Oh mercy. Well, thank the Good God Almighty this one is over with. It’s not like I didn’t want to do an SST session. Far from it. I really wanted to get a proper comparative effort, and this is one I know, like, and trust. But this one hurt.
Last night it rained a bit, but I didn’t expect it to be wet on the ground this morning. However, when I opened the curtains at 7:30 it was soggy out there. I resolved there and then that today would be a turbo session. And no wimping. This would have to be something fairly intensive.
My theory with SST is that the pain is pretty constant. It’s 40 minutes at 90-95% FTP, but you know that a) it’s controlled, and b) it will be over for a good calorie burn in that set time limit. Not like an outdoor ride where it lasts longer, but I can take my foot off the gas whenever I choose.
Where things got horrible today was in that final ‘on’ block.
Last night I was thinking to myself that in all likelihood, my FTP must have dropped somewhat in my time off the bike due to injury.
Therefore I suspect I was above 95% in the on blocks today. That’s most evident in the heart rate graph that proves my heart rate was running away from me. I could never quite recover in each of the ‘off’ blocks sufficiently to stabilise. That’s a bad sign for sure.
By that final block I was dying. Soaked, sore, and swearing. I’m pleased with myself for not giving up, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to at the time.
Annoyingly, it didn’t record to Strava today.
I’m almost certain now that my FTP has dropped. It’s no big deal, it’s just a figure to work back towards and eventually… hopefully, surpass.
Sessions like this, whilst killer, are the way to get back there.
There’s also the fact that with riding outdoors so frequently, I have lost my way with the indoor structured stuff. That may or likely is also playing a part here.
Anyway, a solid session. And one that’s made me not feel bad at all about taking a nice, more leisurely outdoor ride (weather permitting) tomorrow dinner time.