  • I also did a "mini training camp" (really two hard rides on consecutive days) a while ago and while that felt fatiguing, after I recovered, I felt like I benefitted from it.
  • Sleep is also quite good, I usually go to bed between 9 and 9:30. Sleep quality currently depends on the weather, if it is hot and muggy, sleep quality suffers.
One hypothesis that could make some sense is that my power tower has gotten taller, but its base hasn't broadened accordingly. My body has a certain amount of energy to give during those hard efforts, and at a lower FTP you can spend more time to divvy out this energy, but at a higher FTP that just means I have less matches.

Do you guys have any input for me as to what I can do? Ideally, I know I could add more endurance rides, but I don't know that I have much more time I can allot to training. I am quite happy with my power, but I'd like to have a bit more oomph and resilience.

I think, basically speaking, you need to do hard days, followed by easy days.

If you have 7 days a week, that means 3 hard days, 2 easy days, and a rest day. Most people can put time in on weekends, so Monday is often a good choice for a rest day.

For example:

Monday rest
Tuesday hard 1
Wednesday easy
Thursday hard 2
Friday easy
Saturday hard 3
Sunday volume

I think if your performance drops off in terms of power on hard days 1 to 3 but your heart rate is responsive for the 3 sessions, then you have the right training mix.

Long term, you aim for marginal increases in power over a 3 week cycle, before resting for a week, and starting again.

Andy
 
Thanks for the posts, @andywood and @baribari.

Right now I train 5 times per day:

Monday: Hard: 60 minutes VO2max + 30 minutes endurance
Tuesday: Easy: 90 minutes endurance
Wednesday: Hard: 60 minutes hard (steady threshold) + 30 minutes endurance
Thursday: rest
Friday: Hard: 90 minutes over-unders
Saturday: Easy: 3:30ish hours of endurance; lately I modified that and added one sweet spot effort per hour

So it is 4x90 minutes + one long ride (I could ride for longer, but with family commitments that's the best I can do). I shifted my schedule by one day so that Sunday is a family day — perhaps worse for training, but better for life quality overall.

During rest intervals my heart rate relaxes back to below 130 bpm within 80–90 seconds — until I blow up ;-)
Also my heart rate during threshold work and VO2max work is good. Yesterday, I wanted to improve a PB on a short climb and did (7:38 —> 7:05, 117 % FTP with an average heart rate of 158 bpm) and without feeling tired afterwards.

Today, our team did a race simulation for a junior who will compete in a big race next week. Since I was the fastest of the people who came, I tried pacing him, playing a bit of cat and mouse. Also that worked well (until he blew up). Man, juniors can put out crazy power numbers, but he still has to learn how to pace himself properly. It seems for him pacing means go as hard as he can :flip:😅
 
Thanks for the posts, @andywood and @baribari.

Right now I train 5 times per day:

Monday: Hard: 60 minutes VO2max + 30 minutes endurance
Tuesday: Easy: 90 minutes endurance
Wednesday: Hard: 60 minutes hard (steady threshold) + 30 minutes endurance
Thursday: rest
Friday: Hard: 90 minutes over-unders
Saturday: Easy: 3:30ish hours of endurance; lately I modified that and added one sweet spot effort per hour

So it is 4x90 minutes + one long ride (I could ride for longer, but with family commitments that's the best I can do). I shifted my schedule by one day so that Sunday is a family day — perhaps worse for training, but better for life quality overall.

During rest intervals my heart rate relaxes back to below 130 bpm within 80–90 seconds — until I blow up ;-)
Also my heart rate during threshold work and VO2max work is good. Yesterday, I wanted to improve a PB on a short climb and did (7:38 —> 7:05, 117 % FTP with an average heart rate of 158 bpm) and without feeling tired afterwards.

Today, our team did a race simulation for a junior who will compete in a big race next week. Since I was the fastest of the people who came, I tried pacing him, playing a bit of cat and mouse. Also that worked well (until he blew up). Man, juniors can put out crazy power numbers, but he still has to learn how to pace himself properly. It seems for him pacing means go as hard as he can :flip:😅

Sounds like a lot packed in there. But if you are alternating between hard and easy days, I think that is the main thing.

Andy
 
A good week of training and coaching. Here is a post about getting smooth power for hillclimbing or timetrials. It doesn't maybe read well without pictures, but I'll paste the text below anyway.

Cheers, Andy


「FLATTENING THE CURVE / SMOOTH POWER」

ANDY COACHING!

今週は木曜と土曜にイソノベでSSTインターバルを行いました。
☆85~95%FTP×20分×2
This week we did SST intervals on Isonobe on Thursday and Saturday.
☆85~95% FTP x 20 mins x 2

木曜日、Gen は目標の 230W を達成できませんでした。
火曜日のタイムアタックの後、まだ疲れています。
しかし、彼のパワーカーブが滑らかでないことにも気付きました。
On Thursday, Gen couldn't hit his 230W target.
Still tired after Tuesday's time attack.
But also we noticed his power curve wasn't smooth.

写真をクリックすると詳細が表示されます
Click on the photos for more text

ゲンの木曜日の1st TRY
230Wを目標にしています
リザルトは190 W
Gen's first try on Thursday.
He is targeting 230W.
Below target 190 W.

Gen の 2nd TRYで、190W をターゲットにしました
パワーは大きく変動します
On Gen's second try he targeted 190W.
The power for each try fluctuates a lot.

僕の1stTRYです
95% FTP
滑らかなパワー
This is my first attempt on Tuesday. 95% FTP. Smooth power.

タイムトライアルやヒルクライムでは、スムーズなパワーが重要です
For time trials and hillclimbs, smooth power is important.

2週間前、森本さんはゲンと同じくらいのパワーを目指していました
登るのは4回目!
しかし、パワーはまだスムーズですね
2 weeks ago, Morimoto san was aiming for a similar power to Gen.
This is his 4th climb!
But the power is still smooth.

どうすればスムーズなパワーを出すか?
まずはサイコンのディスプレイ
相談したら
ゲンは3sパワーを見すぎかな?
How do we get smooth power?
This is the original screen.
I think Gen is looking at 3s power too much.

3秒/10秒/ラップパワーを
10秒/30秒/ラップパワーにチェンジしました
We change 3s / 10s / lap power for 10s / 30s / lap power.

次に、自転車に 2 台のコンピューターをセットアップしました
僕のデータの1つ
ゲンのデータの1つ
Next I set up 2 computers on the bike. One with my data. One with Gen's data.

イソノベのサイド·バイ·サイド
Isonobe side by side

多くの人がイソノベを怖がっている
テクニカルクライミングですから
しかし、それがとても良いトレーニングになることです
Many people are scared of Isonobe. It's a technical climb. But that's why it's so good training.

初登りにアドバイスをする
ここでがんばる
ここでがまん
シフトアップ
シフトダウン
などまど
First climb. I advise Gen. Push here. Hold back here. Gear up. Gear down. etcetc

滑らかなパワー
そして、230W目標を20W以上アップ
Smooth power. And more than 20W above target.

二度目の登り
ゲンはこれを自分でペースします
Gen の特別な点は、彼が耳を傾け、学び、それを実践していることです
最後にラストスパートもあり!
Second climb. Gen paces this by himself.
What's special about Gen is he listens, learns, and puts it into practice.
He even had a little kick at the end!

2 週間の充実したトレーニング。 素晴らしい!
2 weeks of great training.
 
Last edited:
By the way, the practice race was nice. The course was a former national junior road event course nearby, and I have to say, I really like what they did. Each lap was 7 km long, and had a longer, steadier climb as well as a shorter, punchy climb. The downhill was non-technical and very safe, and most of the corners straightforward 90-degree corners with essentially infinite visibility. There were a few corners we had to slow down for — these are public roads with very little, but some traffic. But apart from that, it was great and safe. The tarmac wasn't perfect, so with a huge peloton, this might become an issue. Still, whoever designed this course did a bang-up job. (That wasn't the case in some of the other official races I did where one critical corner had a metal grate across the road or rubber "speed bumps" in other places.)

I could practice cornering, putting the advice I have received on this forum into practice, while helping out a team mate succeed. Win-win.

@andywood
How much emphasis do you put on feel and how much emphasis do you put on numbers when you teach Gen?
 
By the way, the practice race was nice. The course was a former national junior road event course nearby, and I have to say, I really like what they did. Each lap was 7 km long, and had a longer, steadier climb as well as a shorter, punchy climb. The downhill was non-technical and very safe, and most of the corners straightforward 90-degree corners with essentially infinite visibility. There were a few corners we had to slow down for — these are public roads with very little, but some traffic. But apart from that, it was great and safe. The tarmac wasn't perfect, so with a huge peloton, this might become an issue. Still, whoever designed this course did a bang-up job. (That wasn't the case in some of the other official races I did where one critical corner had a metal grate across the road or rubber "speed bumps" in other places.)

I could practice cornering, putting the advice I have received on this forum into practice, while helping out a team mate succeed. Win-win.

@andywood
How much emphasis do you put on feel and how much emphasis do you put on numbers when you teach Gen?
The only time I asked him to look at power numbers last week was for SST intervals on Thursday and Saturday.

I think, maybe it's just me, but you only need to look at power for intervals (or if you wanted to pace a TT or HC with power). So I like to keep that as a separate screen (10s, 30s, lap power + cadence, HR and lap time). Only use that screen for intervals.

For general riding: speed, HR, cadence, distance, time of day (!)

I really want him to understand his HR. Today and yesterday I'm riding while looking at his data, so I can start to understand the HR effort he needs to sit on the front, 2nd man, 3rd man, close a gap etc.

Other numbers I want him to look at are cadence, particularly for climbing.

I'm also teaching him, more trying to get him to work out for himself, amongst other things:

☆how to use his hands on the bars in different situations, particularly for straight even grade climbs

☆how to move his position on the saddle for different types of riding, particularly moving forward for big gear climbing or attacking off the front

☆how to shift effectively and efficiently,
leading into a climb and the opposite as the gradient eases
this is a biggy

The other number I want him to pay close attention to is training hours.

We will do half the hours next week, two SST sessions and then just rest or recovery as he has a B race on Sunday.

In terms of feel,
I think this is really important.
The first thing I ask him every morning we meet is how much did you sleep? do you have appetite?

In the ride we'll do a few leg drills, how do your legs feel?

This is something that takes time.
I think I know how my legs are before I get out of bed, but he may think his legs are good, when really they aren't.

Today's plan was to check out the Niigata hillclimb course but his legs weren't ready.
Similarly we are planning SST on Tuesday.
But if his legs aren't ready we'll just go for a spin.

I think adaptability is important in a training plan.
And of course fun.
Tomorrow we're going to the beach for a swim...

Andy
 
I think, maybe it's just me, but you only need to look at power for intervals (or if you wanted to pace a TT or HC with power). So I like to keep that as a separate screen (10s, 30s, lap power + cadence, HR and lap time). Only use that screen for intervals.

For general riding: speed, HR, cadence, distance, time of day (!)

I really want him to understand his HR. Today and yesterday I'm riding while looking at his data, so I can start to understand the HR effort he needs to sit on the front, 2nd man, 3rd man, close a gap etc.

Other numbers I want him to look at are cadence, particularly for climbing.
Old school! :)
For me heart rate is definitely more of a secondary metric, one that adds context to power numbers. The exception are outdoor endurance rides, although part of the reason is that my mountain bike does not have a power meter (I bought one, but it was broken and I returned it).

Here are the use cases and screen configs on my Wahoo. Note that the Wahoo has a big data field on top and then pairs further down.

When on my indoor trainer

- Main field: 20-second average of power
- Gear number & 3-second average power
- Cadence & heart rate
- Time & left/right balance
- However, I'd mainly use TrainerRoad's power field (2-second average) on my iPad. My 20-second power is mainly to make sure I hit my numbers.

I mostly use the 20-second average to pace longer intervals since the numbers stabilize only after 20–30 seconds. It makes it easier to hit my power targets +/- 1 W for everything including longer VO2max stuff. But once I go beyond 130 % FTP and the durations are shorter, it is a little bit harder since my trainer's flywheel takes time to speed up, and I try to avoid large power spikes.

Outdoors (road bike, regular rides)

- Main display: 3-second average power
- Speed & distance
- Heart rate & cadence
- Meters climbed & elevation
- Clock & total ride time

The skills I have honed indoors transfer quite well, provided there is no strong wind and steady terrain. On undulating terrain or when I have strong, gusty wind, it can be a bit of a fool's errand to try and hit power numbers. I try to go by feel here as best as I can. Moreover, when I try to ride outdoors, my goals are often more to train to preserve momentum and have gentle power delivery rather than hit specific power targets.

Outdoors (road bike, endurance rides)

- Main display: heart rate
- Speed & distance
- Cadence & 3-second average power
- Heart rate zone distribution & clock
- Power zone distribution & total ride time

The purpose of having 3-second power is to avoid large spikes and stick roughly to target. I tried longer power averages, but that messed me up. I seem to have gotten used to seeing 3-second power. For pacing I mainly use heart rate, although I cross-reference the numbers to see how heart rate and power relate on that particular day. (On very hot and very humid days like today, my heart rate tends to be higher.)


Training with power as my primary metric has really helped me get a much better feel for my pacing. I have a much better idea what a certain wattage feels like at what point in a ride or workout in various stages of exhaustion. To me 3-second power is quite helpful when you smoothly want to open or close the throttle. Or to know when I am overdoing it. E. g. on Sunday, during the hard, short 1:30ish climb, I wanted to stay below 500 W to save my legs and make sure I could do it again and again. In a real race, I would have given myself more leeway, because not letting the elastic rip is more important. Although here you just need to experiment and see what works for you (or Gen-san).

Heart rate gives me good information how fit I am and how much fuel I have left in the tank. I will occasionally also look at my left/right balance, usually when I am very tired, it gets out of whack at lower power.
 
Old school! :)
For me heart rate is definitely more of a secondary metric, one that adds context to power numbers. The exception are outdoor endurance rides, although part of the reason is that my mountain bike does not have a power meter (I bought one, but it was broken and I returned it).

Here are the use cases and screen configs on my Wahoo. Note that the Wahoo has a big data field on top and then pairs further down.

When on my indoor trainer

- Main field: 20-second average of power
- Gear number & 3-second average power
- Cadence & heart rate
- Time & left/right balance
- However, I'd mainly use TrainerRoad's power field (2-second average) on my iPad. My 20-second power is mainly to make sure I hit my numbers.

I mostly use the 20-second average to pace longer intervals since the numbers stabilize only after 20–30 seconds. It makes it easier to hit my power targets +/- 1 W for everything including longer VO2max stuff. But once I go beyond 130 % FTP and the durations are shorter, it is a little bit harder since my trainer's flywheel takes time to speed up, and I try to avoid large power spikes.

Outdoors (road bike, regular rides)

- Main display: 3-second average power
- Speed & distance
- Heart rate & cadence
- Meters climbed & elevation
- Clock & total ride time

The skills I have honed indoors transfer quite well, provided there is no strong wind and steady terrain. On undulating terrain or when I have strong, gusty wind, it can be a bit of a fool's errand to try and hit power numbers. I try to go by feel here as best as I can. Moreover, when I try to ride outdoors, my goals are often more to train to preserve momentum and have gentle power delivery rather than hit specific power targets.

Outdoors (road bike, endurance rides)

- Main display: heart rate
- Speed & distance
- Cadence & 3-second average power
- Heart rate zone distribution & clock
- Power zone distribution & total ride time

The purpose of having 3-second power is to avoid large spikes and stick roughly to target. I tried longer power averages, but that messed me up. I seem to have gotten used to seeing 3-second power. For pacing I mainly use heart rate, although I cross-reference the numbers to see how heart rate and power relate on that particular day. (On very hot and very humid days like today, my heart rate tends to be higher.)


Training with power as my primary metric has really helped me get a much better feel for my pacing. I have a much better idea what a certain wattage feels like at what point in a ride or workout in various stages of exhaustion. To me 3-second power is quite helpful when you smoothly want to open or close the throttle. Or to know when I am overdoing it. E. g. on Sunday, during the hard, short 1:30ish climb, I wanted to stay below 500 W to save my legs and make sure I could do it again and again. In a real race, I would have given myself more leeway, because not letting the elastic rip is more important. Although here you just need to experiment and see what works for you (or Gen-san).

Heart rate gives me good information how fit I am and how much fuel I have left in the tank. I will occasionally also look at my left/right balance, usually when I am very tired, it gets out of whack at lower power.

One man's old school is another man's simple plan!

I encourage Gen to only look at his power for the specific intervals. Between interval days he is just doing z1 and 2 which we talked about here.

2 great performances this week. He bumped his FTP by roughly 20W today (I like to have nice round numbers to aim at).

Blog report and link below.

Cheers, Andy

ANDY COACHING!
RAISING THE FTP!

For hillclimbing or time trials one of the basic training targets is to raise the FTP

☆The higher the power you can hold, the faster you will go
☆FTP training also teaches you how to pace your physical effort
☆FTP also trains your aerobic engine how to maintain this effort.

On July 26th Gen did 20 mins at 268W
☆FTP=268 X 95% = 255W FTP

Today Gen did 20 mins at 288W
☆FTP=288 X 95% = 275W FTP

Even though today's plan was SST 240 W x 20 mins x 2!

A fast start

By the bridge, 2 minutes in, you know how your legs are
this is base level
the W will increase from here as the road gets steeper
Gen is on 270W

"Hold this pace Gen"

Yamada notes how good our pacing is
But this is Gen's pacing
He learns so quickly

By the 2nd hairpin, 6 minutes in, he is on 280W

"Forget the 2nd climb, this is the FTP"

I notice Gen's HR is slower to get up to race pace 183, 184 HR recently
His aerobic engine is getting bigger

The dip in the road
He drops the gears 1 by 1
Holding the power
He only needs telling once

Back on the steep stuff
He holds the power steady
His cadence is nice and high
He has thought this by himself

After the village the gradient eases
You can lose 10 watts here

"Close to Yamada before it gets steep again!"

Skips through the gears
5 mins left he knows not to go all in yet
340W is enough to close the gap

Yamada looks back in disbelief!

Now is time to bring it home
Steady power

"2 minutes left"

A little deeper

"1 minute left"

All in to finish!

A perfectly executed FTP test

☆20mins, 288W, / HR

40 days
17 days training
23 days to race day
how far can this boy go!?

 
Considering he's probably under 60 kg, this makes me very jealous...

My training room is nearly 29 degrees and over 70% humidity even at night, so I guess my only choice is to ride outside at 5 a.m. like everyone else.
 
Considering he's probably under 60 kg, this makes me very jealous...

My training room is nearly 29 degrees and over 70% humidity even at night, so I guess my only choice is to ride outside at 5 a.m. like everyone else.

At this time of year, that's the best time to do outdoor training. Safest too. Daytime rides should be recovery only, short and with lots of fluids.

Andy
 
On another note my power meter may be dead. Erroneous readings after getting some water in there after changing the battery last week...

Andy
 
At this time of year, that's the best time to do outdoor training. Safest too. Daytime rides should be recovery only, short and with lots of fluids.

Andy
My head started to hurt during what should have been a relatively easy VO2 max workout.
Z2 outdoor rides in the late afternoon are also way harder than they should be.
 
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