Hello all, first season on TR after burning out back in 2018 while working with a coach.
I’m on the Cyclocross Training plan, doing it for to get ready for racing and I like the structure.
Today I got and FTP bump back above 230 finally. The funny thing is I was 230 back in March/ April and because of some missed days due to family holiday and medical visits TR knocked me back to 214 which at the time I felt was wrong.
At the time I wasn’t in the mood to do a 20 min FTP test and just went with it only adjusting workout intensity higher at times.
Now this isn’t a knock at TR or AIFTP, I just found it a bit funny that in four month to go up one watt when you think of it.
Beside the FTP I do feel that I have gotten stronger in other power zones on the bike that FTP doesn’t show. If not stronger than more resistance to fatigue.
At a glance, it does look like your training did take a dip from February through the end of April, which could play a role in the fitness changes you saw.
You’re back training a bit more now, though, and I think your fitness reflects that!
There’s a lot that goes into fitness. Have things such as recovery, nutrition, stress, etc. changed over the past few months?
Yes life and work threw some challenges at me during that time, once that was over I was able to focus more on training.
After that passed the Base phase from late April/May I did the workout’s at a higher intensity just to give TR some good data with the focus of just nailing the workouts.
The good thing about it that I didn’t see at the time was that even though TR lowered my FTP at that time it bought up my PL numbers.
That switch up I thought was good, if I had to do it again I wouldn’t have adjusted the workout intensity and just either let TR keep increasing the PL after the workouts or used workouts Alternates to pick harder workouts with in the family of workout for that day.
This is what it’s all about! We’re all learning, and as long as we can take those things with us as we grow, we’ll be on the right track and all the better for it.
Progression Levels are a great example of why an FTP number on its own isn’t enough to explain one’s fitness. Those higher-level workouts probably helped launch your fitness to where it is today, and doing lower-level workouts at a higher FTP isn’t always the best option, even if it does make you feel a bit faster every time you see that bug number in the corner of your career page.
It can be useful to add notes to your calendar showing life changes. Reading all of the notes that might seem meaningless at the time can be really helpful when analyzing your historical fitness down the road. These can be as simple as how you’re feeling physically/mentally at the end of each week, personal/professional projects you’re working on, stress items in your life, nutrition, sleep, etc.
Let me know if this has helped, and if you have any further questions about any of this. It sounds like you’re on the right path! Keep up the good work!!
