My Saturday group ride was 64 miles. IF of .93 (with my new FTP) so a relatively good effort. Still fell a bit short on nutrition though.
I don’t want any part of Disaster, -1 or any other version. Congrats on completing that one.
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Man you went hard. Good thing you have an easy day tomorrow
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Some rough head and cross winds, brother…a front came through this morning. Glad for the recovery miles tomorrow.
Oh and new saddle day. Selle SMP Forma. Finally the search is over.
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Easy ride today followed by some deadlifts and other weight lifting.
90days to train
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Completely derailed for a week+ due to a power nap gone wrong. I can finally turn my head again, though so it’s a start. Don’t get old if you can avoid it!
Got the bike outfitted with a power meter and hoping I can take it out by next weekend. Also had some new toys arrived for weight training. Bummed I missed out on riding in the first “fake spring” weekend here but maybe next weekend 
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Can’t wait to hear about the new stuff.
It’s amazing how a small neck tweak can mess you up
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You were over sweet spot for 2.5 hours? Did nobody else take a pull? or were you taking pulls at vo2 max and then barely resting?
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It was just difficult conditions. 7 of us, but the crosswinds made it so only a couple could get a reasonable draft to recover at any given time. A few dropped off and once it was only three of us, it was even worse. We stopped to regroup a few times but it was just rinse and repeat. So yeah, bigger efforts, little recovery.
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35 easy miles today. Had 20 people come out for our 24mi C ride. A few of the guys from yesterday’s windy day ride…everyone feeling that effort still.
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Like everyone else is saying something ain’t right with your numbers. There’s no way someone rides 64 mi at that intensity and calls it a ‘relatively good effort’ at the end. If it’s even possible, and I don’t think it is except maybe by the best of the best, that effort would be balls to the wall hanging on for dear life. Not ‘sorta hard’.
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Well yeah…it was hard…as that IF would indicate. I was pretty shattered by the end of the group ride and still had to ride home. To be clearer, the part that showed that number was 53 miles…my commute to and from being the remainder of the miles. By ‘relatively good effort’ I wasn’t saying it was casual or easy…I meant I was personally happy with my effort, the way I felt during most of the ride, and how I felt after, especially considering the difficulty. I felt like I’d gone deep.
I barely have context for any of this…just got back into cycling in late Sept, never done structure or trained with power before. Am I a mutant? I don’t know. I calibrate shit, I do my LV workouts as prescribed and I ride outside a day or two a week. Then I posted what my Garmin says. I’m not bragging, I’m a middle aged dude trying to go hard and get ready for what will easily be the most difficult physical and mental challenge of my life.
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Question. If someone .IF is off, how does that impact there training?
IF is a function of FTP. If someone says they went out and rode for 60 minutes at an IF of 1.2, it means they’re super human, or their selected FTP is wrong. The same can be said for someone who rides at 0.93 for hours on end. They’re either a genetic freak that doesn’t feel pain or their FTP is set incorrectly. What’s the most reasonable explanation?
If their FTP is wrong, then their training zones are wrong and all the intervals are too hard or too easy (in this case they’d be too easy) as compared to what’s recommended or ideal for adaptation. SS becomes tempo, tempo becomes endurance, vo2 max becomes high threshold…etc, and you end up under training and under performing to your potential.
For anyone that thinks 0.93 IF isn’t a big deal, go ride Blood +3 this week and let us know how you feel after.
TR even says that if you can do the 2.5hrs without lowering the intensity, then it’s time to reassess.
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Following timons response. Being a little bit off of ftp while it does change things slightly isn’t a huge deal. 5 W for example is often within the error of your PM.
However, If you’re IFs are always . 9 for example, that means you are missing by probably at least 10%. That SS ride above was probably tempo/SS with some surges for example. If you miss by that much your training essentially is ineffectual, because you judge how long you ride intervals depending on the zone. So if your SS rides are tempo you likely aren’t going to induce the stress needed for adaption. That isn’t to say you wouldn’t get nothing, you aren’t going to get weaker by riding your bike. But you won’t get what you want out of training.
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Could someone’s anaerobic engine throw off NP?
I did disaster -1 as a result of our discussion and ended up with a .82 IF. The ride I did the prior weekend that scored me a .9 IF was way harder. I bet my FTP needs a bump since im in the middle of a block and I started the last block 10% down from last years numbers.
I am also not trying to be a smart ass, trying to get a better assessment and understanding.
FTP almost certainly needs a bump. If you followed TR and hadn’t done much riding before your first ramp that would also likely contribute to an underestimate. At least for me my body needs to ‘wake up’ to the training I do. Especially stuff well into the SS/ threshold zone or above.
That is what happened. I had not doing anything above SS for 6 months. I was down 10% on my ftp from last year and just spent 2 months of work in the gym since I couldn’t ride. Also somehow put another 100w more out in a sprint 3 hours into a 5 hour ride.
So if you pop off a ride with a .85 should you increase your workouts say 1% or 5%? Lets say 2nd week in a 3 week block?
Not that much. Also, if your anaerobic/vo2 max engine was that good relative to the rest of your fitness you’d likely over perform on a ramp test resulting in a too high FTP and you’d find any long sweet spot workouts impossibly difficult.
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Gotcha.