An FTP fail (but a plan forward)

I need to do more of this.

Monday was a training first for me: I failed my regular FTP test.

By “failed” I mean when it was all over, my new recommended wattage target was lower than my previous wattage target from the last time I tested about 8 weeks ago. It was lower by 5 points, which … seems like a lot. Blech. I declined the new number.

I knew by minute 16 or 17 that I wasn’t going to last much longer – my legs were already burning and fatigued. I really don’t think I could have worked any harder, though. By the time I tapped out my husband had wandered over to make sure I was ok because I was breathing so hard – haha! Yes, honey, I’m fine; I’m just not in as good of cycling shape as I would have hoped.

The only thing that sticks out to me as a reason is that I haven’t been sleeping well (story of my life) and that I’m pretty stressed in general. I did run “long” the day before, but long runs for me these days are about 7 miles, and I felt fine the next morning, so I don’t think that’s it. Nutrition was nothing out of the ordinary for the preceding two days, although I had had a good amount of junk food in the preceding week. I hadn’t done weights in a week, either, so my legs weren’t still sore from too many lunges or anything like that.

I don’t think there’s much else I can do except try again in a couple of weeks. I’m going to plan for mid-week, which should eliminate any real or imagined long-run fatigue. I’ll make sure I have a snack an hour or so beforehand. The only thing I can’t plan for is a good night’s sleep, but I can hope.

A friend suggested adjusting my FTP manually, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to do that yet. Maybe when my workouts are feeling super easy and I’m still failing my tests, that will be something to consider. For now, I’m going to keep working hard for a few weeks and see what happens. Imagine that! Working hard toward results. Huh.