A Week Of Testing

I've done a number of tests this week. It's been pretty cold and I have found it hard. My legs just never seem to feel supple in this weather but I'd scheduled to test myself so that was that:

20 min test ~ It was the first effort like this that I've done for a while and as far as pacing was concerned it was a disaster. I also used a slightly different route to my normal one and I'm not sure that the last couple of miles were the most suitable. Anyway I managed 320W watts and I always reckon that my FTP is around 4% less than 20 min power. That puts my FTP at 310W which is what I thought it was after a 40 min test at the beginning of November. Still despite my reservations about the quality of the test, 320W was what I managed on the day so my training zones will be based around 310W until next month's test. I'm between 10 and 15 watts below what I was in June.

5 min test ~ This was a good test that I did on Beacon Hill. I had a good hour warm up and really went for it. I was pleased with 379W average, on a par with anything I'd managed during the season.

1 min test ~ Again, a test on a steady gradient. I really drilled it for 60 secs and found myself hanging on for the last few meters. Power was dropping dramatically! 556W average compared to a season's best of 562W

10 sec test ~ The best of 3 efforts was 840W and I think that the cold definitely affected the outcome. I managed 110W higher in November which was higher than my best effort during the summer.

My current weight is 78kg (172lbs), 2kg higher than I was in the summer. Current power to weight ratios and ability with reference to the Coggan/Allen power profiles are:

FTP 3.61 w/kg (moderate)

5 min 4.86 w/kg (good)

1 min 7.13 w/kg (fair)

5sec 12.25 w/kg (untrained)

My priority for the next four weeks is to emphasise aerobic endurance training. In addition I'll do a weekly quota of sub-threshold and sweet-spot training. I'll also alternate weekly with a token amount of level 5 and 6 as per the last few weeks. During my aerobic sessions, I'm going to add in some fast pedalling drills and jumps where I try to develop technique rather than raw power. 

These tests were measured using SRM cranks. Back in early November, after much deliberation, I calibrated both SRM units to my Powertap hub. I did this on the turbo whilst riding for 5 mins at 100W then increasing 50W for another 5 mins until I'd completed 5 mins at 350W. I then checked the average watts for each power meter for each 5 min effort and adjusted the SRM slopes until I got parity. The results were very linear and correlated within less than 1%. The wattages that I am reporting are lower than if I'd got the slopes set at the SRM factory settings. As I'd written previously, I spent a fair amount of time calibrating the SRM cranks using static weights, but with the Powertap comparison I am doing a real life dynamic test. I am very confident that my power meters have very good agreement even if the absolute values may not be true.