As usual, honest feedback that is much appreciated. Thanks!
Some good news from the weekendā¦finally saw (and felt) some marked improvement. My standard gravel loop was 10 min faster and 10 W higher than previous efforts the last month or so. Woohoo!
Alrighty Coach Jakeā¦it is seeming increasingly likely that races will continue to be canceled into the fall. Iāve now completed SS1 (low volume), SS3 (mid volume), and SS2 (mid volume). Since I am coming off SS2, would it make sense to do another SS3 followed by SS4 to maximize base? Or just switch to something like the crit plan (to focus on a major weakness of mine) and then consider SS3 or SS4 the following 6 weeks?
Of course, Iāve got two weeks left to complete SS2ā¦so there is a little time to make a decision. Probably have one of the bases of my lifeā¦so at least some progress has been made even if there is no major increase in FTP. Thanks for your feedback.
S
I would recommend sweet spot 4! That plan is a great plan! You will get in that high intensity with Vo2 max intervals. But also some sweet spot work so you donāt completely lose what you have put into building. The Vo2 max efforts come after a couple of rest days so you can really get at it. Itās a step up from ss3. The finish of that would be 8 - 9 weeks from now. At that point we should have a much better understanding of where racing is at or not at. And at that point really unless you are racing into October / November you could look to do a higher intensity plan like the road race interval plan, criterium plan or Strava plan.
Time to work on the upper end and your anaerobic engine. Donāt want to go a whole year on base training. FTP is just one metric to look at. It is also important to note your whole power duration curve. So by mixing in these higher intensity intervals we will be able to build on that. Also its about being able to put out the power even when 2, 3 or 4 hours into a ride, not just an absolute number when fresh. Repeatability which comes from consistent training.
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^^What Coach @Jake said. Its time to not necessarily switch from base to race like when there were races but rather time do do both Vee-Oh-Twos and sweet spot training:
K. Message received. Iāll plan on SS4.
S
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Coach Jake,
When you have a moment, Iād appreciate a little feedback on the training data that was uploaded to TP this past week. Long story short, I didnāt quite #ftFTP this past weekend, and ended up doing a ātestā ride on Sunday. Not sure whether to use the 20 min or 60 min data to calculate FTPā¦and whether to use power or normalized power. Good news, the last 20 weeks have finally yielded some gains.
My preference is to update my FTP before heading into SS4 this week. Iāll be starting that tomorrow and would appreciate altering the workout on Tuesday to substitute a workout in place of the field test.
As usual, thanks for your input.