The Wattage Thread

[Ponk]

Granfondo said:

Okgo is on the money with getting a coach but I would imagine the 6-9 hours is the stumbling block.

I dunno, I had a coaching session with a rider turned coach and he claimed to have maintained his elite cat last year on 6-8 hours training/racing a week.

It's all about making use of your time properly and I imagine for most of us we need help working out what that looks like. I certainly do.

[okgo]

I would think I only average about 9-11 hours a week and lots of it is commuting

[RGambo]

That's good info, thank you. I think I'll investigate getting some sort of proper structure in place and see what happens.
I'm happy with my fitness from a point of view of riding for fun, but it's always good to see some rewards for your efforts. I do actually enjoy the training, it keeps me occupied and my mind off my work and as I live with 4 women it's a good excuse to meet up with friends
I did my first 2 up for about 3 years weekend before last and we were 4th over all (missed 3rd by 1 second) , the winner was only 1mi 28 ahead over 25miles. That was Matt Rowe and Danni King. I was really happy as it was our first time riding together, my partner's first ever team TT, my first ride on the TT bike since last August. We plan on doing a couple more events this year and he was a little stronger than me in this event, so I'd like to get on a par with him, which I hope is achievable, but he is riding approx 15 hours a week. That was why I was thinking I may need to put some more time in.

[Ponk]

First attempt at a threshold test on the turbo (rather than rollers) and wow that was easier to pace. I was within 4 watts of my TT effort from a couple of weeks ago so the two seem to correlate pretty well.

Anyone racing the Good Friday races at Hog Hill?

[whatleytom]

I'm doing a High Wycombe TT Friday then racing at Cyclopark Monday. Weather for Friday is looking a bit sh!t at the moment

[anonymous-user]

whatleytom said:

If one were to get a coach for say a 12 week plan, is it best to go of recomendation? And whats a ball park cost for a good coach?

Its not about cost, more about which one 'gets' you. Just because somebody can quote that they have coached Toni Martin a few years ago doesn't mean you are about to jump 100w

Anyway.

Another setback and time off the bike with working away and then a less than amusing incident of pissing blood. I managed a couple of rides in Florida and as usual the Americans were pretty weak, this is the third time I have ridden with various groups and none of them would be able to handle the chain gangs I am used to in the UK....perhaps its the terrain being pan flat where I have been, dunno.

After putting a good few hours in and getting my fitness sort of back on track (although quite fatigued) it all dissapeared back to square one. However, I am utterly convinced now that the PMC is a crock of st and is not a good indicator of overall fitness. Jet lag and generally being knackered I figured this week would be rough on the turbo, in fact the opposite. Intervals last night were fine and I am holding as much power as I have all year and 20w off of peak last year (which I thought was ok for me). My HR has been high and I was getting worried that something was broken, it was..the Garmin HRM has taken it's 8 month dump on me.

I have fitted the new crank (P2M) to TT bike and it has been good. I have always had 172.5 cranks on the bike compared to 170 on everything else so took the opportunity to make everything the same. Not sure if its placebo but it is way easier to sit on power at upper tempo to threshold? The other thing that keeps on dawning on me each time I ride is how much difference it makes when you concentrate on pedaling i.e. not 'chopping' and actually making 'circular power'. In the last set of 4 min intervals I consciously thought of using my left leg more and the ride smoothed out, HR dropped a touch and power increased....it also feels very different and the turbo makes a constant drone rather than surging.

I've been kicked up the ass to enter a few things now so we'll see what happens in the real world and if the numbers actually translate to better times

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 10th April 13:42

[whatleytom]

yonex said:

Its not about cost, more about which one 'gets' you. Just because somebody can quote that they have coached Toni Martin a few years ago doesn't mean you are about to jump 100w

Guess not but that's going to be tough to figure out without just trial and error.

Still, did my second TT of the year, and managed 328w for 20mins which is an all time best for me. Not bad considering I started the year at around 260w. Sure I could do more as well, as the legs felt worse than average throughout.

[anonymous-user]

whatleytom said:

Guess not but that's going to be tough to figure out without just trial and error.

Still, did my second TT of the year, and managed 328w for 20mins which is an all time best for me. Not bad considering I started the year at around 260w. Sure I could do more as well, as the legs felt worse than average throughout.

My point was I know there are a lot of coaches out there who will happily charge you a good deal of money for what the sell as a tailored service but in reality they have too many riders on their books and churn out pretty standard plans. Have a snoop around on the timetrialling forums etc, people are fairly open to who the have worked with and are generally happy to share information

Looks like a decent gain though if they were like for like comparisons.

[Ponk]

whatleytom said:

Guess not but that's going to be tough to figure out without just trial and error.

Still, did my second TT of the year, and managed 328w for 20mins which is an all time best for me. Not bad considering I started the year at around 260w. Sure I could do more as well, as the legs felt worse than average throughout.

That's a hell of an improvement! Top effort. Is that with a coach, or doing your own thing?

[whatleytom]

Ponk said:

whatleytom said:

Guess not but that's going to be tough to figure out without just trial and error.

Still, did my second TT of the year, and managed 328w for 20mins which is an all time best for me. Not bad considering I started the year at around 260w. Sure I could do more as well, as the legs felt worse than average throughout.

That's a hell of an improvement! Top effort. Is that with a coach, or doing your own thing?

Just doing my own thing pretty much. This is the first year I've concentrated on just cycling and with a club though, after doing triathlon the previous two years. Have been racing on and off since Feb, and had a week cycling in Spain in March.

Racing and being in a club has pushed me much further than I would have on my own. Benefit of joining a club where all of the members are way above my standard!

Edited by whatleytom on Friday 10th April 19:20

[okgo]

You have likely seen the same jump I saw from summer to winter in 2012 or 11. I forget. I started doing the chaingang and generally training harder and I likely made a similar gain to you but with higher numbers perhaps. You've done it well with having the meter from the get go! What you may find is that it starts to slow a lot though now, about 3 years ago I did an all out test in the park for 20 mind and averaged 350 odd probably 360 on a fairer circuit without downhill and turns. Fast forward to today and I think on te road bike a 20 min all out effort would give 400w or so, not a vast amount more considering 3 years of 500 hours per year!

[whatleytom]

okgo said:

You have likely seen the same jump I saw from summer to winter in 2012 or 11. I forget. I started doing the chaingang and generally training harder and I likely made a similar gain to you but with higher numbers perhaps. You've done it well with having the meter from the get go! What you may find is that it starts to slow a lot though now, about 3 years ago I did an all out test in the park for 20 mind and averaged 350 odd probably 360 on a fairer circuit without downhill and turns. Fast forward to today and I think on te road bike a 20 min all out effort would give 400w or so, not a vast amount more considering 3 years of 500 hours per year!

Yeah, its been good to track progress, having a PMC chart to track helps to keep me so much more engaged. Fully expecting the gains to plateau at some stage, where is anyone's guess, although it's probably not far off I guess. One thing I've noticed though is that its becoming quite hard to make CTL improvements now, as it means average over 80 TSS per day or something, which when I'm only doing about 7-8 hours a week at the moment is getting harder to do. I can't imagine 400w for that long though, can just about hold it for 5mins up a climb at the moment

Still, I've got you to thank for introducing me to Paceline, not sure where I'd be without having trained with a club

[anonymous-user]

I really wouldn't place to much faith in the PMC chart, at best it's only half the story

[Ponk]

whatleytom said:

Ponk said:

whatleytom said:

Guess not but that's going to be tough to figure out without just trial and error.

Still, did my second TT of the year, and managed 328w for 20mins which is an all time best for me. Not bad considering I started the year at around 260w. Sure I could do more as well, as the legs felt worse than average throughout.

That's a hell of an improvement! Top effort. Is that with a coach, or doing your own thing?

Just doing my own thing pretty much. This is the first year I've concentrated on just cycling and with a club though, after doing triathlon the previous two years. Have been racing on and off since Feb, and had a week cycling in Spain in March.

Racing and being in a club has pushed me much further than I would have on my own. Benefit of joining a club where all of the members are way above my standard!

Edited by whatleytom on Friday 10th April 19:20

A club (and a chain gang!) make a huge difference. I built a good (for me ) base over the winter (to about where you were at the start of the year) but I'm trying to make my spring/summer a bit more structured and target my weakneses as well as pushing everything else up.

[okgo]

whatleytom said:

Yeah, its been good to track progress, having a PMC chart to track helps to keep me so much more engaged. Fully expecting the gains to plateau at some stage, where is anyone's guess, although it's probably not far off I guess. One thing I've noticed though is that its becoming quite hard to make CTL improvements now, as it means average over 80 TSS per day or something, which when I'm only doing about 7-8 hours a week at the moment is getting harder to do. I can't imagine 400w for that long though, can just about hold it for 5mins up a climb at the moment

Still, I've got you to thank for introducing me to Paceline, not sure where I'd be without having trained with a club

More hours I guess! While pmc isn't everything and I don't even bother to look at it anymore, I've always gone best after ling spells of lots of training.

Yep the club has lots of good riders and a healthy team for the Surrey L stuff for sure.

[nammynake]

So it seems that the hard Winter miles have had some benefit. Out in Mallorca at the moment and rode up the Puig Major climb yesterday - 8.5 miles and 2748 ft at 6% average. Rode it 6 months ago in September and managed it in 51m51s (VAM 969). Pleased to knock 5 minutes off that yesterday, doing it in 46m51s (VAM 1073).

Training for a 7 day event in July, so it's been good to gauge my fitness and work on pacing for long climbs.

[anonymous-user]

okgo said:

More hours I guess! While pmc isn't everything and I don't even bother to look at it anymore, I've always gone best after ling spells of lots of training.

Yep the club has lots of good riders and a healthy team for the Surrey L stuff for sure.

The gains I found were always following 2-3 days after a z1/z2 3hr rides. Always fly after that for a couple of days until fatigue kicks in. Best ever was 3 days after Tenerife, suddenly I was top 5 on all the hills...which for me is akin to walking on water whilst writing the equation for eternal life.

I saw Paceline RT, did you form it?

[okgo]

So you should z1/2 rides should bring on a positive tsb as they're not hard!

No a mate of mine did.

[nacnac]

I would be interesting in knowing how well people can sustain their FTP at the end of a ride / race?

I managed to hold my FTP for 25 mins after about an hour of racing which included around 10 minutes of Z6 and Z7 digs so I was far from fresh going into the final climb.

I suppose as I haven't done many races and certainly none where I had to work so hard beforehand I have very little to compare it to. The best I have managed in training was 94% of FTP but that would have been after a much longer ride and I remember that being a real slog.

Edit: My FTP is probably a little higher than it's set which plays a factor but as I'm spending more time on the TT bike i'm reluctant to change it.

Edited by nacnac on Tuesday 14th April 23:05

[okgo]

By definition its likely impossible anyone will be able to do 100% of their best at the end of anything, but you should reasonably expect to be able to do 90%+ of if pending the length of the race beforehand. However any time spent at that max level in early parts of a race can dull your legs noticeably. I remember a race late last summer - https://www.strava.com/activities/181466993 - and you can see I went on a solo attack at just after mile 32 which lasted around 20 minutes before the wind slowed me too much and the bunch caught me. Looks to be around 370w there which is probably around my FTP, I later got into another break at around mile 48 (which we made stick to the end) and my legs were in bad shape, so much so that I had nothing by the last hill and rolled up last of the break by some way. I can only conclude that the earlier 20 min effort had taken a fair bit of energy from me.