Probably been mentioned to death on here and I’m sure the answer is buried in another thread, but I’m going anyway.
Pulled the plug on Eisenhower -2 today during the third interval (workout is 4x9 mins at 100%ftp). First one was OK, second started to hurt a bit during the last 3 mins or so, and started the third one with a reduction in power of about 5%, only to pull the plug after around 5 mins.
Should I just see this as a blip in the road or a sign of a too highly estimated ftp? I’m currently in the latter part of Sustained Power Build, and mostly nailing workouts with a good completion.
My last threashold workout was a 3.9 over under affair. Rated very hard.
Isn’t a 4.2 threashold workout or sustaining 9mins at FTP supposed to be straightforward? Maybe there’s a fine line between sub threashold and just over and I crossed it today.
Looking at your recent training history, I would have thought that you could have done this workout (that last over/under workout essentially had 3x10 intervals), but sometimes riding at FTP can feel particularly difficult. I think that this time, maybe you were still cooked from that VO2 workout on Monday.
Honestly, I think the culprit here might be that you have your training approach set to aggressive. You just got a new FTP last week, and we didn’t lower the level of your prescribed workouts as much because of your training approach. Setting that to something closer to balanced will likely help you work through FTP changes better.
@Dp5000, good work. That’s about 30 minutes at threshold. If you are just getting back to regular workouts at that 100% threshold level, I consider that enough work for some adaptation. So don’t feel bad about what you were able to do. It’s enough to get better, first of all, and second of all I really like that you didn’t like your chances going into that last interval but you still attacked it & tried to find a way to get it done.
A couple things to consider…
You really started to have problems at about the 50 minute mark. There is no way for me to know, but consider how you fueled & hydrated before this ride. Better fuel/hydration ~three to two hours before the ride might make a difference.
And, finally, if you’ve been away from these 100% threshold efforts for a while…I’m a big believer that they are kind of a shock to the system the first time you get back to them. Muscles give outsized feedback to the brain about the duration and intensity of these efforts. The body very quickly adapts away from those sensations & many times the same workout even a few days later is much easier to accomplish.
So don’t be down! You did good work. Next time you try a similar effort you will notice improvement. Recover hard.
I’ve made that mistake in the past. I always have to remind myself that the workout I do today will have some type of an impact on my next workout, and which of the two of those is more important (ie. do the suggested endurance work at .62 or switch it to something like a .71, but then that could negatively impact my threshold workout a day later…and the threshold workout is more important so I should stick with the .62)
