I still have to write up my L’Etape du California ride report but this has been a crazy busy week and I just have run out of time, it was quite the adventure though! Anyway with that said I was able to retest my FTP this week. Post L’Etape I took two days off and then re-rode the the TrainerRoad 20 minutes test.
Just a reminder the entire ride takes 60 minutes. Following a full 30 minutes of warm-up, a 20-minute time trial is used to assess Functional Threshold Power (FTP) & Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR). The idea is maintain a steady maximal effort for the 20 minutes and from that an algorithm adjusts this to represent the same effort extrapolated over an hour. I had tested during Week 1 and Week 8 of the Trainer Road plan and my FTP results were 206 and 209 respectively. I felt that the Week 8 test was “weak”, I was tired and had a niggle in my ankle. I wanted to wait till after the L’Etape just in case there were any issues leading up to the day. But based on the L'Etape 20 mins max ave power of >241 on Garmin Connect so I knew there was plenty left in the tank
So on Wednesday I set myself up for the test. Loaded up Cycling TV with the As Live version of Scheldeprijs a classic one day Sprint Race, clipped in and was off! 
After the 30 minutes warm up which I fully needed as my legs were still heavy the test started.
The TrainerRoad goal was 225 I aimed for 250 or thereabouts for the 20 minutes. The first 5 minutes was fine, the second harder, the third I was dragging my ass, you can actually see the effort start to fade. With 5 minutes to go I pulled out my stiff upper lip and upped the cadence during the closing minutes to increase the watts to 260 and then 280. Above is the result for the 20 Minutes test.
As expected a hard ride but my FTP increased to 230, from 209 2 weeks ago and from 206 9 weeks ago!
Needless to say I am happy…although that may well change next week during my Knighthood Ride!
This is the output analyzed in Golden Cheetah,I am new to using this application so bear with me, the yellow highlight represents the 20 minutes test from mile 8.63 to 16.63 so 8 miles in 20 minutes…hardly Pro but for a middle aged age grouper 24 miles per hour on a trainer is plenty!
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