Trying to get to 4w/kg

I had a good group ride today in fairly dank conditions.

3h20 at 257w/291np. I always doubt myself during a recovery week but today was vindication that the strategy works.
I felt amazing and my average HR was only 150bpm which isn’t even the top of Z2.

It’s annoying not quite having the w/kg to keep up with the others on the steeper climbs but everywhere else I felt in great nick!

It started fairly disciplined and then ramped up as we went along which is how I like it!
Some of the numbers:
1min 435w
2mins 397w
5mins 371w
10mins 334w
20mins 327w
30mins 312w
60mins 281w

What even more encouraging is that, in theory, provided I don’t overcook myself, I have at least 6 weeks of more improvements to make until I peak!
‘Winter miles’ look like delivering on their ‘summer smiles’ promise 🤣

Indeed! I always found it helpful but there were loads of people in the road club I was in that had no idea on their FTP,vo2 max or threshold power but would do very well racing.

Oh 100%! And the more natural ability you have, the further you can get without it.
Pete Morris used to talk on the TR podcast about doing “30mph” intervals when getting Crit sharp. As it was, they worked out at about 500w each but he didn’t need the PM to tell him how to train that energy system.
Likewise, hill reps. You don’t need a power meter to ride up a 4 minute hill as hard as you can 5 times. But with a power meter, you can take the wattage number from that hill and use it anywhere.

There’s as many if not more people who have a PM and don’t actually utilise it for anything useful too.

I love the context I get from the data. I think I had a speedo on my bike when I was about 11 and haven’t ridden without some kind of metric on display ever since 🤣

I know riding with Weeksy a few months ago, he was astonished when I told him how many watts he must have been doing as we rode up a hill alongside each other. For long rides- they are as important for telling you how slow to go up hills as anything else 😃

Had a Monday morning hour sweet spot session before work scheduled today. It’s the start of a new SSBLV plan I’ve setup to build for an mtb long weekend in June.

TrainerRoad has upped the ante – I don’t think I’ve ever started a block on 4.1 progression before – was dreading it.

1st set of 3 intervals was horrible – lower cadence gurning – but legs felt slow. But after the 2 min rest before the next set my legs felt faster and I was growing into the workout. After that I held over 100rpm for a lot longer than I normally can and just felt turbo charged. So much I bumped the last minute up and smashed through it at 300w fine.

Had my fan (one of those vs master cardios) going flat out in my face in the end and after getting off I’m proper dripping in sweat. Felt like one of the best turbo sessions I’ve ever done.

This week is a bit tricky for exercise as wife is in work tomorrow so I’ve got the school run at both ends of the day – may try and fit in a quick 30 mins of something at lunchtime if I can. Weds i have to go into the office in Reading so that day is wiped out. Thurs into Bristol so I’ll probably cycle commute – which should get something into the legs.

Well done mate! Looks like a great set. Perfect way to start the new plan.

I’m not sure I’ve ever done a whole session where the average is over 200w.

Might be a newbie / daft question but what’s the difference between average power and NP?

NP is the 4th root of the mean of the 4th power of your ride (after a 30s smoothing is applied). It’s a way to account for the fact that (eg) doing alternate minutes at 100 and 300W is a lot harder than doing a steady 200W. The average power is the same but the normalised power of the former is higher.

💨 is the sound of that explanation whizzing over my head lol. But thank you – I’ll try and get my head round it.

Normalized Power®: What It Is and How to Use It

Thanks – that seems like a great article.

I’m taking away the following basic statement about it:

“To put it another way, average power is a simple reflection of what you actually did during a ride, including coasting. Normalized Power approximates what you could have done with that same level of effort, had you ridden at a perfectly steady pace. While this is a bit of a simplification and is not true for every athlete or circumstance, it’s a good way to conceptualize what Normalized Power represents”.

Now going to go back and have a look at all my TR rides out of curiosity

know riding with Weeksy a few months ago, he was astonished when I told him how many watts he must have been doing as we rode up a hill alongside each other.

I was impressed i got to 3 figures 🙂

I found a watt 😂

just chugging through the consistency last week, 1x 2hr day split into 2 1hr Z2, 3x Z2 1hr days and 1x VO2 Intervals day through half term, continued naff weather, away during the week and then away over the weekend, just over 6hrs for the week, about all I could have done

had drifted into “fresh” on intervals, however the last 2/3 days haven’t been “rest” with long walks with the lads, had time for a short session today, so tried the Innsbruck KOM on Zwift, limited warm up then 295w for 20m
FTP – 279 to 280w @ 79.35kg so 3.53w/kg (although intervals gives me +3 to 282w based on 293w for 23 minutes)

very very warm in my room even with the wahoo fan on 100%

forecast for the week seems to have taken a nosedive, however, next 2x look alright, time to venture back outdoors, I’d take Kryton’s +10% outdoor FTP increase, however mine seems to track almost identical

Some people say NP is an ego-boosting made up number 🤣 (well, former insanely fast forumite MrBlobby in particular).

Whilst it is a pretty good approximation of the steady state power equivalent you may have done, it an important to realise its limitations.
Your kcals burned will only ever be your AP not your NP. Likewise your speed will only pertain to your AP not your NP.

I kind of use it the other way around. Whatever average power I ‘know’ I can do for say 3hrs of steady state endurance/tempo riding, I then know I’ll be able to do NP for the same duration.

For example, let’s say you can do a 3hr ride solo at 180w and be nicely gassed at the end.
If you then head out with your mates for 3hrs and the first 30 minutes is 240np- you know you’re going too hard and so can back off before you blow up 🤣

Yesterday, I was keeping an eye on it but because we started out fairly easily- I was well within my suspected limits so felt able to push harder and harder right to the end without fear of going pop (kind of like using your trip meter to monitor your fuel level in your car).

I use NP as a comparator if I’ve been doing intervals outside. I tend to do intervals outside by feel and looking at NP vs Average for an interval lets me know if I paced the interval OK. If they’re wildly different I might look at the power trace to see how I could have paced it better.

I found my hill for the 8min threshold intervals today and took the scenic route home afterwards. Means I have a bit of work to catch up on this evening but totally worth it for my first ride of the year without legwarmers. The people of Inverness and Nairnside have never seen a gun* show like it.

*leg gun**

**I moved to the only place in the UK where my complexion could be considered towards the swarthier end of the scale.

This is all making me want a power meter more and more.

aaaaaand we’ve been outdoors, so nice to be back out, shorts/short sleeves for 3 days, but it looks like back to indoors as winter is back as of tomorrow 😩 it’s been windy as hell though!

Tuesday – 2hr 54m – 93.8km – 217w NP
Wednesday – 2hr 10m – 68.8km – 198w NP
Thursday – 2hr 52m – 85.1km – 195w NP

mostly in Z2 heart rate zone, just ticking along getting some actual outdoor miles in the legs

tried a 8.6km Strava segment on Tuesday 10km in thought the wind would help on part of it (circular loop), it didn’t, did 298w for just over 13 mins, 30 seconds better than I’ve done previously, still 22 seconds short, but I don’t think the wind was particularly helpful, felt strong though

probably going to have a day off, then finish the week strong then have a bit of a deload week while I crack on with an assignment thats due, probably due an easier week

obligatory summer bike pic

Wow that bike looks tidy! What is it?

Some decent mileage there and quite disciplined in terms of pace for the most part by the sounds of it.

Awesome stuff Dirtyrider 👏🏻 well done!

What Varia mount is that? 🧐

@joebristol – Cannondale Systemsix

@crosshair – Raceware Direct for Specialized Saddles, no Airtag though

Ah, I should probably have guessed that from the wheels. Not seen one in that colour scheme before – looks lush

it was the base model, they reduced them to £1999.95 in late 2019, picked it up from rutland cycling, the only thing that survived is the frame, that’s all that was ever going to though, think it was ultegra mechanical, now looking back I should have bought a shed full, different times pre pandemic 😷, ridiculous price looking back

was this one

https://99spokes.com/en-GB/bikes/cannondale/2019/systemsix-carbon-ultegra

I just stripped it and chucked on a top end groupset at it, I’m not sure what I’d ever change it for

Looks great with the deep section wheels you added – looked a bit odd with the shallow rims it came with

Lovely looking bike!

did 298w for just over 13 mins

im in a downward spiral here. My ear infection appears to be clearing now but very slowly, but I couldn’t hold that (it’s 4wkg for me) for more than one of the six 2 min intervals I had prescribed last night. I’m really trying not to let it affect my mental state for Sundays race, but I’m starting to have bad feelings about it. It makes me even more confused about this disparity between my indoor & outdoor power having managed 24 x 1 min at 300w the same time last week – both PM’s had been calibrated.

I also now have to reevaluate my diet after weighing in at 73kg this morning, any more loss would be too much, at least I can stuff the carbs a bit before Sunday without worry!

I wish I weighed 73kgs…this morning I’m at 76.7 again. Seem to fluctuate up and down a bit but I need to clean my diet up to get sub 76kgs again. Think I’m going to tick along as I am for the rest of April then make some better diet choices for May.

I wish I was 73 and not 95 as I head round 12,000ft of off road climbing at Kielder tomorrow 🤣 After tour of Cambridgeshire I think I need to refocus for a couple of months.

That sounds a bit emotional – although I’ve never really had a big day of road climbing. I know 30km and 1450m of climbing off road is a bit brutal (my legs were aching on the drive home from Cwmcarn / Risca after that effort) but I’m not sure where I’d find similar on road riding. I think my biggest challenge would be saddle soreness as I’m not used to sitting on the saddle for more than 2-3 hours regularly.

I’m quite lucky with that. I had a bit of hot-foot last year but butt was fine 🤣 🍑

on the weightloss thing, I sort of know where you are coming from, how much is too much to lose? I’ve been using myfitnesspal to track, now I still love a drink on an evening, or over lunch, and there is days I click in and don’t log, such as the weekend away with the boys, pizza, fish & chips, ice cream, no tracking, or midweek last week, saw limp bizkit in Manchester, plenty of beers, so I’d suggest that is a healthy relationship with weightloss

yet if you met me after Christmas, I don’t think anyone would describe me as fat, or even overweight (maybe a societal problem?) yet I got an alert of myfitnesspal today saying “congrats, you logged in 86 days in a row” and I’m down 10.4kg from 25/1

🤷‍♂️

10.4kgs off since end of January is immensely impressive!

Away from training numbers I popped to Rowberrow on the Mendips for a quick blip about this avo. 1.5 hours ish of riding / 515m of climbing / 12.5kms. Pretty much straight up – straight down – straight up – straight down – straight up – straight down. Not much along.

Pb’d everywhere up and down – just felt fast everywhere. All the work is definitely paying off. Trails were mostly dry and grippy with the occasional puddle / muddy bit – I think it’ll be rekon time to replace the dhr2 soon on the back for some more speed.

I feel like I haven’t trained for ages this morning 🤣
Last week I raced at Hillingdon on Tuesday. The numbers I got from it were meh but it was nice to get some high intensity in. It’s not often I see 900w+ twenty times in a 40 min ride.

Then I just did an easy spin on Wednesday and a quick shake down on arrival at Kielder on Friday before my near 10hr ride at Dirty Reiver on Saturday. Then I’ve had two days off 😴

I feel itching to get back at it now. The chaingang is heading out tonight, likely with small numbers but should be a chance to churn out some good power- albeit not in any kind of predictable way. I had better ride at least an hour there I think to make sure I wake the legs up!

I’m thinking of trying something ‘big’ on Sunday as a real test of fitness but I may keep the suspense going on that one in case it doesn’t pan out 🤣

ride to Goring, jump the train to Chippenham, ride back on Ridgeway… it’s a nice little jaunt.

What, on Saturday as a warm up for what I want to do on Sunday? 😉

lol i don’t know what your Sunday plan is 🙂

Harder than that 🤣
It will probably impress nobody but I’m already getting butterflies thinking about it 🤣

It will probably impress nobody

Nah, don’t be so harsh, your efforts and dedication are pretty impressive !

What’s this Sunday plan then? Sounds a biggy…

Road….
Flat….
Not all Z2…..
Something I admire when I see other folks on my Strava feed doing it

🤐 🤣🤣🤣

I just bought some cheap ‘smart’ scales so I could upload my weight automatically and it could be available to my mates. Same principle as Weight Watchers public weigh-in.

Also, had an interesting ride last week. The general advice seems to be that your fitness peaks a few days after your last ride, however I’ve always found better gains from having a week or more off the bike. I hadn’t ridden for two weeks, then went out for a spin, but I felt good and smashed a PB on my local flat sprint segment. The most interesting part is that my max HR was way higher than it usually is doing the same thing. It was 190, which I haven’t seen for many years. I put this down to being very well recovered.

Your high heart rate after a few days of no exercise may well be a reduction in blood volume see Blood volume

Something I admire when I see other folks on my Strava feed doing it

No matter what you do you won’t look as awesome as me 😄😄😄😜😜😜