Yeah.
I think that’s the only logical explanation.
Ever since I failed hard on my 4DP test I’ve felt the need to prove myself. Every ride.
Well… not every ride. I let myself off yesterday.
But most rides lately I seem to be smashing myself. So much so even the Garmin has started calling me out on it.
Unusually for a road ride, tonight I went out with a plan.
The plan was simple really:
Head out to my favourite TT-esque loop and hold 220w average for 20 minutes.
But that kind of went out of the window. For reasons that shall likely forever remain unknown to me, I decided to just gun it. I think that loop brings out the sadist in me. It’s a fairly flat loop, but it is mildly down hill on the first half, and … kinda obviously, mildly back up hill on the way ‘home’.
I was way over 220w on the way out, seeing spikes up around 260-280w whenever I looked down. After the third or fourth glance I thought: to hell with it, lets just floor it for the full loop.
One thing I wasn’t aware of was whether or not it might take ~20 minutes to do. And that all comes back to that 4DP test issue. The 20 minute test.
I feel like I need to prove to myself that I’m better than my poor performance.
It’s not quite fair to say that the FTP bump the Garmin wants to give is truly accurate. I do trust a ‘steady’ turbo session for a better FTP figure. But it’s reassuring.
When I got back I said to my wife how I’d just done my best ever 20 minute effort. She said oh, it’s because you’d just had your tea. A big jacket potato gives you lots of energy.
Now. I’m not crazy enough to argue. Heck, I don’t know the science. But maybe there is something to it. Maybe not.
What I do know is that riding in the evenings as I have been as of late is forcing me to ride after meals.
That’s partly because I don’t want to head out in rush hour, and partly because I’m feeling so thrashed around 5pm that the thought of riding a bike has to be delayed for a while till I mentally recover.
But maybe food is a big factor here. I do feel crappy setting off on a full stomach, but that feeling goes fairly quickly – usually within 10 minutes – and then I have been feeling better after that.
So who knows? Scientists, probably.
