Hey y’all first post here but I’ve been lurking for a little while. This might take awhile
I’ll start with some background. 36yo with a 2year old and a 5month old that works a full time job plus has a small company on the side that in all represents about 50hr work week. We’ve got a decent sized property that requires a bit of maintenance so my training time is pretty limited and sporadic. However I’m usually above my prescribed TSS and very rarely miss workouts.
I’ve been riding bikes for about 6yrs primarily MTB and have transitioned to primarily road within the last year with the expanding family. The vast majority of all riding is on a trainer. All last year my primary riding was just completely burying myself via zwift races but no true structured training. My diet at that time was a high fat/low carb(sub 60g consistently) and just water during rides. Decided to try my hand at some Crit racing this year as well as structured training. I first did an 8week Crit crusher to which I followed perfectly and ended with a 311w FTP via zwifts 20min ramp test.
After listening to the TrainerRoad podcast I decided to completely change my diet and switch my training to TrainerRoad which I did the low volume criterium plan. At 85kg I started consuming between 300-400g net carbs per day, protein in the 150-200g/day and fats under 80g all in the form of whole grains, fruits and veggies. All food is weighed and logged and I’ve been using my garmin watch to determine caloric requirements to which I’ve always been within ±50-75cal. On bike nutrition started at 60g/hr in the form of maltodextrin and have since ramped up to 90g/hr with the addition of fructose powder.
With all of these changes i really expected some great positive changes with my goal of getting to 4w/kg.
I started the training plan by inputting my own FTP to which I was completing all the workouts and feeling good and sprinkling MTB rides and train now rides when time allows. The majority of my rides now are at either 5am or 9pm which is pretty consistent to what I was doing pre TrainerRoad and pre carbs also. The 5am rides have no pre ride nutrition but the 9pm rides will have a carb heavy meal 3hrs before.
Now to the point…my mid training plan FTP dropped to 299 to which I accepted despite feeling like I was completing my workouts at an acceptable level. FTP yesterday just dropped again to 290 despite not having any difficulties with workouts.
I don’t feel as if my fitness is declining at such a precipitous rate and am hoping that I’m simply just not burying myself during the test like I should. My sleep is less than ever with the new baby but I’m still getting usually at least 6hrs most nights. This definitely needs improved but just not realistic currently. Sleep has been about the same maybe a little less than the 311w FTP. My weight is down a little from 190-192 to 185-188.
My performance at the races has been alright as I’ve been consistently in the final group during the sprint. Power numbers for the races have been consistent dropping but I’m chalking that to better tactics.
My only other thought is am I just overtraining for the rest I’m able to get? I’m hard pressed to accept this as realistic as the volume just isn’t that high.
Or am I just a mutant that simply did better with a higher fat diet? The variables that have changed are diet and training type/plan. I know the data doesn’t support this theory but I just havnt had that breakthrough feeling that I’ve heard other describe when they really started nailing their fueling. I don’t feel any better/different than when using fats.
This went wayyyyy longer than I ever expected and i thoroughly appreciate anyone that actually read this whole post and has anything insightful.
TrainerRoad name is freshturk if anyone wants to dive into the data.