Low FTP during lab-tested VO2 max + VLamax

It was €137. Oh well, I guess it’s a lesson learnt… :slight_smile:

At that price, I would consider it a good learning experience. It’s too pricey to do often enough to get used to the mask, setting, etc, though.

At full price, I’d say hard pass.

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I would just point out the significance of this. I try and do a full basic series every year (200,300,400,600), as well as a bunch of other 200-300k rides. I am currently sitting with a VO2 max (theoretically) somewhere in the low to mid 60s, and FTP around 310-320.

Doing a 600 takes time to recover from. TSS, ATL, CTL, TSB are all essentially useless metrics when you start doing long rides with any regularity, so you can’t rely on them (in case you have been). They seem to both over-estimate the training benefit of long rides on your fitness, and under-estimate the time it takes to recover from them. My guess is its related to deleterious physiological effects you need to heal from (not recover) on very long rides/hard efforts.

This summer I had a 400 then 600k ride two weeks apart, both on very hot days (>35c). In the weeks after the 600, I had lost ~10-15% of my VO2 and FTP. Despite feeling “recovered” by maybe 2 days afterwards. It took 3-4wks before my numbers were back to baseline. This was on a background of doing a 200-300k ride every second week for a few months, and riding 10-15h weekly for almost half a year.

So yes, doing a 650k ride 10 days before your testing may very well have decreased your metrics. This is in keeping with my personal experiences. If you really want to know, do a workout that you did a week or two before your 650k (closer to your ramp tests), and see how the perceived effort/HR compares to back then.

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Ok, interesting. I’ve been chilling from training and just generally catching up on sleep since then. Other than yesterday’s test I haven’t really done much, so I haven’t kept track of my fitness. Oh well, it’s a lesson learnt, I guess. Glad to find another audax person on here though. This year was my first SR series and it’s been quite a learning curve.

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