Strike whilst this iron is hot. That’s the cliche, I think best fits. There have been several days now where I’ve meant to do this FTP Test, but I have put it off. No surprises really, it’s a horrible thing to do.
But needs must.
For reasons unknown, I actually felt pretty positive about doing the FTP Test earlier this morning. I started the day fairly late, a lie in til after 8am, followed by a big bowl of granola and then a nice cup of coffee. From there I did a bit of work, but kept thinking: let’s get this done.
So I went and grabbed a Snickers bar (or the Tesco “fun size” equivalent), and started getting ready for my ride.
Firing up Zwift I found the FTP Test section and noticed there are two FTP tests. The shorter version, and the longer version:
The shorter version is the one I’ve done several times before. Whilst it does get the job done, I figured that given I have an abundance of spare time right now, why not take the more “leisurely” variant? Those 5 / 10 minute recoveries between the warm up phases seemed quite appealing.
Going into this one I had a target of 260w in mind.
I felt less sure about this after the 5 minutes at 270w / 110% FTP. However, as above, you do get a healthy 10 minute breather between that and the full test.
My breather was even longer as whilst I’d made it through the first ~40 minutes of warm up without issue, I could feel the blister on my right foot was really starting to rub.
I figured I’d stop for the loo with 5 minutes to go, that way I’d have 5 minutes to spin back up and settle back down. However, after that break, being wet and sweaty, the rubbing had been really aggravating even just walking from the bike to the next room. I stopped again and had a look, and my plaster had come off complete. So I went to the kitchen and got a new one.
All in, I think I must have been off the bike for 5 minutes. So slightly unfair, but then the 4DP Test does have you take an off the bike break, so maybe not?
Once the 20 minute test portion of the ride was underway I was immediately concerned.
I had remembered to up my weight to 67kg, but I had not changed the Trainer Difficulty back to 100% from Tuesday’s race.
There was no way I could stop at all, not without screwing everything right up.
The issue I was facing was that spinning at 95RPM was simply not producing the necessary wattage. At 95RPM the best I could hit was around 240w, and whilst I could “comfortably” hold that for 20 minutes, it wouldn’t exactly be a useful way to spend the time.
The solution, if you can call it that, was to increase to around 98RPM. That’s fine enough, but the faster the cadence, the higher the heart rate.
I figured I would just aim for 98RPM and adjust as and when I needed too.
The first 5 minutes passed by fine enough. After the 5 minutes at 270w, doing 5 minutes at around 260w was slightly easier. The goal in those first 5 minutes was to gradually bring up the on-screen average wattage such that it was above 260w.
My theory was that if I could build up a buffer in the first 10 minutes, I could then dip slightly in the second 10 minutes (if needed), and still hit the 260w target.
For me, two of the hardest minutes in every FTP Test that I have done so far are around the 8-10 minute mark.
At this point it’s just under half way, yet the legs are really starting to hurt, the heart rate is already very high, and it’s hard work mentally to see how I might hang on to this for another 10-12 minutes.
Passing the 10 minute / half way mark is genuinely a big deal to me. We’re over half way through now, we can see this through.
Every time, including this one, the next 5 minutes seem to pass by fairly quickly.
There were a couple of points around the 12 and 14 minute markers where I dropped a gear just to try to bring the heart rate down from 190bpm, only for 10 seconds or so. I don’t think either time really did very much. But it’s all psychological.
At the 5 minute mark you start to get the on-screen prompts counting down each minute.
This is where things really do get tough. Particularly, for me, around the 18 minute mark. By that point I am truly knackered, and today was no different. I could see my cadence starting to drop, and really it just became a case of keeping that figure as high as I could.
Interestingly today, I actually just targeted cadence. I didn’t really pay attention to the watts either on-screen or on the Garmin head unit. I just looked at the 98RPM figure, and tried my damnedest to keep it there.
Around the 1 minute to go marker, I dropped saw the on-screen heart rate measurement had dropped down to ~170bpm. I knew, from the feeling in my chest, that this was obviously not right, and I guessed it was over 190bpm at this point.
So I eased off slightly here and as I did so, the heart rate updated to show that yes, I was at 192bpm. Good thing I know my own body so well at this point.
Once I’d got back to 190bpm I went back to my previous gearing and with less than 60 seconds to go, I dug in with whatever was left. I think the change in cadence did not help me at all here. Fortunately it also didn’t have a huge impact on the result.
Crossing the line, I had absolutely nothing left.
There have been previous tests where I’ve been able to uplift just slightly in that final minute.
Not so today.
I was steady throughout, which I think is entirely down to that cadence target.
I finished up today with a new PB / new FTP of 249w.
If I take that at 67KG then that’s 3.72w/kg.
If I can get back down to 66KG then that’s 3.77w/kg.
I guess it doesn’t sound like much, but over a long climb it does make a difference. And honestly, I like those long climbs to be over as quickly as possible, so every second counts.
Overall though, very happy with this. That’s an increase of 3 watts from my previous test. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s movement in the right direction and steady progress. Given I’m not doing anything specific to grow the FTP figure, it’s nice that it’s increased as a result of consistent training.
