Also note that FTP is just one data point for measuring change in performance pre- and post- any training block or season. And depending on what FTP testing method you use, it can be a very poor one. There can be several points along your power duration curve that you may want to compare before, during and after such training blocks/season to gauge how well you are progressing (or not). And if you are/become a WKO5 user there are other extremely helpful metrics you can look at and compare, including TTE, FRC and Stamina giving you deeper insight into the real benefit (or not) of such training you are undertaking.
Have you examined your training using intervals.icu? It will pull your data from Strava and give many different perspectives. FTP is not the only measure of progress, just like TSS is not the only measure of work. As one example, on intervals.icu, they recently released a plot whereby you can compare HR to power levels recently and in the past. If you can hold the same power at a lower HR, then you’re more fit than you were, even if your FTP hasn’t changed.
Regardless of what you do, make sure you enjoy it. For some that means hitting your plan exactly as laid out, every interval, every time. For others that is group rides, races, event, real or virtual, etc. Good luck, and let us know how you’re doing!
2 Likes
Beside WKO5, Golden Cheetah is also an excellent analytic tool for analyzing your performance. It’s open source so not as refine as WKO in terms developed graphs and reports, but there is more than enough canned stuffs out of the box for the average user. Like WKO, you can create your own reports but unlike WKO, there’s more than one power duration model that you can choose from to estimate your FTP, stamina, & TTE and have the ability to adjust the parameters.
I’m pretty good with models and know enough about exercise physiology to be dangerous. The GoldenCheetah multiple models and parameter adjustments was too much for me. And I’ve worked in open source industry for last 15 years and know my way around software. As they say you get what you pay for, and I spent the $ on WKO and couldn’t be happier. For what its worth.
Luckily the defaults work pretty well for me and I use different models to estimate: FTP, W’, TTE, & stamina. I have WKO4 also but don’t use it much except as a validation to which of the GC model to use for those four parameters. I also use my PDC as a check also. I find WKO is just to clunky for analyzing my ride details and for periodic overview. I have a mid-range Dell with i7 @ 3.2GHz, 48 GB memory, and plenty of storage on a SSD where it shouldn’t take ~10 seconds to compile for each view every time the view/report is accessed. It reminds me of the good old dial up modems and AOL of the 80s. GC takes around 30 seconds for startup but everything is compiled ready for viewing and further analysis. For what I’m doing, upgrading to WKO5 is a waste of time.
I’m not seeing unreasonable delays with WKO5 on 2016 MacBook Pro (2.9GHz i7, 16GB RAM, SSD). The stuff I like to do can’t be easily done in GoldenCheetah (and I’ve hacked the source and rebuilt), but for the money its not half bad 
GC is a little too clunky for me, but I can see the appeal.
Interesting. The compiling delay is very noticable in their educational presentation. On my system it is definitely slower than Tim on his mac, around 2x. I had followed their advice to let it compile so it quicker o future retrieval but it’s a no go on my system. The program must be optimized for mac but not for win. I had an older Ryzen 5 laptop and the behavior is the same.
well it got faster with subsequent releases, and “reasonable delay” is a relative term. The athlete level can take a pause while crunching data, but at the workout level its 0.5 second delay for some items like dFRC to refresh (and same for refreshing when I select an interval). Totally usable and it flat out looks better too, but looks are also subjective.