After a couple of years of tours and competitive group rides I am going to give racing a try, so I will be starting out as a CAT 5 until I get my 10 starts. I have always been a stronger rider, but in preparation for racing I have decided to train pretty hard, with hopes of doing well. I have been training for 6 weeks and decided to do a CTS field test to get a baseline (I know I should have done this 6 weeks ago, but...).
For those who don't know the test consists of a structured warm up (10 min of easy and 12 min of a prescribed mix of efforts), followed by an 8 minute max effort, then a 10 minute easy pace, followed by another 8 minute max effort. You take averages after each of the 8 minute max efforts.
We did the testing indoors on a Cyclops trainer with a power meter. I did have a cold at the time, but based on my perceived effort I am not sure how much better I could have done without the cold. The 1st 8 minute effort I came out of the gate and tried to hold over 500 watts, which worked for around 2 min, before I blew up and dropped to around 300 watts, LOL
results:
Test 1: Average power-326 watts, Average HR-168 bpm, Average cadence-89 rpm, Max HR 192 (they have you go all out the last 30 sec to get this)
Test 2: Average power-342 watts, Average HR-169bpm, Average cadence-88 rpm, Max HR 192
The average HR corresponds well with my 20 minute LT intervals that I do on the trainer. What I took from it is that for me to gain power my focus should be increasing my cadence and threshold HR. Any other thoughts on how I should focus my training based on the #s? Any thoughts on how those #s compare to others (all I can seem to find for comparison is 5sec, 1min, 5min, and 20min #s)?
For those who don't know the test consists of a structured warm up (10 min of easy and 12 min of a prescribed mix of efforts), followed by an 8 minute max effort, then a 10 minute easy pace, followed by another 8 minute max effort. You take averages after each of the 8 minute max efforts.
We did the testing indoors on a Cyclops trainer with a power meter. I did have a cold at the time, but based on my perceived effort I am not sure how much better I could have done without the cold. The 1st 8 minute effort I came out of the gate and tried to hold over 500 watts, which worked for around 2 min, before I blew up and dropped to around 300 watts, LOL
results:
Test 1: Average power-326 watts, Average HR-168 bpm, Average cadence-89 rpm, Max HR 192 (they have you go all out the last 30 sec to get this)
Test 2: Average power-342 watts, Average HR-169bpm, Average cadence-88 rpm, Max HR 192
The average HR corresponds well with my 20 minute LT intervals that I do on the trainer. What I took from it is that for me to gain power my focus should be increasing my cadence and threshold HR. Any other thoughts on how I should focus my training based on the #s? Any thoughts on how those #s compare to others (all I can seem to find for comparison is 5sec, 1min, 5min, and 20min #s)?