Low pedal velocity / high force and Endurance pace

Yesterday I did a training which I do not do very often; low pedal velocity, high force. I did it too train muscle power. I do not do it that often because it does put quite some strain on your knees and (for me) back. You can see the graph below:

The ride was in total 1 hour and the figure above is the total hour. I did the low pedal velocity high pedal force mode for 45 minutes. You can clearly see that 63.1% of the total ride is in the quadrant of relatively high pedal force and low pedal velocity. I did the 45 minutes at AP of 315 and NP of 320, which around FTP. It felt OK and I could also see the effect of this in my HR. At FTP HR is normally moves up to around 170, but now it was more between 150-160. Average cadence was 80. See the cadence distribution below (my self selected cadence is around 88-92):

Today did 2 hours at 81% of FTP (Higher end Endurance). Average power was 265 watt (NP 272). Now I want to extend those 2 hours to 3 and then to 4 hours. At the end I was not very tired I only drank too little and my lungs felt a bit bad (maybe some smog I don't know). This is also something I have to practive properly; drinking and eating. Especially drinking because for some reason I get cramps easily. Most of the time they fade away but sometimes they only get worse.

 

Friday it's VO2max training and Sunday (if it's dry) a race. This time the race is on the same circuit as a few weeks ago (Training race circuit). It's a fast small lap. We'll see how this will go after a day in the zoo (walking all day ;) on Saturday.

And next week (Friday) something to look forward to.......construction the Dogma.....!