Oh man, last time I did Leconte my comments were something along the lines of holy fcking shit
It’s been a tough 6 weeks. It’ll be nice to only see ~350 TSS next week 
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I am in that same week, unfortunately I just could not fit Lamarck in this week.
I do not know if I am glad or not.
Certainly today and tomorrow look tough with Wright peak -1 and Leconte.
Was about to start a new thread, but found this which was highly related.
Just came off my rest week and did the ramp test yesterday with a surprisingly poor result. Week 5 of SSBMVII went real well with all time high numbers on both Leconte and Lamarck. The recovery week matched with a week of vacation so only squeezed in one easy ride during that week. Vacation was active (nordic and alpine skiing) but not taxing. Ate and slept well. Since I was crushing my workouts I was surprised to see a decline on the ramp test.
Old FTP: 294W
New FTP: 289W
Average Lamarck power: 302W
I know it’s just a number, and one should trust the results. But I’m entering sustained power build and my first wo is Red Lake +8. With a too low FTP this will simply be a “walk in the park”, while it should be a real “pain in the a**”.
What would you do? Ajust FTP according to Lamarck and see if I can complete the wo? Go with the “new FTP” and maybe undershoot the target of the wo? Or simply keep the old FTP and adjust through the wo?
I have manually adjusted my FTP previously and don’t recall any time I’ve been to optimistic, so I think I have quite a good judgement in this regard (but this is the first time I can set my inside FTP above 300W so that might cloud my judgement… 
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You don’t have to trust the results. Some days you don’t have it. I would leave my old FTP or perhaps even bump it up manually a few watts and see what happens. The ramp test is just a tool.
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I would not stress about it at all … There is literally NO difference in stimulus if you train 10watts lower.
Physical LT2 can change as much as 30watts +/- from day to day so … why not stick with the old ftp and see how the first 2 weeks of the new block go? If it’s really a walk in the park you can still bump your ftp up a bit.
(Funny thing: Just a week ago I wanted to bump my ftp because of ONE good day and was given this same advice … why is it we always know what others should do but won’t accept it for ourselfs? 
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Normally I would totally agree. I really don’t obsess about the numbers. There is always a bandwidth. It’s just that I don’t have too much time to train and I really want to get my “bang for my bucks”. And I would not be thinking too much of this if it was just Lamarck. Last two weeks of SSBMVII I felt like a million bucks, and until Lamarck I erred on the side a of caution by not increasing the intensity. Then getting slapped with a 5W decrease was a big disappointment.
Red Lake + 8 is 108%, putting it just inside VO2max-territory. If I undershoot this from the beginning and slowly turn the intensity up through the next two weeks I think the TR-progression is going to “double up” on me making the last week very hard indeed.
Or, I’m just making this more problematic than it is… Leave the old FTP and notch it up if it feels like I should 
This is a good plan. Based on Lamarck, you should be able to baseline at 300 for threshold workouts and make it, but it will be tough for sure. Mentally, I always find it less daunting to be conservative early in a workout and work myself into it. Doing your first one at 108% of 294-297 is not gonna hold you back and give you some margin to build into the workout.
So many things affect what you can do on any given day, it’s counter-productive to chase everything off of one performance on one day.
Since this post was 3d ago, can you comment on how it went?
When I have rides like that I just skip FTP tests. If you felt you had a bit more in the tank, then personally I know I’d put in an FTP of 300 to 310 and work with that.
You should be able to complete all workouts after a bit of rest.
Try it and see.
I disagree with chad on this.
It’s very possible to do Lamarck and not be able to hold that number for 40 straight minutes.
If you can’t hold your FTP for even 40 minutes, it isn’t FTP
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It should be pretty close, with the caveat that 4x10 on 2 should be something you can hop on and do pretty regularly in the middle of a training cycle and 40 min straight is fully rested and highly motivated. 2x20 is the same kind of a deal.
It’s at least a good sanity check. If you can’t do it, you know your estimate is too high. It’s a good sign when you can do it late in a training block, which is where I’ve seen it fall.
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So I again think you should be able to do 40 minutes at ftp most days provided you weren’t shelling it the day previously.
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That is why I like to be a little conservative with FTP. In my opinion FTP for training should be quite repetable value, especially it varies a little bit day to day due external and internal factors. And it is also the reason that I do not like to “prepare” for FTP test - I rather treat it as another hard workout with no special treatment (despite mental preaparation).
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Maybe physically I’d agree with you, though I’d peg it more confidently at 97-99%. But mentally that is a tall task. 40 min straight of anything above 80-85% is mentally really hard. Maybe I’m just weak.
Those short breaks on a 4x10 or 2x20 don’t do much more than make it mentally easier. Riding at FTP is painful as hell.
You could ask me to do 90 minutes of straight sweetspot at 90% any day of the week. Thats how I like to keep my ftp.
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I went with the least conservative solution, setting my FTP at 302 based on Lamarck. I based this on a couple of things. I wasn’t feeling too good when I took the ramp test, but kind of felt it “blew off the cobwebs”. Short endurance the day after and I felt my legs loosening up. And more importantly, Lamarck was not a “single good day”. Last 2-3 weeks had really been going well. I finished VO2-max intervals like I’d never done before, I set all time PRs without really pushing it, and “finished off” the loading block by knocking Lamarck out of the park (by my standards that is…).
Red Lake +8 was tough, but got through it without adjusting anything. RPE and HR was where its should be.
Avalanche Spire felt easy and I adjusted interval 3 and 4 to 102%, and 5&6 to 103%. All good.
Round Bald was a breeze (as it should be at this point of training)
All-in-all, I’m confident with the manual adjustment and I don’t foresee that I’m digging a hole I cannot come up from.
It should be said that I typically thrive around threshold, and VO2 is typically a weakness of mine. So I am probably one that could underperform on the ramp test. However, prior to this test I have felt that training has been rooted in a fairly accurate number.
Today Raymond +7 will determine if should regret contents of this post already…
Thanks for the follow up. I used Lamarck for setting my targets the last 4 weeks of general build and it’s gone quite well - right on that almost not able to finish, but manage. Was 5-10W lower FTP estimate than ramp gave me.
I think Lamarck is a decent sanity check for setting targets for threshold/sweetspot workouts. VO2 targets need to be adjusted likely anyways.
In cases where knowing FTP matters, doing some of the TT simulations is important.