I’m an Audax / Randonneur style rider. For 600K, 1000K, and 1200K events, there is a huge drop off in the power curve on Day 2, 3, or 4 of events. Ten to twenty percent drop off depending on how badly the first day crushes you.
For purposes of more accurately calculating TSS and all the other stress / fitness / fatigue type numbers, would it make sense to lower FTP for Day 2, 3, and 4? For the same RPE, my power is much lower.
For example, on Saturday I did a ride with a TSS of ~600. On Sunday, I did a similar effort (based on RPE), but the TSS is ~400 and all that “active recovery” time sure didn’t feel like active recovery.
To be honest, FTP is a bit of a dynamic figure even within a single day. But that’s a whole “next level” conversation of personalized physiological tracking…
I’ll get back to you in a month. I’ve got a four day event in August. Aiming for a ~0.62 IF on Day 1 (400km) and the same RPE on Days 2 and 3 (300km apiece). Won’t really be worrying about power after the first day since taking it easy on climbs won’t be a problem.
I went through a crap ton of folks on Strava to look at their power / intensity on multi-day events, and 99% of them don’t have power meters on their go long bikes. It is the curmudgeonly edge of the bicycling community for sure and tech is slow to permeate…
I don’t do such long rides but wouldn’t it make more sense to change the target IF rather than the FTP? I’m not sure but if I were pacing for even short events I pick an IF that corresponds to the length of the event. I can’t do an IF of 1.00 for a 3 hour ride so I choose a smaller number that makes sense.
If you change the FTP you may get the same TSS everyday but I don’t actually think that it would be accurate.
Very interested to hear how people handle this situation because it is more unique than what most people on here do.
