Trying to get to 4w/kg

It’s all relative mate and Vrs my bulk it doesn’t actually propel my bike very fast 🤣

I felt insanely good today. I was on the gravel bike on 32’s with 50psi and needless to say the group century turned into a right smash up.

The trouble with having different power meters is that they all read a little differently and I think this GRX stages is the highest. I must use the DCRainmaker software to compare them all against my turbo at some point.

Anyhow, if I take what it says at face value, what with trying to match the guys climbing at 4.5w/kg and doing lots of long pulls on the front at 24/25mph on the flats, I managed 257w straight average or 293w NP for 5h23m which got me 19.3mph but that included 8 miles of noodling from home, to my friends house and then into town.

Best 20min power was 319w!

Anyway, I’m a shell of a man now and need to try and re-fuel in 48hrs ready for threshold efforts on Tuesday 🤣

https://strava.app.link/RKWtTQ3xFyb

So I just had a look on Strava with the sauce add-on and I’m actually happy that my PM is legit and that I just had a good day. I compared about ten climbs and longer rolling segments against my mate Rich and our w/kg’s were identical! The practical upshot? My extra 27kg means a 100w variance on the climbs!!! And 80w across the entire ride. Especially as he rides a 51cm frame and has a lovely aero position on the bike.

To describe how bonkers a difference it makes across the 100 miles another way: it adds up to 1700!!!! more calories to complete the ride at the same speed.

I seriously need to find a way to lose some weight and keep my power 🤔

seriously need to find a way to lose some weight and keep my power 🤔

losing weight generally just comes to down to less calories in then going out. Why not just download lose it / my fitness pal and workout generally what calories you currently take in and just try going 200 calories less?

Make sure you have enough protein for your body weight / training and lower the processed sugar intake. Make sure you’re fuelling still with enough carbs for your workouts otherwise you’ll just feel awful.

I found just a few simple things made a big difference for me and I feel way better around 76kgs on the bike than I did at 84 and 82kgs.

I’ve been on and off MFP since 2014 and am 1.5stone heavier 😉 🤣

I’ve just been eating to hunger since new year without measuring anything and my weight isn’t fluctuating by more than a lb or so.

I did 12,255 kcal of cycling this week, including several power PB’s and I don’t want to risk that during my build phase. Once Dirty Reiver and ToC have passed, I’ll have another go for 5/6 weeks 👌🏻

bit of help needed please gents,

so Zwift nudged my Z2 workouts up to 200w from 190w, must autocorrect workouts based on FTP, my Z2 is now 154-209w – was previously doing 190w and my HR was sat nicely into Z2, now adjusted Zwift workout is 200w – just done an hour, which has drifted me into tempo HR,

should I just be ignoring the HR? (heat, caffeine, night shifts, I know a whole number of variables shift it up & down on a daily basis) and just be focusing on the power number, or should I dial it back a touch? have I jumped to high towards the upper of the zone? just trying to be progressive (and I know there is probably not one right or wrong answer)

thanks

Personally wouldn’t worry too much about that assuming you’re not ending the ride feeling done in. I would expect a few more rides at new FTP will see your heart rate drop for that power.

I must use the DCRainmaker software to compare them all against my turbo at some point.

You can do it for free in Zwift Power.
Works well assuming it still works. My old ones are still there and there is a Create button.

I’ve used the DCR tool before as well, compared my Tacx Neo V1 with Quarqs & Assiomas – nothing in it, did buy a 4iiii & Stages to test but don’t have a bike with Shimano on, never had time and got rid, as my all time 1hr best was on a mountain bike with a stages LH, riding home from work full gas, flat road and I just never believed the figure and wanted to show some of the local stages users the figure is inflated 😂

Personally wouldn’t worry too much about that assuming you’re not ending the ride feeling done in

I could have done another hour easy,

I’ve done loads of informal testing with my Kickr Snap and most of my pms individually at various times (using two displays) and there’s never much in it, would just be nice to spend an hour and do them all properly now I have 4 in regular use 🤦🏻‍♂️🤣🤣
As I say, the w/kg cross-referenced with other guys from todays ride was actually bang on.

Ref Z2-
If you’ve added ten watts then it’s going to be harder so I’d just wait a few sessions and see if it settles down.
I’d not worry about the Hr Zone as such. It’s more the “decoupling” to be interested in.

As to whether to ride at the top of the zone or the bottom- it depends on what you want to achieve. Mid-low Z2 is spot on for general endurance or for filler between hard days but if you want to move things on a bit then I like to push the limits of the “talk test”- which ultimately meant riding at tempo power for my ‘intense Z2’ days.

My ‘power at 2mmol lactate’ (as far as I can tell via that “talk test”) really has been the best improvement to my cycling I’ve ever made. It’s gone from about 225w last year to around 260w now.

It’s why the FTP-zone based system is kind of flawed for Z2 training. You’re working a totally different threshold and they aren’t necessarily a fixed relationship. TR especially have mid-sold the mathematical truth that because your FTP goes up, your z2 has gone up. (It actually may not have moved at all).

During Z2 training you work on pushing LT1 as high up towards your FTP (~LT2) as you can. And only then do you lift your FTP back up as high above that as it will go.

I’ve done loads of informal testing with my Kickr Snap and most of my pms individually at various times

yer this was a 2014 stages though, had power meters for best part of a decade, things have moved on,

It’s more the “decoupling” to be interested in.

I have time for 2hrs tomorrow after work, will report back, I split todays to collect zwift badges 😕 so the first 40mins was 8.9% v the last 20m at 0.8%, didn’t get an overall figure

it depends on what you want to achieve.

a goal helps probably, just to be better than I was I guess? thats all we all want despite getting older, I’m 43 this year

It’s more the “decoupling” to be interested in.

my RHR is about 39/40, and my max is/was 199/200, so takes a while for it to stabilise 🤷‍♂️

It is annoying that zwift can’t find a way to save multiple rides as one trace when you’re badge hunting. I guess using a headunit to record your data is the simple work around but I rarely bother.

So yeah, to constantly improve your Z2, you need regular progressive overload. Either your duration, frequency or intensity of Z2 needs to keep increasing or you will plateau.
Eventually you’ll hit a ceiling but then I’d start to add a tempo ride or tempo blocks to a Z2 ride each week anyway.
Like with ftp, eventually pushing it up from below stalls so you have to also try and drag it up from above.

Did this hour sweet spot on Saturday – found that hard as 8 minute intervals – it’s the longer efforts that I find hardwork. Bit physical, but mental. But got through it and felt better for it after.

Sunday I was a bit the worse for wear so did a slightly half hearted leg weight training session in the end – barbell squats / deadlifts / reverse lunges / calf raises.

Just in the rest interval of the following 45 min beginner threshold session now. Feeling leg fatigue from yesterday but will batter through it before work!

The ‘purpleness’ of my new bike is helping Me through at the moment – just love how this bike looks. Plus I’d say 100% it feels stiffer around the cranks / bb. The old bike you could look down and see a bit of flex around the bb during hard efforts. This bike has a much chunkier bb area and bigger chainstays. If anything I’d say there’s a little more flex up by the seat post area – so I’m hopeful it’s going to put down power well on the road but with more comfort for my slightly broken body.

Crank wise I think in theory they might not be quite as stiff – 24mm Shimano Ultegra bb86 vs 30mm Cannondale bb30 🤷‍♂️

Well done Joe 💪🏻 Glad you like the new bike.

I’ve got an Orro Venturi STC coming after a spur of the moment purchase last week so hopefully I’ll like it 🤣

I suppose I’m old (40 🤣) so err on the side of caution now, but the research does seem to suggest that only 2/10 workout’s need to be ‘hard’. And that hard actually means ‘above Z2’.
And weight training is definitely in the hard category too.

So I’d keep an eye on making sure you can absorb what you are doing. If you’re too tired to complete a workout without feeling like you could have done another interval, that’s probably a good sign that you did too much in the interim since the last hard workout where you did feel ‘good’ if that makes sense.

My legs just felt a bit heavy today – but that’s the squats yesterday – without that I’d have been ok I reckon. Bumped the last interval up today so I did 1.5mins at 383ftp which was hard but just about do-able.

Tomorrow the legs will get a rest pretty much – shoulder weight training day – so other than the legs bit of clean and presses with a barbell, they’ll get a total rest.

Wednesday / thurs I’m not sure what I’m going to do as I have the days off work with my 6 year old to cover school holidays. If the weather is nice perhaps we’ll go to the local pump track for a play or go for a gentle ride along the Bristol / Bath cycle track. I’ve got a sweet spot turbo scheduled for Thursday for 45 mins but don’t know if I’ll end up doing it. Wednesday night I might try and get some mtb in or do an endurance / z2 turbo in the evening once she’s gone to bed.

Orro looks like a good bit of kit – Matt black with the force AXS stuff looks decent. Wiggle must have the answers wrong to the question about weight though – they say the medium is 9.23kg and that can’t be right. Maybe 8.23kgs?

Yeah not sure. I’m getting the Ultegra di2 one and will put my Prime V3’s on it.

My mate weighed his 11 speed di2 version with Prime V2’s and 28mm GP5k with latex tubes and it came to 7.9kg in a 53 (L).

That sounds more like it for that level of bike / spec. Will absolute fly with carbon wheels and di2 is ace.

Got a VO2 sesh on the slate this evening and not feeling it is an understatement, would honestly prefer to go to bed.

Reckon effective training is equal parts listening to your body, equal parts ignoring your body and telling the lazy **** to STFU, so on this basis I’m going to hop on the turbo and see what happens.

@Garry_Lager

I think as long as it’s only mental you can’t be bothered and your body feels ok it’s the latter option to be taken.

If everything feels broken then time for a rest

Got a VO2 sesh on the slate this evening and not feeling it is an understatement, would honestly prefer to go to bed.

Reckon effective training is equal parts listening to your body, equal parts ignoring your body and telling the lazy **** to STFU, so on this basis I’m going to hop on the turbo and see what happens.

Cam back from Skegness yesterday with muscle aches, headache, very sore through and blocked sinuses overnight. I’m COVID negative, but start a 3 week series of 1 minute intervals in prep for my next race tomorrow… at least I might be :-/

On the TR podcast, Keegan Swenson said he’ll attempt an interval three times I think.
In my experience, I know during the first one if the set is doomed and am not afraid to admit I have pulled the plug several times over the years.

My view is that if you aren’t well enough (or even well enough recovered) to do the work, then what hope is there of getting an adaptive response from it.
I used to swap in a Zwift race if I felt it was motivation holding me back but often lack of drive is a good early warning signal to illness or fatigue for me, so now, if I don’t fancy it, I don’t even try.

I find a proper recovery ride (Sub 50% ftp and never more than an hour) to be genuinely helpful in these situations and usually smash the next hard session out of the park.

Yep some nights I’m not feeling it, but many times have got on with it and surprised myself to complete the session strongly.

If it’s genuinely fatigue or illness then you’ll likely know soon after the work steps up.

Ended up feeling pretty good on the bike – hit the power no prob. Early night tho I reckon. Like you guys say, VO2 is sort of pass / fail so you know early if it’s not on the cards.

It’s really the essence of training in some ways – if we only got on the turbo when we were feeling good no one would make any progress ever. But forcing it when you’re properly fatigued will bury you. I don’t really do the volume to make reliable judgements here, but should prob just get on with it more than I do.

2hrs @ 200w done, plus the rest of Ventoux then I let it clock up the xp points on the way down while I went and sorted the washing 😂

not sure how to crop on intervals

2hrs
199w
148bpm
3.9% drift (takes just over 30m to stop increasing it looks)

Well done guys 👍🏻

I wasn’t sure how well I’d be recovered from Sunday but decided to trust the process and just see what happened. I felt okay but a little sore.
I rode into town and then did 3 x 15min @ 330 out on the open road. No ERG mode to assist but the B4000 out of Newbury is the next best thing- gradually climbing and today with a helpful headwind as well.

I was really pleased with how they felt. Mid way through the second one I was contemplating a 4th but decided that moving from 4×10 to 3×15 was a good enough progression given how hard Sunday was.
I’d managed to claw my average up from about 16mph when I got to town to over 20 even with the recoveries so I decided to try and Z2/Tempo my way back once I had finished the work like a 15 mile reliability ride- with the goal of holding that average right to the door.
I just about made it with 43 miles in 2h07 for 20.2mph 🤣

Although it’s not exactly how the physiology works it’s interesting looking back and seeing how this ride is a logical progression from the Tuesday tempo sessions I did, as the average power for the whole ride is basically what I was doing steady-state for 2hrs during those.

Dead chuffed with how things are going 😃

Sounds awesome – I feel like I need to get out on the road to try some stuff like this without ERG. I need to clean up my caad 12 frame / Si cranks / spare chainrings / brake callipers etc and get them up for sale. Wondering if about £400 for the lot is achievable…I’d then save a bit and use the rest on a 4iii single sided power meter. I’m assuming that would play nicely with my Garmin edge 530 for power and cadence.

43 miles with an average of 20mph on your own (no drafting) and hills sounds really good.

I’ve emailed a local cycling club to see if they do any mid week evening rides I could join if I become a member.

Awesome! That sounds spot on with the PM. Used my 4iiii on the mtb with a 530 for ages 👍🏻

My biggest problem with club rides is that unless I coerce everyone into riding how I want, I’m very much an outlier in terms of weight. (Just as the couple of really light guys who come out sometimes struggle on the flats.)
Being right in the centre of the bell curve for weight and power means you’ll have a great time with them no doubt 👍🏻

It’s very easy to get caught up in the scene though and then the temptation is to try and squeeze in your interval days **and** club runs 🤣🤣
And go pop like my Strava friend 🤣

We should do a forum meet-up ride too.

I think I’ll be middling on everything – weight / power etc. So an all rounder that does ok ish on the hills and ok ish on the flat. I’m neither a lightweight climber nor a wattage monster. I think I might have a sneaky good little sprint though – but not really tried sprinting against anyone on the road bike.

On the mtb vs my lighter mate on a slight incline if I go as fast as I can seated it’s near as dammit exactly the same as he is stood up cranking hard. But his SC 5010 is more setup for that sort of thing – if I tried standing up and doing the same on a coil spring sentinel I think I might actually be slower than seated. Want to road ride with him to see how similar bikes compares.

Where is everyone on this thread based in the country?

M4 jct 13

Chieveley?

Decided not to weight train today and did an hour endurance turbo watching the tablet again. Seemed a little high to be zone 2 – topped out a 191w for periods of time although did drop down to 170w ish at times too. Average heart rate was 129bpm with a high of 150bpm so I guess thats quite low va a max of 191bpm.

Yep Chievely more or less 😀

Ah nice one 👍🏻
Just checking back on strava, I think of my Z2 HR as 133-156bpm (my threshold HR is 176 and max 200) and an hour ride at high Z2/ low Z3 power will tend to average right in the middle usually about 144bpm.
So probably sounds spot on 👍🏻

committed to a Vo2 session today, good to get one under the belt even if I was feeling a bit mentally fatigued today, weight still gradually coming off as well, updated zwift to 79.35kg,

online photo hosting[/url]

Fantastic! Bet you’re pleased with that one 💪🏻

I was running the tightrope of volume/recovery again today. With Sunday still in my legs I compromised more than last week and kept it at 135w with no efforts (like 107bpm average 🤣) but did two hours rather than just one.

Vo2 day here tomorrow and I need to extend to 20minutes either via 4x5min or 5x4min. 4×5 would actually suit the hills I did last week better I reckon. There’s certainly 5mins on Streatley and Whitchurch hills if I want it.
Or if I go a little harder, and make them quicker in the process, I may have to do the 5×4 after all. I’m not overly convinced I’m going to have any legs at the moment- I feel fairly ropey and have to go back to work for a few hours in a sec.

Will probably just head out with an open mind and see how I feel on the day.

Fantastic! Bet you’re pleased with that one 💪🏻

yer pleased I got through, still went through the whole gamut of emotions in 7 short 3 minute intervals 😂

It’s surprisingly emotional when you’re right up at your limit – I find that more on the mtb than the road bike or turbo at the moment.

Had a big mtb ride a few weeks back with a mate – 30kms and 1450m of climbing. He’s always faster and he’s considerably lighter / is a natural climber. I found myself at the front on one climb as there had been a descent immediately before it and I’m faster downhill. I felt a bit of pressure to push hard so I didn’t hold him up – got to the top and had to stop and was literally gulping to try and get air into my lungs – heart rate had hit my max of 191bpm with the effort. Luckily I recovered quick and just carried on the rest of the day fine (this was probably 6km / 300m into the day)

Yes! I do wonder how much of interval training is stimulating adaptation and how much is mentally getting used to the sensations at each intensity sometimes.
‘Knowing’ you’ve done x watts for x minutes gives you the confidence to do it again.

Guessing it’s a bit of both. Sometimes mentally I think you can block yourself from doing something when your body can probably handle it.

Same, for my VO2/threshold I’m on a combo of

a) 3 sets x 8 1 min at 115%, with 20s,15s and 10s “off” respectively – feels a lot like an MTB race!

b) 8×3 min on / 1 min off at 105%

Its certainly emotional but it also occurred to me that it repeats the sensations of real racing, until you add up total time over threshold which is about 50-70% of that I’d achieve IRL.

New bike is here 🎉
Forecast is for a massive downpour now though so I may have to ride inside or go on the Diverge. I’m not going to be precious about it but I’d like the first ride at least to not to be a miserable affair 🤣

@crosshair That’s pretty nice. I’m looking to get one on Cycle 2 work if I can. Let us know how it goes (quickly I hope).