Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Two relevant markers

 
Today was a good day to do a first test on my road bike. That is the FP7. I wanted to get an estimate of my current power at VO2max (determined by a 5 minute test) and my FTP (determined by a 20 minute test). I have a reference from last year as a first test on the road. In 2013 I did a similar protocol. That is only difference was that I also did a 1 minute all out before doing the 5 min VO2max and the 20 minute FTP. That was at a Powerclinic with Hunter Allen here in the Netherlands. That was end of March. In that winter I did a lot of SST and FTP work. Well my result at that time was 344 watts for the 5 minute test and 318 watts for the 20 minute FTP test. A bit on the circumstances: there was someone riding 30 meters before me that time and I did not want to let go of his pace. Behind me there were also people and I did not want to be overtaken by them....so there was a bit of competitive edge in it.
 
I did a nice warmup and started the 5 minute test. Normally to determine your power at VO2max you do this in a laboratory. However, the 5 minute test is a good proxy (just read some on the Facebook page of Andy Coggan). Below you can see the graph:
 
 
As you can see I started off a bit too enthusiastic for the first 3 minutes, those went at an average of 400watt. Last two minutes I kind off collapsed ;).  I averaged 370 watts, but with better pacing I would have done 380watts. What you can't see in this graph is some curves that came up on the end which brought the average down from 378 before the curves to 370. But anyway. It is OK for now. Also given that I weigh 2 kilo's less than a year ago. If I use the ACSM formula to estimate is:
(370x 10.8)/68 + 7 = 66 ml/min/kg. For what it's worth. Golden Cheetah gave 68.
 
Then I had a short break to start the FTP 20 minute test. I have to say. It did not go that well. Below you see the graph:
 
I averaged 306 watts, which was not quite what I was aiming for. I wanted to do 315. So a bit of a dissapointment, especially also since I suffered (and just couldn't get into a good cadence). Now that's not bad, but the feeling was just not OK. If I compare it to the first road test in 2013 my heart rate went up much quicker now. OK, I can come up with a lot of reasons why I did worse than a year ago and some are valid, but I am not gonna. It;s not the powermeter. It was zero-ed properly and yes the offset at start was -1017 and after 2 minutes -1015 which could give me just a few extra watts. Below the two intervals highlighted:
 
 
 
My simple conclusions for now:
* My FTP on the Kurt is approximately 5 watt higher than on the road
 
* My power at Vo2max at the moment is not that bad (5.5 watt/kg) although I did not specifically train for it. Actually I did not train for it because of my cough. I can't explain it given my training type
 
* My FTP is not very good at the moment
 
* The ratio of my FTP / power at Vo2max is 78%. This is not too much and quite low. This should go to at least 83% (the best ratio I measured last year). A typical range is 75% to 90% for very fit riders (source Alex Cycle Blog).
 
So in other terms the ceiling is enough for now, but I need to get the floor higher. Does that make sense? At it's true you know. My training until now did not have a lot of longer SST / FTP in it. I just started it. So....everything still goes according to plan............let's see if I can make some improvement Andy Coggan is writing about currently with his 50 minute SST rides.....

1 comment:

  1. The ACSM calculation of VO2 max may be about ~14.6% too high (http://www.hippokratia.gr/index.php/current/1026-indirect-estimation-of-vo2max-in-athletes...)

    ReplyDelete