FTP test didn’t go well,last test in Jan was 367 now 316. Could probably have pushed harder, I do find with a nine speed cassette I can’t get the perfect cadence/resistance combo. I also think I’m so used to short jabs and micro recovery that 8minutes is pretty daunting. On the first interval I was happily sitting just above the predicted power for my original ftp for two minutes and then my legs crashed 😳

Also sadly think the drop is reasonable as done no proper structured training this year.

Will probably run sessions at 105% which I assume, unless tr does something funny, gives me a ftp of 330 and see how I go.

ferrals, are you actually any slower than you were in Jan last year? Riding at 110% threshold for 2×8 mins on a turbo is a very artificial exercise. Do a few 15 min interval steady state sessions for a couple of weeks and you’ll probably find next time you test it’ll have gone up quite a bit. You won’t be any quicker in the real world but you’ll test better.

I’ve not done any proper turbo intervals since around March of this year. I expect if I were to test it’d go much the same way as yours.

I’ll likely start doing a bit of turbo soon as there are some specific sessions I want to do over winter, but going to start low and build up gradually 🙂

367 is a hell of a lot of power, unless you’re huge. What do you weigh?

ferrals weighs about as much as my 5 year old son 😆

Wow! 376 is a bit tasty! Hopefully regaining will be easier 😉

I’ve had two tests where I’ve paced ambitiously and died a horrible death! Not fun. Guess the bonus of the 8 minute test is a chance for redemption!

I was thinking about the TSS thing and actually, the fact I’ve seen a rise in FTP means that a lower weekly TSS in Sweetspot Base shouldn’t actually be entirely that much less work?
Ie 400 TSS at the new ftp would actually have been 416 TSS calculated on the older, lower ftp.

Took a month off TR to try and shift a semi-permanent cold (3 months and counting). Still have a cold and my FTP has dropped by 30w. 🙁

Finding almost all sessions really hard at the moment.

ferrals, are you actually any slower than you were in Jan last year?

A bit, top end wise probably not, but endurance is lacking, what with the baby my longest ride this year has been about 2.5hrs so in races I’m startign to fade after 40 minutes.

I agree with you on the artificiality of it though, but it does ring true with my feelings on my current fitness.

ianpv – Member

367 is a hell of a lot of power, unless you’re huge. What do you weigh?

Should have said this is TR virtual power, I’ve never believed the actual numbers, just look at the changes. I weigh about 9 stone, and I’m not that fast so the numbers are way out!

crosshair – Member

Wow! 376 is a bit tasty!

see above – not real power… I wish it was! I’d be going to the national trophy on the weekend not wondering if I can break back into the top ten of our egionsal league 😆

Riding at 110% threshold for 2×8 mins on a turbo is a very artificial exercise. Do a few 15 min interval steady state sessions for a couple of weeks and you’ll probably find next time you test it’ll have gone up quite a bit. You won’t be any quicker in the real world but you’ll test better.

MrBlobby- not wanting to reignite the whole indoor outdoor thing but I really do think it depends on your event and your Turbo. I had no trouble on my solo session at Hillingdon a few weeks ago replicating an interval session I’d been doing on Trainerroad- the cadence, inertia and position were all very transferable, it felt very similar and my body was able to go “ah, I remember these!” and do the same effort- albeit at slightly less consistent wattage but close enough over the course of the interval.

What didn’t work was doing 8 weeks of 95-110rpm intervals in a forward leaning, pseudo-aero position an then trying to translate that into CX fitness at 75rpm on horrendously draggy grass!

So whilst I agree that more specificity is better- I don’t think intervals are necessarily unspecific 🙂

MrBlobby- not wanting to reignite the whole indoor outdoor

😉

In this case I was mostly responding in the context of ferrals original post, being mostly based around CX racing.

see above – not real power… I wish it was! I’d be going to the national trophy on the weekend not wondering if I can break back into the top ten of our egionsal league

6.4W/kg would be more pro tour than national trophy! But as you say though the units are irrelevant if consistent. That said, when I went from virtual power on my kurt kinetic to real powertap power my FTP went up – easiest 10W improvement I ever made 🙂

the units are irrelevant if consistent

Thats my one concern: given most people seem to think the virtual power matches reasoanbly well with real power, I wonder if my turbo isnt quite working right, in which case it might be that the curve of the actual turbo and the one they have may be differnet and so the relative efforts will be wrong. To be honest even that is only an issue for over-under type efforts.

I’d like a real power meter one day but its well down the list of items to spend money on.. and they would need to drop significantly in price before I was convinced it was a good investment

Velotech are doing £200 off Rotor InPower at the moment.

Velotech are doing £200 off Rotor InPower at the moment.

Still a chunk of money even if you already have a Rotor chainset!

TR is just making me tired and hungry. Into week 3 of Sweet Spot Base. I struggle mentally with sweet spot intervals – my brain seems to be able to cope better with intervals where you batter yourself as it’s easier to forget about the time left or what the next interval is, it’s just flat out.

I don’t now what you’re all moaning about. I’m on 15s sprint on, 2 mins off x 4 hours, Z4 TT efforts for 2 hours and Z2 for 2 hours a week.

Its ok though I get Tuesdays off…

Kryton57 – Member
I don’t now what you’re all moaning about. I’m on 15s sprint on, 2 mins off x 4 hours, Z4 TT efforts for 2 hours and Z2 for 2 hours a week.

Its ok though I get Tuesdays off…

That sounds properly tedious 🙂

Have found that focusing on the pedal and form drills help during the longer intervals, also trying to keep the power as accurate as possible helps pass the time…no erg mode here.

Also bought a decent fan last week, highly recommended if you’re not already using one. I used to struggle with anything over an hour but I’m already noticing how much the better things are with it and pushing on to 90 minute sessions quite comfortably.

15s sprint on, 2 mins off x 4 hours

A four hour session of 15s / 2 min sprints?!

Is this the Torq stuff Kryton?

Not all at once!

But yes. I may have lied about some thing’s to keep my training secret but the general gist is about right.

Brutal. I find I don’t have the mental capacity for more than about 1 hour 30 on a trainer in one go. Sweamrs has in the past done 2+ hours and I can’t fathom it.

Midway through SweetSpot base pt 2 currently and remembering just how unpleasant VO2 work can be.

I did 2:50 on Zwift the other day. I couldn’t do it as a workout, luckily it was a very interactive group ride.

I think the KISS 100 took me 3hrs the other year. My weekly Pretzel rides were around 2.5 I think too.

Longest TR session was 2hrs plus a bit of trainer warmup time beforehand but I also had Zwift running on the big TV and Danny Howard’s Dance Anthems on iplayer radio 😆

I think I prefer indoor training now. Since I’ve gotten a little bit quicker, you have to go so bloody far outside and that exposes you to more and more inconsistencies for holding the right power.

I’m clinging to the hope that for 60minute races, I don’t really need the deep aerobic fitness that can only be cultivated by multiple hour rides anyway. Some of Coach Chads work-arounds are actually pretty clever, like the Vo2 max intervals with 30minutes Z2 tacked on the end. Hardest Z2 I ever did! Even the last lap of a 4hr Brass Monkeys never felt that hard.

On TR for longer rides just put together a ride with blocks at different power levels, all around z2 and z3 (example). Helps the time pass.

I’m clinging to the hope that for 60minute races, I don’t really need the deep aerobic fitness that can only be cultivated by multiple hour rides anyway

That was my hope this cx season too as time crunched earlier in the year. I’m massively feeling the lack of long rides now. Admittedly I’ve not done much properly structured training this year, but I did quite a lot of 1.5 – 2hr hard rides and xc races thinking it would be enough for cx durations but I’m flagging by 40mins in.

Agree about liking indoor training, seems like when time is at a premium you get a better beasting on the turbo

I’ve found it amazing how slowly time can pass 😆 I sometimes put the towel over my phone and aim for a landmark on Zwift instead. Gutting when you get there, uncover the towel and still have 3 minutes left 😀

Other tactics include slow counting down in my head so the interval ends before I’ve reached zero, watching YouTube clips 1 minute longer than the work effort, playing ‘interval buster’ tracks on my iTunes and dissecting the work efforts into Hillingdon lap times! The imaginary ‘3 laps to go’ board is always more motivating than thinking ‘last 8 minutes!’ 🙂

Any effort of any power now is in the bag with 40 seconds to go. Once that clock hits 0.39, my power generally increases right to the end. It used to be 20 🙂

Bays for me this morning. Up early and done by just gone 7. Good workout, the intermittent sprints keep the endurnace side of things interesting. Really enjoying being back on the turbo, looking at the weatehr forecast I’ll be turboing all weekend. Planning on either Dade+2 or Sassafras tomorrow and then Bondcliff on Sunday. By which point I’ll have almost done week one of the cx plan compressed into Thurs – Sun (misisng whichever session I don’t do).

Happily plugging along and enjoying the time saving nature of turboing at the moment. Kind of wish I’d done more turbo stuff earlier in the season.

What the consensus with planning a training year: next year I’m naively hoping I’ll have a bit more time and less stress so am planning on properly structuring my year around the cx season (Sept – Decemeber). Do you aim to finish the speciality phase prior to the first race of the season or be half way through or something? I sort of think finishing speciality prior to the first race would lead to peaking too soon.

Interested in this also, I currently have three ‘A’ events which are based start, middle and end of season – although quite loose at the moment since dates aren’t officially out for two of them but I’ve used the weekends that correspond to last year’s calendar.

My build period ends shortly before my first event as set out by Training Peaks ATP, all my TrainerRoad plans are set out backwards from this period but there’s no room to fit Specialty.

The TR road race plan looks like a load of VO2 stuff from a quick scan, thinking I may just keep following the Training Peaks limiters since I’d generally be doing VO2 and training bashes in this period anyway.

Hey Ferrals and Haze!

There are a few options when it comes to extending a season, I’ll go ahead and outline the possible options and when each option is the best choice.

Extending your Peak:
This method allows you to drag out your peak for a maximum of 8 weeks. To do this, you will simply repeat Specialty Weeks 7 and 8 upon completion of your Specialty Phase. This works well for CX because you maintain a relatively stable level of fitness for nearly the whole season. You essentially will work backwards from your last race of the season to see when you should start. The progression would look like this:

Sweet Spot Base (12 weeks)
Build (8 Weeks)
Specialty (8 Weeks)
Peak extension (8 Weeks)
Final race of the season

Another option is what we call a Re-Build. This is best for seasons where you want to continue to build fitness after your first specialty, and when your races are spaced apart adequately. This method has you return to Build phase after completing your first Specialty. The progression would look like this:

Sweet Spot Base (12 Weeks)
Build(8 Weeks)
Specialty (8 Weeks)
Build(8 Weeks)
Specialty (8 Weeks)

This method allows you to have two separate “peaks”, with the second peak being at a higher level of performance. Haze, looking at your season it looks like you are unlikely to be able to hold peak for your entire season. Without knowing the spacing of your events, it is hard for me to say the best route through, however keep in mind that you can still race extremely competitively after completing Build, especially in the early season.

I hope that gives you guys some helpful guidance, happy training!

Peaks will be early April, late June and possibly late August…fully expecting to drop off a little I n between (but remain competitive, B races and train through C etc).

Cheers for the reply Bryce, will see how I can work things in when the dates firm up

4 weeks in now. Sweet spot base intervals now a lot less unpleasant than they were last week so must be getting fitter (coming from a very low base though!) Amazed I’ve managed to be fairly consistent and actually last 4 weeks. Another 2 weeks of this plan to go and then I guess another FTP test. Not sure I’m looking forward to that!

Well done Simtron! Just think how pleased you’ll be when you get a better score though…

Started off on SS base when my collarbone was recovering, moved to trad base, but outside – so broadly following the TR plan but using HR instead of power and riding as much as possible off road as 6 months off has not done much for my skills!

Retested 3 times since July though and good news is that fitness seems to be returning nicely.

Good work John. Please try not to break yourself again 🙂

Thanks Bryce. Useful information!

John L, using HR to replicate TR is my approach when i can get outside too. Works well I find

Cx plan, would normally be outside on w/e but ill and it’s raining so did the prescribed workout of Tecumseh. Enjoy workout like this but struggled so probably am properly ill, feel wrecked now too. Nicer day tomorrow so will just do a easy outside spin I think

Newbie to TrainerRoad here, training for a few XC marathons next year and currently quite unfit.. starting with sweet spot base. Would it be recommended to use my MTB that I will actually be racing on my smart turbo or use my road bike? Turbo work is my only option for winter training as where i live I would need ice tyres and it’s a bit too cold out for most of the winter.

I don’t think it makes a difference what bike you use to turbo on. After all, many MTB riders train a lot on road bikes – if you’re not using yours during the winter I’d set it up on the turbo and leave it. Means less faff in setting up each time.

Hey Eugeo81!

My name is Bryce Lewis and I work for TrainerRoad 🙂

Since you won’t be able to ride your MTB outdoors during the winter, I would definitely recommend setting your MTB up on the trainer. We are talking marginal gains here, but by doing all of your training on your race bike, it ensures that you build up your muscles specifically for that fit. Your road bike and MTB likely have slightly different angles, seat height, bar drop etc. so if you were to train on your road bike, you lose out on some specific advantages that you gain by training on the MTB.

Cheers,
Bryce

I find the turbo is so different to outdoors riding that I doubt using the same bike would yield any tangible benefits for me – although I guess if it’s laid up for a cold winter then there’s no reason not to stick it on there.

I use a time trial bike on my turbo and find holding position on the aero bars to be hugely uncomfortable, like intolerable for over a minute or two. Outside on an actual test it is fine [well it’s never comfy but it’s never even an issue on a ten]. OTOH some testers train their position on the turbo no bother so I guess we’re all different.

I finished the meaty part of SSB1 about ten days ago and got my PB Crit result the following Saturday. After a xmas break, I plan on starting SSB2 on Tuesday with an ftp test of course!
However, I figured I could squeeze one in today and then if I messed it up, have another crack on Tuesday.

Well despite my reservations, SSB1 gave me a good lift! Up from 324 to 336! Very pleased with that and excited about pushing onwards again now.

I know HR is flakey at the best of times but interestingly, my HR maxed out at 187 last test. This time, I was at 191 with ten minutes to go but held it until the end.
So perhaps my hunch was right and my ftp hadn’t moved far- I just went harder today??

Anyway, thanks Coach Chad- top bombing!

Hey Crosshair!

This is the reason we warn against taking Heart Rate too seriously because it can cause a bit of unease and second guessing. A heart rate difference of 4 bpm is not anything to be concerned about and could easily be thrown off by caffeine consumption, time of day, hydration level or many other factors.

The most likely contributing factor was your level of freshness during the test. If you were more fresh during the first test, this can alter your heart rate’s response significantly.

So in other words, congrats on your new hard-earned FTP 🙂