Having spent some time reading lots of useful posts here over the past few days, it seem like a good idea when asking for help to gave some background information.
I returned to cycling last year after about 20 years absence at the age of 48. I did a few club races and TT's on about 4 or 5 hours training per week, so didn't fare to well. However the cycling bug had bitten again and I continued over the winter doing some short XC races which were great fun if not too successful. I was looking forward to this year but a back injury put me off the bike from February until 3 weeks ago.
So I am back on the bike again but as the road season ends soon I have decided to aim at giving cyclocross a lash, the local series starts in October right through to end of January. Being new to "modern" cycling and having just aquired a power meter I am keen to get up to speed fast and make the most of the 2 months before the cyclocross season to get as fit as possible. I have realised that 4 or 5 hours a week was never going to be enough, and have juggled things to allow maybe between 8 and 12 hours most weeks.
So to the crunch of my question. I know there is a lot of info on here, and I also just bought a copy of Training & Racing With A Power Meter, but I would like a helping hand to get started. As I have basically begun from stratch again, I reckon my power stats would be pretty low ( i dont think I did enough last year to even make much headway into building any decent power improvements ) and could possible have a lot of room for improvement initially. Is it too soon to do a power test ? and if not do I only need to do a FTP test to get started or should I test 1 & 5 mins as well ? What should I aim for in the next two months before cyclocross begins to get most use of this time ? Any other advice how to plan training to maximise training time to make best improvements ? Thanks in advance for any replies to my newbe questions.
I returned to cycling last year after about 20 years absence at the age of 48. I did a few club races and TT's on about 4 or 5 hours training per week, so didn't fare to well. However the cycling bug had bitten again and I continued over the winter doing some short XC races which were great fun if not too successful. I was looking forward to this year but a back injury put me off the bike from February until 3 weeks ago.
So I am back on the bike again but as the road season ends soon I have decided to aim at giving cyclocross a lash, the local series starts in October right through to end of January. Being new to "modern" cycling and having just aquired a power meter I am keen to get up to speed fast and make the most of the 2 months before the cyclocross season to get as fit as possible. I have realised that 4 or 5 hours a week was never going to be enough, and have juggled things to allow maybe between 8 and 12 hours most weeks.
So to the crunch of my question. I know there is a lot of info on here, and I also just bought a copy of Training & Racing With A Power Meter, but I would like a helping hand to get started. As I have basically begun from stratch again, I reckon my power stats would be pretty low ( i dont think I did enough last year to even make much headway into building any decent power improvements ) and could possible have a lot of room for improvement initially. Is it too soon to do a power test ? and if not do I only need to do a FTP test to get started or should I test 1 & 5 mins as well ? What should I aim for in the next two months before cyclocross begins to get most use of this time ? Any other advice how to plan training to maximise training time to make best improvements ? Thanks in advance for any replies to my newbe questions.