Bad weather so Kurt Kinetic

It was raining today so I thought -with 'winterseason' in the back of my mind- why not do a small FTP test on the hometrainer (Kurt Kinetic). I use Trainerroad for my hometrainer workouts. Trainerroad is just great. An enormous database of workouts and all can be related to powerzones. I pay only 89 dollar per YEAR! For that amount of money I am not going to invest in a hometrainer on which watts are measured.

I use virtual power in Trainerroad. This basically means that from the speed / resistance relation of the specific hometrainer a power number is calculated. Is this ideal? No. Because the power number calculated is dependent on multiple factors of which 'how tight the tire is pressed to the roller' is a very important one. Also during the ride because of heating up of the tire this pressure changes and thus the powernumber. Basically it should be calibrated during the ride to correct for this.

Then why do I use it? Because it is better than heart rate (especially indoor). Because there is no wind inside to cool one off, your body does not have such a good opportunity to cool down. Heart rate just goes up and at the same time (when you hold your heart rate constant) you can be sure your power also decreases (aka decoupling). More on decoupling on Joe Friel's site:

http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2009/11/aerobic-base-ride.html

I wanted to show you what the decoupling was for my ride on the trainer (which is shown in Trainingpeaks), but my heart rate monitor went everywhere (I think it's time for a battery replacement).

So, do I care much about how high my FTP is on the trainer? No. I only use it as a guide to base my workouts on and every now and then I do a new test to see whether I have improved. However, I then have to make sure that conditions are the same, i.e. the pressure of the tire on the roller is the same everytime. So, tire pressure also needs to be the same. I always check that. Will it always be 100%? No, probably 98% on average since the tire quality goes down after a few rides (so I have to put a little bit more pressure by putting the roller a little bit upward). Bottom line: always make sure that factors which can influence your workouts and monitoring improvement are constant!!

My average power on the roller was 300 on the 20 minute test, and by using the 95% correction factor for an hour FTP comes at 285.

Now. A year ago this FTP number was 323. How about that big difference? It has a bit to do with my form at the moment, but a lot more with the tire-roller pressure which was much lower last year. Also the tire I use now is different from the one I used last year.

A nice feature of Trainerroad is a.o. that you can export your datafile. I always export it and load it to Trainingpeaks. I use the download from Training Device and I drag and drop the Trainerroad file (.tcx) in the box. Simple as that.

Since my current set outdoor FTP (290) is almost the same as my indoor FTP (285) I do not care much about the small difference in calculated TSS, etc scores. When these start to drift more apart I have to change FTP in Trainingpeaks based on whether I ride more indoors or outdoors.

By the way, for a lot of people FTP is lower on the trainer than outdoors. It basically has to do with a lot of energy wasted by the body heating up. That energy is not put into the pedals. Some people use fans to keep it cool.

With all this said and done, the indoor season can start for me :)

To end this post here's the summary:

1h00m, IF 0.93, AP 240, NP 268, TSS 86

SST and almost lost my saddle

Today I wanted to do a SST (Sweet Spot Training). It has been a while since I last did this. SST means you ride between approximately 85%-95% intensity of your FTP. The idea is that you balance the volume of your training with the intensity. If you do not have a lot of time to train SST is THE way to go to increase your FTP (if we may believe the experts). In that way it's a good way for building up for a new season (not my main intention at the moment since I just wanted to experience the feeling again ;) For some more explanation here is one of many links:

http://www.fascatcoaching.com/sweetspottraining.html

Currently I have set my FTP at 290, since I am very much out of shape. This would imply that I should ride somewhere between 246 (0.85*290) and 276 (0.95*290).

I always do my SST and FTP tests with wind that comes from the front. The wind resistance just feels good, but I admit I also have to train SST wind in the back, its just a different sensation and producing the watts is more difficult (in relation to more speed). I wanted to ride 1 full hour around SST watts. However, it felt good so end of the day I rode a bit longer 1.15h and my AP was 275 and NP 286. Basically at the high end of the sweet spot watt range (actually a bit over it, considering my NP). But it felt alright something which I did not feel for a while. I was not very tired afterwards. Maybe my FTP is also a bit higher than 290, but I am not gonna adjust it at this time of the season.

The last 20 minutes of my whole ride I almost lost my saddle. I had to hold it while riding. This must have looked very awkward and everyone that rode towards me on their bike looked at me at a strange way. This was probably also since my face expression was not that nice....,my back really started to hurt by riding with the hand at the back of the saddle. People must have thought....where's the hand....

Whole ride statistics:

1h56m, 68km, AS 34.8km/h, AH 158, IF 0.9, AP 246, NP 265, TSS 162

Tired

Tired. That's how I felt after a terrible night. The kids were not in the mood and mum and dad also had to be part of that..........

2h38m, 83km, AS 31.5km/h, AH 143, IF 0.7, AP 187, NP 2023, TSS 128

Still have to fill in the duration and average speed. I could only remember the rest of the ride parameters.

Wednesday I will post version 0.1 of my trainingschedule in Excel. Still some small changes I need to make.  I already have some more ideas but those will take more time to implement. As I do not have an exact calendar of cyclosportives nor races the ideas will be for version 0.2 :)

X-bike, but Rotor legs and an evening highlight

Yesterday I had time to go outside so I went for a quick ride , because in the evening I wanted to go and see the new Pinarello 2014 Dogma gamma. Because it had rained the road was wet so I decided to do a tour on my X-bike. Getting used to the X-bike setup is OK, since I sit more upright on it compared to my FP7.

This ride also made clear to me that I never want to ride without my Rotor Q-rings anymore. On my X-bike I have normal chainrings and after a season on Q-rings I could very much feel the difference. I had the feeling of just pushing the pedals in the air, with no feeling of really pushing the pedals hard. It was very strange. Whether (scientifically) proven (or not) to generate more power with the same amount of input, my Rotor's feel a lot better.

Since I have no power meter on my X-bike I had to make an estimate. I just did that based on what I felt like it was.

1h38m, 54km, AS 32.7 km/h, AH 153, IF 0.8, AP 220, NP 235, TSS 108

As said, in the evening I went to see the new Pinarello Dogma gamma for 2014 in Renesse.

There were a lot of very nice 'ladies' over there as you can see and I fancy this baby only not with the Dura-ace setup but with Campa Super Record. We'll see what Santa brings me this year ;)

Sunday will be an endurance (or tempo) trainingride with my friend Richard. I was working on my Trainingschedule in Excel, but I am still not happy with it. This week I am not going to publish it.

Windy ride

Today there was quite some wind. Last ride I had on Saturday, so not really good to ride almost 5 days later: No surfing on supercompensation ;)

So today I just did a temp ride with some small intervals of several minutes. Just to get some lactate in the legs. 

1h51m, 61.3km, AS 33.6 km/h, AH 156, IF 0.9, AP 240, NP 261, TSS 149.5

Tomorrow I hope to do a 20 minute test on Kurt. Just to set my FTP for the coming period on the trainer. Trainerroad here I come.......

If the weather stays OK however I prefer to go outside as much as I can during the week (not in the dark...).