Testing week, as in FTP and VO2Max testing.

FTP test was on Monday. A 20 min warmup and then as hard as possible for 20 minutes. 3 weeks ago I was trying to hold 200W, this time I was trying to hold around 210W. I ended up with an average of 208W so my FTP has improved to 198W. I’m really pleased with this, but also know that this means all the subsequent workouts will be that much harder.

VO2Max was on Friday which was also the hottest day of the year so far. The warmup for this one was 45 minutes followed by a 1 minute full out sprint. I pushed this as hard as I could and paid the price in the heat. The 10 minute recovery seemed to fly past and then I was into the 5 minute effort. I wanted to hold around 240W for this but had to settle for 230W. I felt that my power level fluctuated quite a lot during this 5 minutes and I felt I could have gone harder but the heat played a part. Very happy to set new 5s, 1 minute and 5 minute power numbers though.

The weekend saw a mix of a long endurance ride followed by an active recovery ride. The endurance intensity was just the wrong side of comfortable so was pretty hard work. The average speed for the ride showed this too whereas the recovery ride was spent riding up and down Bushy Park at a gentle pace as the park got busier on a Sunday morning.

This was the first week with 5 sessions. The next 3 weeks also have 5 sessions each before I taper in the last week before the ride itself. It is getting closer and closer!