Trying to get to 4w/kg

@dirtyrider Less than 2Km from start point to France portal iirc.

Well, my first clean, rested fully prepared-without-issue, great nutrition focused 20 min test and 3.4wkg.  Damn, I was a consistent 3.9-4.0wkg in 2021 before all the respiratory issues happened.

Oh well, it is what it is, and now I have a base from which to improve for 2024.

This might not be directly relevant but when riders like Wiggins and Thomas wanted to increase their w/kg, they lost weight, they didn’t increase their power.

I was 76kg when I tested at 4wkg., I’m 74.5 now.   I could drop some more yes, but have had 18 months peppered with respiratory infections and subsequent interrupted training, plus post viral fatigue of some kind since March this year of which I seem to be recovering now, hence the test.  I found that I lost top end, and couldn’t hold lengthy and elusive power at vo2max for very long.

The next 8 months will see if I can get it back.

This might not be directly relevant but when riders like Wiggins and Thomas wanted to increase their w/kg, they lost weight, they didn’t increase their power

They had been training full time for years at this point, including lots of years on the track  where weight was less important for them, do already had huge power. Probably not a useful comparison unless you think you’ve gone as far as you can with improving your power.

treading water here, business end of Y1 of my masters,  and last couple of weeks of school for the kids meant lot of celebrations assemblies and stuff, also the weather, wtf, ticked through a few Z2 sessions indoors, but even when it’s not hot, it’s still hot as hell,

however, time wise on the bike, after a couple of hour bimble this afternoon, I surpassed any year in the last 8, and it’s only July 30th, so we’ll take that

Z2 indoor/indoor in general has become a struggle though, don’t know if it’s the heat, or the lack of something to watch, or just where I’m at, but 90% of the riding early this year was breaking bad and ticking off Zwift routes for extra XP, id do 2 hours to do a 50/60km route which out thinking and now, I’m looking at the clock 10 minutes in and thinking about binning it off

I also wrote of part of this week by going for a run early hours on Monday, couldn’t sleep,  went out, kept HR low, felt ok, so kept going, did 10km, and went straight to sleep, walking on Tuesday/Wednesday was a challenge 😂

@dirtyrider – nice work – running really messes my legs up for a few days – just no crossover between cycling and running!

Im still easing back into turbo – done a number of 30/45 mins sweet spot sessions and feels like my legs are gradually coming back now. Going to setup a proper plan again after holiday in a few weeks time and get cracking.

Was considering doing an enduro in October  but couldn’t convince any mates to do it with me so I’ve kind of knocked that idea on the head.

How is everyone doing on their fitness at the moment?

I’m currently up to 77.5kgs (was 78 last week) after my back playing up then a bit of training again, then an all inclusive buffet type holiday. So I’ve re taken stock of where I am and going again.

I’ve paused my Trainer Road subscription for now (got access until the end of September before it’ll stop) and subscribed to Zwift just for a change of scenery.

The ftp I was using (but not ramp tested in a while) was 242w but after my first Zwift race this week Zwift suggested 247w. That was after a 51 minute race pushing my limits for periods of time. I don’t know if that makes it more or less accurate than a ramp test – perhaps more due to sustained levels of putting out power flat out?

Going to aim for one intense race a week and do some endurance type rides on TR whilst I still have access. Once that ends I’m going to have to commute to work more as it’s being insisted we’re in the office 3 times a week from October. Given I now have power meter pedals I’m going to try and make my commutes into structured workouts of some description so they aren’t just junk miles. Either make them zone 2 and keep my watts under control or look to do intervals. I can make pretty much the whole commute on the Bristol / Bath cycle track so no traffic to play with.

See if I can get back down to 75kgs and up to 260w by the end of 2023

Not really done any structure since maybe late April, generally a Tuesday bash and long weekend ride with Z2 in between – smattering of pub stops or efforts at some of the local segments to keep it interesting.

I did a short Wednesday night road series in July which went reasonably well, although the last round on a slightly hillier course highlighted the abscence of any previous racing this year.

Relaxed attitude this year has left me a little heavier at 68Kg on a bad day, enough to see me down to about 3.8 going off a couple of efforts on the local TT course and WKO

Actually feeling quite good until flu kicked in yesterday…

Got my first hill climb of the season next weekend, and then signed up for our club team for the zwift race series which starts the week after. Trying to lose a couple of kg and hit 64kg before the hill climb

Currently hovering around 290 ftp, but would love to hit 300w this winter (I also said that last winter…)

Mine is as good/bad as ever… but i’m rubbish at both diet and structure.

I had a hard day on MTB monday, then Tues off (well a gentle 8 miler), Weds was racing, today was racing (on Zwift for both). My esults don’t change, neither does my weight really, or my power… but i just ride and enjoy.

Had a solid few months, been in good health  – No training just timetrialling every week. Power never changes – 290W to the watt over 10, 300 if I raise my bars but it’s a bit slower. <span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>Decent amount of MTBing in the mix, couple of enduros and first time riding in the Alps on an actually good bike – hands got absolutely hammered but felt good otherwise.</span>

Doing the national ten at the weekend, fast course in the NE. I peaked in June on the times so don’t have big expectations, but should be good to experience the event.

The kg part of the W/kg equation remains gravid with potential. Unlikely to move much in the winter for me I would guess.

Fitness is going ok for me – I decided to see what TrainerRoads FTP robot thought after a summer of not much structure and I haven’t lost any watts. Our bathroom scales are broken though so no idea about my kilos.

Now the summer hols are over I have a bit of space for some structure but don’t feel motivated for a full on plan. Going to aim for 3x rides per week, with at least one having some structure, and at least one being just for fun. Should hopefully keep my powder dry for turbo trainer season:)

weights up a bit, riding time is down, I’ve had an OSCE and an assignment due in August, combined with the kids being off school, then it’s been a busy month,  I didn’t ride in August at all last year, squeeze in 21 hours this, my heads in holiday mode until I start placement on 4/9 so I’m not paying much attention to what I’m eating or how much I’m drinking

did set a 2023 PR for 30 minutes (293w), 50 minutes (283w) on 10/8

so as much as my brain suggests it’s all gone to shit because I’ve been busy, it’s not actually the case

Just returned a positive Covid test, great 🙄

@haze – this needs a dislike button

My fitness dropped in early summer, probably because I stopped using the Turbo and Zwift racing. July and August weather saw me back indoors and got back to spring fitness! Been on hols with family the last 2 weeks and only managed the odd weights/callisthenics workout. Didn’t know how my fitness would hold up but had 2 massive days MTB today and yesterday, both nudging 30miles and fitness seemed to hold up pretty well. Back home tomorrow and work Monday so planning a bit more structure… may book an October riding weekend in as motivation

Yeah I couldn’t find anyone to do an enduro with me in October so I’m probably going to book a BPW day end of October / early November. Don’t need pedalling fitness for that but need to get my leg strength / endurance up for that plus make sure my lower back and upper body are in decent fettle. Just in the gym now on a back and biceps session. Making sure to work my core and grip and started with loads of lower back / glute / hip flexor stretches which the last physio session highlighted I should do.

Training:

Suitcase Deadlifts / wide grip pull-ups / bent over dumbell rows / rear dumbell flyes / ez curl bar bicep curls / hammer curls / glute bridges

Went out on my hardtail last night but wasn’t massively feeling it. Rainy / muddy / gloomy. Had to use light under all the trees and didn’t feel very energised at all. So plugged round but it wasn’t wildly fun tbh! That was Ashton Court / Leigh Woods – the latter was unbelievably slippery and running a rock razor on the rear which was erm…..interesting.

Much preferred my ride last weekend at the Mendips on the Sentinel.

did 85km (sub 500m climbing) Saturday and 179km (sub 1000m climbing) on Sunday, don’t know if it was the heat, but holy hell my legs are fried today (Monday), I cannot remember the last time I got DOMS from cycling,  neither ride was particularly tough, both at 32.1kph, with them being 205w and 179w averages, strange

Back training. Currently about 3.5 W/kg and 73-74 kilos. Need to drop three kg of ballast and add a kilo of muscle to each leg. I don’t care for  HIIT nor indoor riding in general really, so started back in vets racing. Wasn’t a good start. But my peak was 4.3 W/kg in 2018. At current rate of fitness increase, this is possible by mid next season. Hoping health holds out for that long!

Have averaged 250km/week for the past four weeks. Before COVID that was 400+.

I’m back on track after a few years of recurring illnesses (thanks covid and a child that started nursery in 2020).

I stood on the scales back in Jan and was 79.9kg – the heaviest I’ve ever been.  I was just under 4 w/kg then.  I eventually started calorie counting in July.  Not to restrict calories but more for awareness which was a bit of an eye opener.   I’m now back to 74kg and 4.6w/kg and the weight is still trending down.  At this rate I’d like to think I can get back to 72kg where I used to be 10 years ago.

In pervious years I’ve followed some pretty regimented training plans.  This year i’ve just been freestyling it based on how i’m feeling on the day and what my short term goals are.  My “training” has been somewhat conflicted though as I’ve done a few ultra distance bikepacking events and then at the other end of the spectrum some recent hillclimbs.  It seems to be working quite well though.

I’m about to head out and see if I can beat my PR on a local 5-6 min climb from my pre dadulthood days!  I’ve steered clear of it for the last 3 years.  It was one of those “I’ll never beat that time again” efforts – lets see if I was right!

please collect £200 and move to the 5w/kg thread :strong:

Yeah that’s ridiculous lol. And here I am scraping round low 3’s at the moment!

Got another Zwift race planned for the morning – some kind of crit thing. See how that goes 🫣

Just finishing up a shoulder weights session at the moment

2nd Zwift race today – joined a crit with @weeksy. Felt like a brutal pace again – faster than the (longer) race last week. Averaged 243w (peak 662w) and 173bpm (peak 193bpm).

At the end it came up with the below – not sure how reliable that is? I mean va a ramp test I will have been putting out a level of power for a set period of time that it can use I suppose. But if I tried to do an erg based TR workout using 260w as my ftp I think I’d probably fail on longer sweet spot / threshold intervals.

Maybe that’s more a motivation thing than a physical one though?

260w you beast… was quite a funny race. ABCD all togehter out of the pens…. me and Joe sat with lead bunch, almost got dropped on lap2…. But hung in as some guy towed me back in…. then lap 8 or 9 i saw joe had lost the wheel and the group… suddenly it was 4s back to them, then 5… he went for it… then stayed … then more… he’s closed to 3s…. but died… So i powered through and finished it, but i’d dropped him in the process.
I waited up and then we had a bit of banter and play to the finish.
I kicked at 1km out and gapped Joe… but had a hanger on so sat up…. Joe went deep to close and just after he’d caught us, we had 400m to go and dropped him for the finish. Was a good bit of entertainment… my legs are RUBBISH at the moment thogh

I might be wrong but I think the auto FTP increases are based on the best 20 min effort during that workout (and then they apply the usual 0.95 calc).  If you check your power curve for the activity you should see a peak 20 min power of about 273w.

Given the nature of an on / off race you’d probably get a better result from a steady 20 min FTP effort.

Zwift may now be using some other form of calculation though.

I’ve started to take FTP scores with a pinch of salt and just ask myself if I reckon I could hold it for a lengthy period, say 45 min+ and then adjust it to suit.

Quite enjoying Zwift races even though they are really really hard. Going to plug away with one a week alongside a couple of zone 2 ish turbo sessions up to an hour each + an mtb ride every weekend.

I can do that until 2nd October and then I have to go into the office 3 times a week according to the instruction that has just come down from management. Then I’m not quite sure what I’ll do as I’ll probably cycle commute those 3 days – 9 miles or 4.5 miles each way depending on the route. Will probably do the 9 miles route most of the time for the calorie burn – just will have to workout on certain days if I do it as a sensible zone 2 or maybe make it short intervals other days. Might only fit in one Zwift race a week + mtb on top of that commuting.

it’s too hot for zwift racing surely unless you have the privilege of an air conditioned room

was 7.30am and had fan on… garage was about 15deg with wind and fan… was nice.

Race wasn’t too long at 35 mins

Interestingly, in ZP context… i got the win too.

dirtyriderFree Member
it’s too hot for zwift racing surely unless you have the privilege of an air conditioned room

@dirtyrider – turbo train in my garage which I’ve insulated so it tends to be cooler than outside when it’s hot. Got a big fan going but thinking I could possibly do with a 2nd one for Zwift – or getting my current fan nearer. It used to sit on the lifeline turbo table in front of me right in my face but when I put the tv up recently it was in the way. Might need to build myself a little table to hold the fan higher up in front of my wheel. At the moment the fan sits in front of my front wheel but just inside the turbo table front bar (not on my picture).

Had a go at a zone 2 commute yesterday -out on bike in reality it’s quite hard to stick to lower power. Mentally decides to set a ceiling of 200w vs a 260w ftp. On average I did a 131w average / normalised power of 165w so overall I think I did ok. Did spike to a max of 688w bit that must have just been a second or 2 at some point.

On the way home I went a bit further and pushed a bit harder – did a 165w average – and NP of 195w I think it was. Much warmer on the way home / all slightly uphill. Got a few pbs on Strava. My fitness definitely feels like it’s in the up, even if my weight doesn’t currently seem to be decreasing as much as I’d like.

I think I’ve put some muscle back on, but before I’ve lost the extra fat I put on through illness and pigging out on holiday. Hopefully the weight loss will come with time and training.

what a nightmare I had last night, out for a couple of hours, went a couple of miles along a road, no dead end sign, and it turned into singletrack, zoomed out on my wahoo, looked like it wasn’t too far to the road, so carried on, big mistake, found the only standing water for 300 miles, and it was like a bog of doom, and deep as I stepped into it on the right, enjoy the picture montage, not sure how the mech killing itself happened, expensive evening, 1x dead ceramic speed ospw, 1x sram red eagle xx1 chain shortened to get home, now too short for anything, 1x broken mech hanger, unsure if the mech is bent, lucky the frame isn’t broken, it has a proper ding where the mech rotated,

That’s barely a puddle if you’re in a mountain bike – but guess what you’re riding is not at all equipped to handle that. Hope it’s not too expensive to fix 😢

I stayed as far right as I could and my left foot just sank in it, and I was on the edge, wasn’t a puddle and solid underneath, it was silty shitty mud bog, you’d not get across it on a mtb

3rd Zwift race tonight – I’ve been bumped into Cat B so it’s going to be hard yards from here I think.

Another increase in ftp to 275w. Not sure what weight I am at the moment. Between 76-78kgs I think. Managed a 20 min stint at 289w average so I’m guessing this probably is a better guideline than a ramp test.

It was a 3 lap race – at the start of lap 3 I was still in the group and crossed the line in 1st but then my legs hit a bit of a wall and I got dropped. I eased off for a period then went hard again until the end and put in a bit of a sprint on my own too.

good effort! I often find that in the crits and short races, it’s just so full gas I have zero sprint left

as good a place for this, right science me guys, I’ve seen this somewhere about how inefficient humans are because we bleed so much heat, hence the need for acclimatisation when it’s hot to get on top of it, I’d love the link to some papers (I’ve deffo seen them), i know the hour record stuff and cooling and slush ice and ice vests until the start and the first 15 minutes are the body running cooler, I’m sure I’ve seen something that suggest we are like 80/90% inefficient, but I cannot find what I read

WR marathons seem to be run between 5-8 degrees

I ask this, because I went out tonight to do some KOM trolling (failed) at the end of summer, it was 50.9km long, set on a local group ride years ago at only 37.5kph, I have the kom segment almost 2km longer at 39kph along the same roads, just with different start and end apices, , I thought I’d blitz it, yer my HR was way up (I even got a training peaks threshold notification of 183bpm), my power was down and if it wasn’t for the train crossing that was down 1.5km from the end I think I’d have still been about 20 seconds short, looking at my other ride, it was about 10 degrees average, and todays was about 20

I know I’ve answered my own question here, I just want to see the papers I know I’ve read, I’m sure it said something about 2000w threshold, help!

pretty sure my threshold is below even ^ that 😉

So in terms of progress if I take that ftp from Zwift I’m currently 3.57w/kg over a 20 min period.

I’ve done another race since the above one but didn’t beat my 289w effort over 20 mins. It was an hour and 3 minute race and there were a lot of suspiciously fast C’s in it. All the categories went off at once and the A’s were just gone, a few b’s hung onto them and a good few C’s. I settled into the 2nd group and there was sort of an uphill sprint finish which was gross. I think I upped my power a bit too late or I think I’d have made up a couple more places than I did.

It’s quite addictive this Zwift race thing – although bearing in mind it’s absolute balls to the wall for almost the entirety of the races I’ve done I’m trying not to do too many for fear of burning myself out.

I did one yesterday, first since April maybe, still far too hot indoors, (does anyone use a cooling vest or such?) pulled the plug after 37 minutes, was on Makuri 40, first 4 minutes was crackers, almost did the best 4 minutes of the year, they it settled but got randomly surgey every so often, I was just gassed and not really paying attention and was out the back as makes the small climb after you 26km or so, couldn’t be bothered to chase back on

I’ve been doing one race a week, the Z racing series – FTP is improving and am generally meeting my aspiration of top half of Cat B field. What’s weird though is how IRL I can hold my own on the climbs, but I ALWAYS lose the lead group on the climbs towards the end of the race. Assuming we’re grouped by W/KG, the bunch can’t be THAT much faster than me, and overall analysis of my W/KG vs the winners validates that, but I get crushed on the last climb?
Anyway, I’m enjoying the “can you finish in the top half” challenge, which for me does mean that I’m all in chasing 14th in a field of 30! Slightly ridiculous but it’s my one HIT effort per week