Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Spring Time

It's Spring!  Yeah.  But, it doesn't feel like Spring.  It still feels like Winter.  In fact, I STILL have 5 inches of snow in my front yard in the shaded areas.  That should be gone this weekend with the rain and the higher temperatures.

So, did you meet your Winter Goals?  I did, and I have to pat myself on the back.  My Winter goal was to ride 3 times per week and to improve my Functional Threshold Power (FTP) by 25 watts.  I rode through the Winter getting out at least 2x during the week, one night ride during the mid-week on my Mountain Bike that was 1.5 hrs. long (in all kinds of weather: snow, rain, sleet, extreme cold, etc.) and a day ride on my Road Bike on the weekend that was 2-3 hrs.  The other ride was an indoor trainer ride (on my other road bike) in my pain cave using Zwift Virtual trainer.  Not to mention that I didn't gain any weight over the Winter (which is tough to do), so my power to weight ratio improved as well.  I'm still btwn 160-165 lbs.  Therefore, my power to weight ratio is now at an even 3.0 w/kg, which is analogous to Cat 5 power.  My Summer goal is to get that number up as close to 3.5 w/kg as possible, which is near Cat 4 power.  At almost 60 yrs. old, I'm ok with that.

My FTP in October was 195w and it's approximately 220w now (March).  Actually, I think my FTP is closer to 225w because my latest test was indoors and I know for a fact that your indoor FTP is about 10% lower than your outdoor measured FTP- for many reasons.

I hope you met your Winter goal.  If so, great job!  If not, make a goal for the Summer.  My next goal is to increase my FTP another 25 watts so that my FTP is 250w by July/August timeframe.  Good Luck.

Power ON!  Coach Rob