Same setup. Pushed just a little harder with Big Benledi. Felt good.
HR was 5-10 bpm higher for the same output than I was expecting. Could possibly be that I was spinning my legs faster to get in the zone on this spinbike with its coarse resistance settings. Could also be the virus aftermath. RPE was higher. Could be same, or could be because I was on a spinbike & going nowhere. (I find that, with all other things equal, my RPE tends to vary inversely proportional to my velocity. 
)
Last week as expected with last Holiday Monday being an extra cycling day (instead of a rest day) my plan adapted down and I just substituted my Tuesday commute for a recovery workout. With no VO2max workout todays workout was labelled a Stretch, Gendarme -2 (2 Blocks of 15no 30/30s @125%). I expected it to adapt down to something productive but it never so I had a go. I think the first block went OK but I should have ignored the instructions for the 2nd block to mix up (stand up, low cadence etc). I think they were mostly power efforts and never pushed into the VO2max oxygen zone much until the last interval when I returned to a high cadence effort.
I was debating between:
I think Iāve made the right decision, marking this week as a week off on TrainerRoad. Because even though I wanted to do all of the above, what I really need right now is a good old reboot. It may sound stupid, but I feel sort of proud of myself for making that call. It feels as if someone called me a chicken, and I had the power of will not to react.
I often find this the most difficult thing to do in training - rest, as in take a day (or more) completely off. Well done!
Itās been a while since my last TrainerRoad interval(late March), however I want to ensure my FTP improves over the summer and provides an improved baseline for the coming winters plan.
So I pleased with this evenings effort and benchmarks my FTP against my indoor metric. My indoor FTP is currently 256 against 289 for outdoors. Iām of the mind to always use the lowest number as it encourages focus and consistency. Iām loving the improved fitness this spring and how that translates into real world riding with my club. So overall my strategy is to primarily use the club rides to empty my tank, commuting z2 and a weekly mileage of 150 to 170miles per week (10 hrs) and supplementing TrainerRoad intervals to benchmark/ensure progression.
While Iām not overly focused on a FTP or w/kg 
Iām trusting the process of consistency, compliance and completion, although i see 4w/kg as a possibility.( 3.4w/kg based on my indoor ftp)
Updated plan with TR support and bumped up to vo2 4.7 for todays 4x5mins
Had to skip through the recovery intervals to make the school run, not ideal but a good sign that I didnāt need more recovery
Base & VO2Max & Speed
The plan was to work from home this morning so I decided to swim and forego the Thursday Hammerfest at Hains Point in Washington, DC. Weather looked iffy, too, with rain showers over night and high tide that floods the end of the point.
This workout is from one of the tri plans, but with a bit more base. 400 w/u, 200 paddles, 1300, 6 x 150, 6 x 50, 200 kick, 200 paddles, 200 c/d (yards).
Turns out that I got randomly selected for drug testing and had to come in to work anyway. Roads were dry, and this afternoonās showers are holding off. Guess I should have done the Hammerfest and swam tomorrow. 
Oh well.
TLDR: Iām just getting back into training.
Fits and starts this entire spring. No long rides to speak of. Just 4 days a week of commuting 25 minutes each way. Barely got on the trainer and rarely took the long way home. Friday I took the longER way home. 80 minutes, 60 TSS.
Oddly, with the weather getting really nice, I now have more time to actually train so I reset the training plan I had started with a December 2024 CX A race, to start today, rather than back in January. Low Volume.
Iām leaving my FTP set where it was (from January), mostly because I really donāt trust AI FTP predictor and Iām too chicken to take a 20 minute test yet.
Base block 1 started Saturday 6/1, with Epaulet. 75 minutes. Endurance 2.1. I added 10 minutes and rode it a little harder than prescribed. You can see I also did some spikes for entertainment value. 85 minutes, 67 TSS. Marked it easy.
Sunday was a light parenting day and I was able to carve out some time. Neige Endurance 1.5. 45 minutes. Trying to trust the plan and not overdo it. Marked it easy. It was.
Week ended with 5H44min ride time, 244 TSS.
StayCation started Monday for the kidsā last week of school and a bunch of volunteering at the school for field day etc. Plan had me riding Monday, but instead I was in the sun from 730-230 doing field day stuff, and again coaching club soccer in the evening. Moved the ride to Tuesday.
Seneca Rocks -1. Sweet Spot 1.8. 75 minutes. 69TSS. Marked moderate, but I think it was mostly from leg fatigue from chasing elementary kids around the whole previous day.
Plan called for some sort of achievable 60 minute sweet spot workout. I alternated to a stretch 75 minutes. Garroby -2 SS 3.2. 84TSS. Marked it hard, but it was a back-to-back days riding workouts. I didnāt struggle, and probably could have done another set, but it wasnāt comfortable.
Today was the kidsā first day home from school and itās not hot enough for a pool trip. I went to our local riverside path and played in the mud until I couldnāt ride further away. Pointed the bike for home and then cruised some city streets in circles until I ended up with 79 minutes and 58TSS. A couple of āno bike laneā sprints late but it was pretty easy. Marked it as such.
Iāll commute tomorrow and try to get Mono completed. Its 90 minutes/90TSS of Threshold 2.4, 4x6minutes with 5 minute recoveriesā¦ But āadaptationsā keeps trying to push me into a recovery-type endurance ride tomorrowā¦ Like every time I hit refresh. Saturday and Sunday are pretty busy, otherwise Iād be happy to push until Saturday.
This goes back to AI putting too much trust in big data, and not enough trust in analyzing my own ridesā¦ Yes, Iām 41 now, but no, Iām not actually off the couch unfit. Iām not a threshold 2.4 like big data thinks I am. How about this, Adaptives, Iāll not look for a 3.2 stretch, which I bet I could hit. Iāll ride the plan. (TR/Adaptations doesnāt even know I plan to commute, and Iām still pretty confident I know my capabilities better than their calculations).
If I commute and complete Mono as prescribed that will put me around 6H30min and 330TSS. (knocks on wood). Here goes nothing.
Did 2x45 Minutes Sweet spot yesterday evening, should probably have startet with 2x40, Heart rate went well into threshold teretory on the second interval and the last 10 Minutes were really hard, Feel the legs today and had a bad night of sleep since I was just to wired after that effort. Doesnāt help that it slowly gets warm in the cellar, 19C isnāt to bad but 80-90% Humidity makes it feel worseā¦
Commuted to and froā¦ Had a decent tailwind in both directions which is really pretty rare. Stopped at a little grass patch and did 2 CX ālukewarmā laps on the way home. 58 minutes, 40 TSS total. Got home and hoped to jump right into Mono but the fan and space was occupied by my spouse on the treadmill. So I waited about a half hour for her to finish.
Jumped into Mono with just one bottle of gatorade and one water. It was hard, but had I gotten another 5 minute rest period I could have gone another set of 6 minute O/u, maybe 2. I added 2 minutes to the cooldown because my OCD likes 5 minute cooldowns, and I had the time. I marked it hard. 92 minutes, 99 TSS.
Now I see the calendar has a āDonāt workoutā tomorrow warningā¦ I might get some errands done by bike, but I do have a very busy day, so thereās a really good chance I wonāt get any type of workout in.
Weekly total 6H19min, 350 TSS.
My 6 wk avg coming into the week was 223, and its now 243TSS, so yes, its a big jump but its not like I doubled last weekās riding in time or TSSā¦
Ending the week with some PLs that Iām confident underestimate my abilitiesā¦ Iāll start looking for āstretchā workouts on Monday again.
Today is a yellow day, & after Altair (1h @ 55-56%) on a recumbent spinbike in the gym on Tuesday (a yellow day) made Wednesday yellow as well, I realised it was likely that even a moderate 1Ā½h ride today wouldāve put me in the red tomorrow. Rain is forecast here on the weekend, for both days. I decided I might as well put myself properly in the bin by doing the stretch endurance workout Big Mountain at the track.
Rather hard work. Almost regretted my decision. Power spikes & dropouts in the warmup & the final work period because I was commuting. I couldāve extended the warmup & cooldown to do the entire workout on the track, but then I wouldāve exceeded 100km & Iām playing with my cycling mates by not collecting the GF badge (yet).
snipā¦
Ah, the joys of waiting for an AI model to learn where youāre at.
Meanwhile, Iām shifting focus: more on volume, less on intervals. Plus I have the RLGL slider on the conservative side, so my calendar is very colorful at the moment. How I feel on any given day is king though, especially how much or how little my glutes burn when I climb my ~15% driveway to start a ride.
Commuted Monday. 38 TSS. 54 minutes total. Tunnabora (Sweet Spot 3.6, Productive) after getting home. 60 minutes, 72TSS. Got bored and wanted to be sure I wasnāt going too easy on myself, or marking it lower on the scale than I should. I turned the last rep into a Batman. I ended up marking it hard. Oh, and a kid left the tap running into the only slow-draining sink in the house, so there was a 5 minute panicked cleanupā¦ Thatāll get your heart rate up.
Tuesday commutes only, 40 TSS, 54 minutes.
Wednesday TW day so I moved the scheduled Seneca Rocks (SS 3.6, 75 minutes, 77TSS, productive) to the 90 minute approximation I saw. Round Bald (SS 4.6, 90 minutes, 93 TSS, stretch). I was hoping to get it done during lunch, but I didnāt actually get 10 minutes for lunch, so it was an after-work ride. Completed it, marked it hard, but half the difficulty was concentration. You see that the final rep was close to whatever my FTP is set at from January. So 102 TSSā¦
Charity board meeting to and fro commute though, 25 minutes, HR-based 20 TSS in the evening.
Red light green light nonsense told me not to ride on Thursday, but instead, I commuted (stupid early AM start) and jumped into the forum looking for a way to opt out. Thanks to @mcneese.chad , Iām done being lightly influenced by that particular part of AI. Maybe Iāll turn it back on if I move into mid or high volume plans. Maybe Iāll just trust my legs and sense of internal fatigue vs motivation.
Friday is another stupid early workday (3AM alarm) , and I commuted. 52 minutes total, 32 TSS.
Saturday WAS scheduled as Beacon -3 (Threshold 2.5, 90 minutes, 100TSS, productive) and I ELECTED to jump to Tracy (Threshold 3.7, 90 minutes 103 TSS, stretch). Are sweet spot and threshold really so different that a guy riding 4.6 sweet spot rides canāt pull off a 3.7 threshold? So that was on my calendar until some old man decided to run a stop sign and hit my SUV with my kids in it. Iām pretty sure weāre all fine, car is likely totaled, but the stress of that put me onto the couch.
Fatherās Day I ate my bacon and bagel, had my coffee dawdled around a bit and put Tracy on the computer. Completed it, marked it hard and set 39x 2024 records for power. The last rep didnāt feel all that difficult, so I really laid it on for the last minute. I marked it hard, but it was a long, long way from āvery hard.ā 90 minutes, 115 TSS (103 planned) , IF 0.87 (0.83 planned)
My 10 year old has been begging me for a ride on the local mixed/rough surface riverside pathā¦ it has been too muddy for weeks and weāve been too over scheduled, but immediately after I got off the trainer another 10 year old showed up and off we went. Ducked off the main trail to play in the bandit single-track with a 10 year old leading the way. We had lots of stops for water, tired legs complaints and a child losing a contact. Also a stop at 7-11 for overpriced synthetically flavored sugar water. Fixed a flat for a stranger. But it was fun. 1H21 minutes riding time, 1H49 minutes elapsed time, 14TSS. 12.9 miles. Marked it easy.
Weekly totals: 9H29 minutes (artificially inflated by that kidsā ride), 466 TSS, 6wk average up to 277.
Ending the week with PLs that are actually beginning to reflect where I think I am (at least for the zones Iāve completed workouts in).
Of course, Iāve got a recovery week next week, so weāll have to wait and see.
Same sort of deal I think. Muscular endurance with a decent anaerobic contribution, just less so in sweetspot. That said, a 94% interval feels quite a bit harder to me than a 90% interval (surprisingly so), & theyāre both sweetspot.
Second or third week of a block, Warlow & Tray Mountain are kinda my go-tos for determining if my FTP is set correctly. Hard, but doable. Another interval might be possible but itād be all-out (or close to) by the end.
Every time I take a break from structure its like this. It drives me bonkers. I did a 151TSS 3 hour unstructured outdoor ride, and the next daysā endurance ride, Whorl, a 75 minute/55tss, 3.5(?) ride was āproductive.ā Cāmon AI, Iām not faking this outdoor ride, stop ignoring it.
Did 2x55m of Sweetspot (0.9IF) as 2 ascents of the Alp de Zwift, in preparation of the Marmotte, Realized again that I need to set Trainer difficulty in Zwift at max 60-70% or else it gets stupid, even at that it forces me into lower Cadence then I would have outside on the same Gradients, and anything above will give me unpleasant slip on the Suito. After the last week not being the best with lack of Sleep because of sick kids, Iām pretty happy with this, feel like my TTE is good for the event.
After seeing my heart rate back down near normal levels on Tuesday whilst doing the 1Ā½h endurance workout Andrews on road, I decided to ease my way into some intervals, so I did the tempo workout Malakoff on the track, with about an extra 50 minutes of Z1/2 commuting.
But the legsā¦ not so. I suspect Iāve lost 10 or 20 watts off my ftp thanks to forced inactivity in Z3/3Ā½/4/5, as reflected in my PLs, but Iām sure thatāll come back.
Next step I think is each week on rested legs go to 6Ć 13ā @ 80%, then 7Ć12ā @ 85%, then 7Ć11ā @ 90%, then 8Ć10ā@ 92%, then extend intervals again, maintaining TiZ.
Current focus is on endurance work, increasing TSS, with a secondary objective to arrest the decline in threshold capability / FTP, whilst recovering from the blasted SARS-CoV-2. Suggestions welcome; message me.
*** normally I take some effort to hide the actual watts in the posts because Iām a ābiggerā rider and donāt want to seem like Iām bragging, but for discussions sake, theyāre included here with w/kg conversions below ***
Since Iāve got a recovery week, I decided to let AI FTP detection work its magicā¦ It gave me an 11 watt bump in estimated FTP (3.5%) from 302 to 313 and reduced my sweet spot by 1 PL and my threshold by 0.1ā¦ Back to this estimate in a bit.
Commence recovery week!
Monday commuted to and from. 23TSS, 54 minutes. On the way home my knee wasnāt feeling quite right. (Skipped Lazy Mountain 18TSS/45 minutes).
And the knee was worse in the AM on Tuesday, which fortunately was a telework day- since weāre down an automobile I would have HAD to commute by bike if I were in-office.
Still not right on Wednesday, and thatās a holiday for my employer, so another day off. Not hard to convince myself to take it easy during a recovery week when some lower body part is acting up. (Skipped Totten Key 21TSS/45 minutes. )
Thursday just felt a little off, but much improved when I woke up. Commuted to and from, focusing on taking it really easy. 28 TSS and 56 minutes. Knee feels almost 100% by the end of the day.
Friday knee tightness reappeared in the AM, but down a car, I rode to work as gently as I could. Rode home and had to run errands on the way home. 37TSS and 81 minutes. Said goodbye to the SUV weāve had for 14 years by going to the tow-yard and pulling the plates off it, by bicycle. Hey drivers, donāt run stop signs and crash into other peopleās cars, please!
Didnāt get home in time to catch a ride to the pool with the family, so rode the ānostalgiaā 26" rigid MTB/ATB to the pool and enjoyed the heat. Rode home. 18 minutes / 13 TSS based on HR.
Saturday, the end(ish) of a recovery week I had inserted a 20minute FTP assessment because I still donāt trust AI FTP estimator. I woke up early and without knee tightness or sorenessā¦ I looked at the 20 minute blockās target power (319w) and knew I could do better. During the warmup I started playing with numbers and decided that an even 340w was both attainable and would probably put me about where I felt my FTP should be estimated given the workouts Iād been completing the last 6 or so weeks.
As Iāve posted in other threads about the 20 minute protocol, my goal is to go out pretty conservatively for the first quarter or third and to gently lift the power until it starts to hurt with about 5-8 minutes to go.
1st 5 minutes average: 332w.
2nd 5 minutes avg: 340w
3rd 5 minutes avg: 350w
4th 5 minutes avg: 347w with a drop that lasted about 45 seconds when my legs and heart couldnāt come to terms on a cadence or power level. The last minute, though was back at 352ā¦
Avg for 20 minutes was 342w. It was very, very, hard and put my HR in places it hasnāt gone in a long time.
But Iāve lost a kilo or two so I plugged that in and realized Iām at about 3.6w/kg. Obviously skipped the other planned workout for the day, Capulin a 41TSS, 75 minute spin.
Considering I rode the 5 minute clearing effort about 20 watts higher than prescribed (intentionally so as to not overestimate the FTP), Iām pretty pleased with the results of six weeks of workouts (and commuting volume).
188TSS, 4.5 hours. 6wk average at 295.
PLS are down moderately, againā¦
Sweet Spot Base 2 coming up. Starts with a SS 3.6m productive and then a 3.5ā¦ Iāll probably turn one of them into a stretch and see where my legs are at.
EDIT EDIT EDIT:
Sunday was beautiful. Rode outside with a friend. I donāt regret it. 45 miles, generally flat. Generally zone 2. 110 TSS 2H46 minutes. Garmin was wonky so both should be a little higher, but whateverāsā¦
Updated weekly totals: 7H 16min, 298TSS, 6wk avg 307 TSS
Congrats on the test result! I personally prefer the 20-minute format over the ramp & 2Ć8 too. My first couple of AIFTP offerings I was able to beat very shortly after, but AI caught up & since then in my 20-minute tests Iāve been putting myself through the wringer for one measly watt. I want to say, enjoy that ha-ha-I-beat-you-AI feeling while it lasts, but of course your mileage may vary.
Also note that the power target during the test interval is only set at 102%, not the 105.3% that would be required in order to maintain FTP. If you want a target that corresponds to maintaining-or-slightly-bettering your current FTP, you need to run the workout at 104%. (Set in the rest after the clearing effort, of course )
