I do wonder that myself but I think from reading things on here and listening to podcasts the guys have used he extensive dataset to make sure that the result of the ramp test and subsequent calculations do properly give you an FTP which feeds into future workouts accurately.
When I say I wonder - it’s things like eclipse today that makes me wonder. First time doing 3x 20 mins efforts. Was really very challenging. However - and here’s my key point - it was doable. My HR was hardly above 150 and ave cadence 90. So when I say it was hard, most of the difficulty was mental. I know this is a common theme in a lot of my posts but that’s because it’s what I’m experiencing and learning. My wife will soon be sick hearing about the mental lessons I am learning on the trainer!
I’m also wondering how many folk are actually failing due to mental rather than physical barriers. My head told me I could not do this whole workout today but when I told it who was boss, my body did what it was told.
I finished my workout yesterday and told my wife “I bet you didn’t think it was possible for me to ride the trainer and still have stories to tell?” My post ride notes contain the phrase “brain training” quite often .
Well done! I think a lot of riders really struggle with the mental challenges that come with long sweet spot work. Your legs can be dying but your HR should be low-ish - you need to find some sort of trick to push through and force yourself to keep those pedals turning over
Yep. If I’m honest for me I’m fairly driven to succeed which can be a great blessing but if not controlled can be really detrimental for me and my loved ones. Whilst I agree with my wife when she says, in response to me saying how hard a workout was -‘you know it would be ok if you failed or didn’t finish it’ - I still really don’t want to. Though I have told myself - if I do drop out of one- the real ‘win’ will be getting back on the bike for the next workout and giving it my all’.
The lack of league tables and peer comparison in TR is really good for me. Prevents excessive comparison, which is the enemy of joy in life!!
I’m also wondering how many folk are actually failing due to mental rather than physical barriers. My head told me I could not do this whole workout today but when I told it who was boss, my body did what it was told.
[/quote]
I failed eclipse on Saturday due to knee pain after the second interval. I’m confident I could have finished the third though it was pretty tough.
That is a good point about their data. My hr in most of these “sweet spot” workouts gets as high as in races but not as long so I think I will “trust the plan” for awhile longer…hopefully all the way thru.
This is not the expected behavior in a sweet spot workout. Obviously heart rate is highly variable and individual but I run well below my ‘race’ heart rate during sweet spot workouts. You may have over-performed on your FTP test relative to your muscular endurance
It certainly may be that my tested ftp is a bit high but I’m gonna tough it out and see what happens. Huffmaker was not fun tonight I’ll tell you that!
I have the same experience. I failed Eclipse. I finished the second interval, but had to reduce intensity to 90% in the last minutes. I failed the 3rd interval after about 10 minutes. Even when I reduced the intensity to 50% it was almost to hard. I had no power in my legs, but the HR was not high.
My conclusion is: 1. The previous workouts have not prepared me for Eclipse or 2.My FTP is set to high.
I will now take an extra recover week and then make a new FTP test.
