Failing final round of long ftp intervals, stagnant FTP

I agree on the comments about the Sunday SS workout following the Saturday workout. I was stressing about Kaweah on Saturday (50 minutes total threshold) with a higher FTP. Did that, and was proud. Then started Geiger +2 on Sunday, and the first interval almost blew me up. Was able to rebound and complete it, but it didn’t feel like a usual SS workout. wowza.

Last 2 weeks of SSB2 are incredibly hard and a lot of it has to do with accumulated fatigue over the previous weeks.

Got through Spencer +2 this morning, even dialed up the last five intervals to 102%, mostly because I wanted the mental challenge of being over 300W. The last interval was a bloodbath, and I definitely felt like backpedaling with 1:00 left. I think Dade -1 helped prep me for it… that step up from Mills would’ve been a ball-kicker, for sure.

That said, that was after an extra day’s rest waiting on the replacement Kickr Core to arrive and finishing up chain waxing, and after doing Baxter -2 instead of Tallac +3 on Saturday. I have no idea if I would’ve made it through Spencer on normal rest and after Tallac.

Next up Pettit, then trying Leconte on Thursday before the off day and into Lamarck and Wright Peak on the weekend, assuming I’m not in the hospital either for myself because of all this or because my wife is in labor. Either way, I predict a hospital visit in the next week. :smiley:

Spencer +2 was a bloodbath for me today. First two intervals were OK, but getting close to my max trainer HR in the last 30 seconds. Backpedaled on the rest intervals. Dropped 5% for the next two, again struggling by the end, and changed to standard mode from Erg on the final two with steady drops in power at same near max HR.

That said, my recovery between intervals was pretty good, with HR rapidly dropping, and the first 45 seconds - 1 minute feeling ok. It was really that third minute that killed me.

I think I’m going to try to gut the rest of the week out, then take a rest week, then repeat weeks 5 and 6 before moving on.

Following up here, I felt about 200% better having swapped Lamarck and Leconte. I was able to get through all the workouts this week though I put Tallac+3 in for Wright Peak since I failed that last week after Mary. This is a good mod if you have time during the week to help make sure you have gas in the tank for the long weekend session.

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@kurt.braeckel: excellent

I had a tough work weekend, but did Leconte, but I had a 10 minute work-related break in the middle, which certainly helped, then took Sunday off and did Wright Peak -1 which was more or less ok until the last set when I had to dial down by 20% for the first 10 minutes, then ramp back up.

Clearly my endurance at the higher power requirements hasn’t progressed as fast as the program predicts it should. I’ll taper this week, then potentially race Saturday which I’ll really treat as training, then probably go back and do the last two weeks over to see if there are still improvements to be made in endurance at power before moving to probably a short-power build.

Edit: On review, I have about 10% aerobic decoupling starting about halfway through the longer intervals, suggesting I definitely have more endurance work to do before moving on to a build.

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