I’ve wanted to steal the zwift uber pretzel kom segment for a while now. Nothing like a 3 hour 42 minute time trial! Funny how 290-300w feels very nice for a while… until it doesnt. 293w av until the alp du zwift climb then hunger flatted pretty bad and could only manage 300w up the climb. Very fun.
Went out for a nice endurance paced century on Saturday - continuing my progression into the off season by increasing volume and letting my intensity fall off a cliff
Got talked into racing a 35+ corporate center crit today and won it (my first and last master’s race of the 2019 season). Definitely done with the race season now
Finished a 14 day block riding mountain bikes in Park City, Utah.
Long overdue FTP test and a new number of 302w
I used to ride a left-only stages and my last FTP test result was 331w. Couple of months back I switched to Favero Assioma Duos and saw a big difference in power that was due to LR imbalance (stronger left leg) and also stages v Assioma reported power.
Happy to have finally quit procrastinating and got this done 
Ramp Test today , From 276 To 276 , could have stayed in bed 
, looking to start ssbLVII now then going into build and start SSB again and build before the season starts. Last year this time i was at 229 ftp just starting with TR so really happy with my progress !!
I did a ramp test this morning following 5 weeks off the bike recovering from surgery. This apparently resulted 20% loss of FTP (which wasn’t that high to begin with). I guess my body has other priorities.
I’ve picked a plan and will see how my body responds. Guess I might need to do another ramp test in a week or so when my legs have woken up a bit, although I did Ericsson -5 straight after my ramp test and found even that quite hard work, so I fear the FTP drop may be correct.
Zwift Academy 2019 Workout #2: Race Practice
After a rare outdoor ride on Saturday, with some unintentional PRs on some steep climbs and a good 10 mile hike on Sunday, felt I could finish the last ZA workout before starting a short taper week.
Did this one back on the 8th August but it didn’t register..remember not enjoying it… again after doing it tonight, I can say I didn’t enjoy it again!
Dade + 1 this morning. Those 2.5 minute efforts are no joke. After the two warm-up efforts and the first 2.5 minutes my legs were cactus - you can see my cadence starting to fall off at the end of the first effort. Dialed it back to 98% (or 117% FTP instead of 120% FTP) and this seemed spot on. The last minute of each effort was brutal, but the recoveries were long enough to refresh the legs and go again.
I was watching the second half of Boomers v France FIBA World Cup match, and the Boomers comeback and win got me through the last few intervals!
First time spending 2.5hrs on an indoor bike. Boy was I glad of some entertainment in the form of the crossfit games to get me through the boredom. It actually wasn’t at all difficult and I was pleased with my heartrate which stayed pretty static throughout the whole ride, moving only 4-5bpm at the same watt output
Did an outside spin today ( weather was too nice not too ) tomorrow back indoors starting SSB LV II
Antelope +5 on tap for tonight
last night I kicked off 3rd week of traditional base, and already seeing some results. On Thursday last week did Virginia (125 minutes w/extra cooldown) - and sadly aerobic decoupling was a lousy 17%. Then on Saturday the same workout cut short to 40 minutes, and for the first time since starting base1 my breathing was steady and it felt great. Last night was Gibbs, another 125 minutes of aerobic endurance and this time my aerobic decoupling was under 5% so right on track with aerobic development 
Into week 5 of SSB2 LV, so Spencer+2 was on deck. Man, these were really really trying. I’m much more of a diesel than a VO2 machine, so these longer big efforts are outside my comfort zone, but I got through them.
So with the end of SSB coming up soon, I’ve been thinking about where to go next. I was planning on an event in late October with my club, but real life seems to have derailed that. Looking forward, I’d really like to ride the Horsey Hundred in late May of next year. I’m planning on starting Sustained Build Low Volume in a couple weeks, followed by SSB1+2 High Volume from late November through mid-January, followed by Sustained Power Build HV, and finally Climbing Road Race specialty mid volume to take me right up to the event. I’ll need to trim the last week from CRR to make it fit, but I think that should put me in a good place.
I’m a but wary of the high volume plans, but I’ve been pushing high TSS weeks for the last few months and know I can handle that kind of work…averaging 787 over the last 11 weeks, ranging from 681-973 each week. Any insight from those who have done HV plans in the past?
Carillion +1. Man, I find the SSB workouts brutal. Long stretches close to FTP - really tests my endurance. I know it’s a great bunch of workouts, but I have to play some motivating music to keep it going at the end.
First of all, if you’re going from LV to HV, that’s a big jump.
100 TSS from a 3hr ride is not the same as 100TSS from a 1hr ride. The efforts are different and thus the recovery is different. You cannot base your decision on TSS alone. HV plans require you have a good base, sufficient time to train, and especially adequate time (sleep) for recovery. Otherwise, you will be circling the drain before long.
