Goals Galore, v2.008

daveryanwyoming

Cool goals Musher. RAAM is a big undertaking, good on ya for taking on that challenge! It'll also be an interesting experiment in what happens when a strong TT rider with a high FTP starts working the ultra-endurance side of things. I have no idea what'll happen to your FTP or TT results, but I'm real curious what happens after a season of 36 hour training weeks. Keep us posted, it's sure to be a very unique racing experience.

-Dave

musher

Thank's Dave, i will post my race results and experience.
Ride hard, Musher.

rmur17

oh no. I can't see that ever happening. 420W 'seems' attainable this year ... 430W is my new stretch target.

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rmur

strader

1. This is a stretch goal for sure. Right now I'm at 4.2 w/kg and I can't loose much more weight. I am optomistic about hitting 4.5 w/kg and 300 watt FTP before the state championship time trial and cyclocross season.
2. Won my first race today. It was my second ever road race and I made a break with another guy about 13 miles in on the 33 mile race. We actually worked together (unlike last week where NO ONE would work with me) and opened a gap of about 2 minutes on the peloton by the finish. About 1 mile from the finish I dropped the other guy on a steep climb and hammered it home.

Steve_B

So you'll be doing this as part of a team? It sounds like it if the goal is to finish in about 6 days.

Steve_B

He will have a very large CTL and maybe a sore butt.

rmur17

update April 1st, 2008

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rmur

daveryanwyoming

Nice job! So out of curiousity, what's your total delta FTP and FTP ramp rate over the 5 years you've been tracking power and training with SST/L4? I have a feeling your steady progress over the last half decade would offer a lot of motivation to folks newer to this stuff and lower down on their own power curves. I also think it might give folks something to think about in terms of how quickly you do(or don't) reach your genetic limits.

Good winter of training man!

-Dave

rmur17

Hi Dave,
I found a post I made on another forum about a month ago and updated that.

1998 no PM, rode ~ 8,000 km (no racing mostly commute and weekend riding, age 35)
1999 no PM, rode ~ 7,000 km
2000 no PM, rode ~ 10,000 km
2001 no PM rode ~ 15,000 km or about 500 hrs (no racing but a solid weekly regimen)
2002 no PM rode ~ 18,000 km or about 600 hrs. Got back into local TT's at a good level. training partner did 2X IM that year.

2002 October baseline tests for FTP upon getting Computrainer 325W @85-87kg in quite good (relatively!) e/o season form.


2003 +7.7% (FTP as are all subsequent %'s, CT checked by PT Pro power, rear hub)
2004 +5.7%
2005 +2.7% by May then dropped close to 30% with a bad leg
2006 Recovered to 2003 level (350W)
2007 +14.3% (new training plan )
2008 +4.8% (but it's only April 1st , targetting another 3% or so, age 45)


Percentage FTP change over 5.5 yrs training with power: ~29%

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rmur

daveryanwyoming

Nice! Nearly 30% increase in 5 years and that follows 5 steady years of cycling and nearly 60,000 km of riding.

Can't speak for others but that's very encouraging. Sure we won't all make those kind of steady and continuous gains but knowing it's possible and that you don't necessarily cap out after a season or two is really motivating.

-Dave

rmur17

aside: An additional datapoint - in 2002 my best on the local TT course was around 31-min (30:51). This year I hope to hit around 26-min on a good day. That's about 20% faster ...

Now admittedly I'm comparing a road bike with semi-aero wheels and clipons, non-aero helmet to a full aero setup but a good chunk of that time drop is due to power increase. Roughly speaking I'd guess ~ 20% improvement in aero drag vs. 30% increase in power.

edit: BTW Dave, I think you're due an update of your own soon? Training is testing and all that ?

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rmur

daveryanwyoming

O.K. I guess it's put up or shut up time and everybody knows I'm not much good at the latter.....

Weight steady at 69 kg for the last couple of weeks, hope to drop another kilo or two before the big climbing races.

FTP 305 watts measured on PT SL via Monod. So ~4.42 watts/kg at the start of April.

4 consecutive Tuesday noon sessions on gym ergs for 55 to 75 minutes steady 305-310 watts but I don't take those numbers to the bank since I have no way to test the calibration on those machines. They agree pretty well with the Monod results above but I suspect they're 10 to 20 watts generous since I'm able to manage an hour plus on them during regular training.

So far no outdoor training with snow still flying and temps around freezing or lower but things are looking good for an outside ride in the next week or two.

Oh yeah, CTL hovering around 105 for the last few days, broke the 100 mark about two weeks ago. CTL ramp since late October ~ 2 points per week, sometimes a bit steeper but never over 5 per week. A couple of dips for life interruptions and one for a short bout with the flu a couple of months ago but more or less steady climbing all along.

So far I'm about 6 to 8 weeks(or 20-40 watts) ahead of power numbers at durations over 3 minutes compared to last year. Still behind on short sprint and AC efforts which I don't do too much of on the trainer and still behind peak season numbers from August. Sure hoping the numbers come up a bit when I get outside. A 5% outdoor boost would set new highpoints across the board.

Anyway, that's the April update. Week 23 of indoor training and getting hopeful but still a lot of snow and ice out there.

-Dave

rmur17

hi Dave,
Sounds like you've had a productive winter (soon segueing into spring I hope!). Keep it going!

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rmur

Sillyoldtwit

Well done Strader! How many riders were there in the field? Tyson

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