9th
78.5kg
Robert Kendrick tells me I should get a power meter. I know he is right but have been dragging my feet because of the money I’m spending out this year on getting married, upcoming vets bills and the fact that sometime in the next few months Steve Hampsten is going to say my frame is built and I need to cough up.
As an illustration of why I need one, last night I did a 2x20. As I have no number to go with I just do it at a pace I think I can hold for the whole work cycle. I used to base this on HR but this drifts so badly over the last 20 minutes as my body temp soars that you end up tarting far too hard and having to do a lower output for the second 20. So essentially I guess what gear and resistance to do it in based on how I’m feeling and what I’ve managed before.
In the past I’ve made an attempt to work out my LT heart rate and had that number at 161bpm (anymore than that and my HR would shoot up very quickly). I’ve based a lot of my training on that number but after seeing an average of 169 for Saturday’s race I started to wonder if it was too low.
Last night I set the trainer much higher than the level I was at this time last year (actually now on it’s highest resistance), and kept everything else as close to the same as I could get it. I put the bike 2 gears higher than last year and just went for it. The last 5 minutes were very painful (mostly in my head I’m sure) and my heart rate sat around 168 for all of that. I managed to keep my cadence up between 91 and 94rpm and compelted the full 40 minutes of work.
So it’s obvious my LT is higher than 161 (perhaps 168 or 169 but my first TT of the year will tell me if that’s near right). This poses some questions, have I got a much higher FTP than last year or was I just training too light? Is doing a 2x20 at this sort of level of effort too much? Where do I need to do my SST stuff?
I intend to use the 168 number and recalculate my HR zones using Joe Friel’s chart. that will give me a zone 3 of 151 to 156.
