Training lately has been a bit weird. I finished SSB2 HV using an FTP of 300w, nailed all the tough workouts of 4x20 and 3x30 @ 270 (90%) at low RPE. I’m two weeks into sustained build and kept my target the same, and actually was a bit generous to myself and backed off the targets of the harder workouts preemptively by 2-3% and those were still hard, or harder than they should be. Coupled with that I had a really inconsistent week where I had to take a day completely off for non-bike reasons.
So I decided to go off script yesterday to reevaluate things and did Lamarck, basing it off 290w. I did the first two intervals just fine, the following 2 I had to take breaks. Although part of it is maybe I should have toughened up and tried to work through extreme discomfort, it could also be that my FTP is still 285. I’m going to do my workouts this week based on 285 and we’ll see!
But for my question. Do folks think it would be that common for someone to be able to do 80-90mins TIZ at 95% and above at the frequency required for SSB HV (assuming my FTP was 285)? Or is it possibly more likely that my TTE at 290 just plain stinks at the moment? For the sake of the post, let’s just leave out any discussion of testing, I know where the tests are if I need to do them lol
Too many variables to consider (bad day, fueling!!!, cooling etc) to make some assumptions from one workout. My personal experience with threshold workout is - I do not see correlation between doing SST and jumping to threshold in terms of RPE.
To clarify - I see overal fitness and maybe endurance improvement but first threshold workouts are hard. An example from my recent block (I can do 120min@90% in one go) - first threshold workout was very hard (and it was rather easy for me 4x15@97%). By third threshold workout everything was a lot easier. In my mind threshold workouts are completely different beasts than SST. I see a lot better relation with Z2 with threshold during the week, than SST combined with threshold (maybe some fatigue, or fueling issues).
So basically - try it again and check how you would feel this time.
I’d just say, you’re good at what you do. So crushing a lot of SS makes SS pretty easy, especially in my experience. But if you haven’t worked a lot at/above threshold, you might find it very difficult. I’ve been in that boat this cycle and had to re-train myself for working above threshold. It’s taken a few weeks but getting lots better now.
@hubcyclist is it possible that the work over threshold during the first two weeks of sustained power build were more than you could recover from? So your overall fatigue was just stair-stepping higher, higher with each over/under & VO2max workout during the first two weeks.
Then, throw in a little stress off the bike and suddenly you can’t recover enough to hit your sweetspot &/or threshold work.
I’m just throwing this out there as a possibility. You know yourself better than I do…does VO2max work usually kick your butt? Seems like you handled SSB HV pretty well so I would expect you to handle Lamark at -10W FTP setting if you weren’t in a recovery hole.
If I was your coach, first thing we’d need to figure out is how much of the problem is just due to stress off the bike dragging you down & how much is due to your physiology experiencing outsized adaptation stress under a VO2max work rate. If it’s the latter…cut out 33% to 25% of your VO2max intervals for a couple weeks. If you are scheduled to do 8x5min VO2max…just throw it into to slope mode and pedal through the last two or three intervals. Let’s see how things go.
Start adding VO2max intervals back in as you feel your recover allows.
Thanks for the thoughts I’ll post some screenshots here of recent stuff from the last two weeks. Avalanche spire was this Saturday and my Tsb was +15 after having to miss Thursday. The other 3 are the only real intensity workouts I’ve had so far (and hunter which is easy for me and I actually did mills really well). The workouts were all preemptively turned down 2-3%, since I felt it was going to be jarring to go from just sweet spot to over threshold work. So hopefully I can get my mojo back, I was really motivated and doing well through base, and was hoping to nail some higher power before returning to base to prep for CX season. Im personally ok with lowering the target if it allows for greater consistency, even if it isn’t pushing me to the absolute limit.
