I did a vo2 max at 5.1 today. I would have said my FTP feels mostly workable. I rated this workout “all out”. For a 5.1 vo2 max, is that what you’d expect, or is the intention for it to feel less challenging?
Not enough info to answer this.
- What was the delta between this 5.1 WL vs the most recent one you did in the same zone?
- This leads into the designations of the Difficulty like “Achievable” ,“Productive”, “Stretch”, etc. and can be a potential clue as to the likely challenge ahead of you.
- Are there any potential factors that could have lead to this being an All-Out effort, like poor sleep, lack of recovery, life stress, etc.?
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It’s certainly possible for a VO2 max workout to feel “All Out.”
Generally speaking, we’d ideally hope that not all of your VO2 sessions are like that, though. That said, they’ll still probably feel at least “Very Hard” due to the difficult nature of those types of workouts.
If this was a once-off instance, I’d second the points that @mcneese.chad brought up above. If you had some extra stress/poor recovery going into that workout, it would make sense that it felt “All Out.” If that was the case, you could try to go into your next VO2 session with some extra focus on your recovery/sleep/nutrition leading into it.
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Here are my thoughts:
- I would verify your FTP with threshold and not VO2max intervals. VO2max intervals are often the most challenging workouts, period. If they feel easy, the workout isn’t hard enough.
- In my experience, I need to bring my A-game to hard VO2max workouts. Just like @mcneese.chad wrote, I want to be well-rested, well-fueled and healthy.
- WL 5.1 sounds like you already are in the green zone (PL 4–6), which is usually an indication that your FTP is set correctly.
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@Jesse_Vernon1, it depends how you’ve approached the workout. Coach Kurt Braeckel has chimed in on the various VO2 max threads with valuable insight which is well worth looking into.
VO2 max zone is a special beast with two possible outcomes. There’s the riding harder for longer durations common to other training zones, but there’s also seeking improvement to aerobic uptake, hence the name of the zone VO2 max. If you’re pedalling upwards of 120rpm in order to focus on the latter, the power target could be easily achievable for you or it could be an impossibility. So PLs could be off quite a bit.
PLs are useful, but in my experience are not gospel. I’ve failed workouts because the recoveries are [purposefully] very short, when around a similar time I’ve passed workouts that are multiple PLs higher despite longer recoveries because they make you do substantially more work. I think those long interval workouts with short (sub-one-minute) recoveries are cruel & need their own classification. Looking at you Crag & Caldwell. 
I’d agree with a lot of what’s been said here already. 
The workout in question here is a 30/30 workout, so we aren’t talking about “traditional” VO2 Max workouts @roleypup.
@Jesse_Vernon1 I’d say that while this is a tough workout, it is a bit surprising that this one felt “all-out” since you were able to complete a very similar (but higher level) workout with less rest between intervals (30/15 instead of 30/30) last week and rated it “very hard.”
I’d take Zack’s advice and carry on without too much worry. My gut tells me that this one might have felt particularly hard for some other reason (incoming illness, stress, not enough sleep, nutrition, etc.). If your next VO2 workout feels less than an “all-out” effort, I’d say that you’re in a good spot. 
Also, as @OreoCookie mentioned, I wouldn’t jump straight to FTP when considering the difficulty of workouts outside of that specific zone. Each power zone has its own Progression Level, so while your FTP could be set perfectly and those workouts feel spot on, workouts in any other zone could feel different depending on what your PL is in that zone. Some athletes accel more in certain places which is why we have PLs. They allow us to fine-tune your workouts in each zone independently based on your abilities. 
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