In a prior epoch, I had a crew coach that specified my every workout and effort. My cycling experience has been quite the opposite, with riding governed more by emotion, stars and tea leaves than by any sound physiological basis. Until now. I have embraced the Friel. After a full base period, I just completed the prescribed three weeks of Build One and am presently enjoying a rest week. But with the rest week comes the Threshold Power Test. Summoning what motivation I could, I sought to deliver a steady, maximal effort for 20 minutes. FTP is then estimated at 95% of this figure. I was unsure of what wattage to actually target, since I’ve been doing 3x20m at 295 and 6x5m at 355. Eh, indeterminacy is life. I turned up the Daft Punk Alive and settled in at 320, speeding up a bit in the final minutes to generate an average of 324. After such things, one almost always thinks of how it would have been possible to go harder. Maybe. But it most definitely hurt. Math time: 324watts divided by 68kg (my weight) multiplied by .95 equals an FTP of 4.53watts/kilogram. Not bad – an encouraging number for this point in the season. The Coggan chart says this is mid-cat 2 territory. We’ll see. In any case, I think structured training might just work.
2 Responses to “The Test”
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Aaron: freaking awesome!! now reset your training zones you animal!!
seriously, nice work…. 4.5 w/kg is a season goal for me!
Cat3′s beware!
-L
category-awesome.