Benchmark. I'll be damned.

Remember here when i was chatting about `the park`. I had to dig up some stats of that ride:

TSS 233, NP 216W, 25.3km/hr 101km, 4.01.36

I repeated this ride today, with an extra 30km of `park` riding with the following stats.

TSS 273, NP 238W, 29.3km/hr, 128km, 4.23.00

Well, I think the numbers do all the talking. This is one damn hard ride. And my legs are damn sore. But i am damn happy with my effort.

I've unfortunately missed a few sessions this week, mainly due to residual soreness from these big double weekend rides. Effort needs to be made to get out and do some recovery rides in there place! 

Graphic stuff

So here is where we are at. The graph above plots my best ever power vs time plots (red dots from June 2007 ) against my current best power/time plots (yellow).

Last year I was focussing on criterium racing, so my peak power outputs under one minute were pretty big numbers. Back then I could hold 1000 watts for 30 seconds, and around 550w for 1 minute.

This year, I really want to bump up my 5 to 60 minute peak power wattage as this is the zone i'll be climbing in come May. Already my power levels are as good, if not better than last year. The idea is to make the yellow line horizontal at around the 360w level. This is a pretty ambitious 20% jump at my current FTP levels.

The idea is to begin some Endurance Tempo rides that will gradually increase in both time and wattage until I can sustain my desired outputs. My biggest challenge will come from bumping the 30-60 minute power interval as this tapers dramatically.

Consistency

Just finished up another great week. Another 300+km in the bag. I'm absorbing the miles quite well and am noticing it takes significantly more to `hurt` the legs.

Todays ride was a 90km out and back course done with the club. Normalised power was 230W for around 3 hrs, which was me just sitting in the pack and hanging on. 

For the next 2 weeks my main focus will be Aerobic endurance (Z1) and on some Moderate intensity workouts (Z2-3) - and perhaps a crit or two to round things out.

Hills of Love

Mt Keira this morning. Plan was to sit on FTP and stay there for the whole session. The power/speed chart shows some interesting stuff. The first 10 minutes average power is around 360w - this is mainly due to the 10% gradient for the first section of the climb.

In the middle my speed spikes as I hit the flat section and I find it very difficult to generate power, the loss of resistance makes it hard for me to change rhythm and maintain a constant output. The remainder of the climb is only around 6% so i settle into a rhythm and the power smoothes out.

Trivial stuff, but none the less something to think about next week when Climbing this beast.

Time: 23.50. NP 320W.

FTP - 301W

In cold, miserable conditions i ventured out to seek my FTP (functional threshold power). I decided to try and hold 300w the whole way and was still able to kick a few more watts on the last lap - so my actual FTP may be a touch higher than this.

Anyway am pretty happy, a 5% increase in FTP in 5 weeks, and i've only been doing Z1 workouts...

21/28 Rain

Forecast is for rain for most of this month. Makes it hard to build a training plan with weather that it so unpredictable.

Will be a good time at least to get some testing done after 5 weeks solid training. I'll do my first FTP test tomorrow, and a MAP test later in the week to reset my training zones.

Am starting to bring in some hill repeat work @ my FTP wattage to build some strength. Will also try and get some Crit racing in also to extend my FTP endurance. 

I'd really like to start getting in some ultra long rides also... but these will be totally weather dependent.