I made it to track Monday night. By "made it" I mean I didn't want to go, procrastinated, got there late (to be fair they have a "come when you can" policy), barely did the prescribed workout, and had to leave early. I was about 5 seconds away from bailing completely so I'm counting those 4 miles as a victory.
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| But at least I made it. |
I’m still very new to Trainer Road and am figuring out all the features and quirks. After I did my first 20-minute FTP test to see how hard my effort should be, I noticed that my target power felt a little easy on the subsequent rides. I slacked off was a bit too conservative during that test, it appears.
So I sucked it up and did the 8-minute test earlier this week. I really tried to pace as well as I could for those two 8-minute stretches, and it felt hard but doable. The result is my new FTP is 15 points? Degrees? higher. (You can see in the graphic what my goal was and what I actually rode at.) Of course, that means my workouts are going to be harder from now on. But, I’m not going to improve by slacking off.
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| My actual FTP is cropped out because it's too embarrassing. |
I have been putting out work fires all week and after work yesterday I had to hit the grocery store and then take the mutts for their walks. It was coming up to 7 o'clock and I still had to make dinner AND prep lunches for the next two days, and I just decided then and there, F it. Yoga pants got put on instead of workout pants. And the sad thing was I STILL got to bed too late even though I didn't work out at all!
I got home late-ish again today but I had the benefit of already having tomorrow's lunch ready to go and a simple meal planned (countertop grill and microwave veggie steamer for the win!). It was in the 90s and I didn't want to deal with the heat so I rallied for 3 miles on the treadmill and a weights video. (Why does my 65-minute video feel SOOOOO much longer than my 55-minute video?) I didn't wrap up until almost 9 but seriously, doing anything this week has been an accomplishment.
Now I'm heading to bed way too late once again, but at least tomorrow is Friday.
15 watts is huge! Well done. Enjoy the harder workouts ;-)
ReplyDeleteOne piece of unsolicited advice (sorry): it's best to use the same type of test consistently so that you control as many variables as you can when you FTP test. The TR guys say that it doesn't really matter whether you use the 8 minute test or the 20 minute test as long as you pick one and stick to it.
Haha, it's fine! I figure the truth is somewhere between the two tests. ;)
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