November FTP Test

Plan change, that’s the nature of things. I had planned on riding the Search LA ride next month but after a quick email exchange with the organizers I was, to be honest, worried about the logistics. While I am accustomed to going out on my bike for hours at a time there was no real support or options for any water stops. The reality of carrying enough water for a 10-14 hour day as well as finishing in the dark was insurmountable. Even allowing for milder temperatures the consumption rate would outweigh my ability to carry enough and so I am bowing out. So that leaves me a with a somewhat blank slate for the start of the December; I have one more CX race mid-month.

An event passed across my radar screen that peaked my interest. The last Sufferfest Knight challenge of the year. Ot’s onlyopen to Knights, fortunatly I did my Knighthood backn in 2014 so I was good to go! It’s basically a mini Tour of Sufferlandria. The prologue is a FTP test. I was well over due for one and had planned to do one after I had finished the TrainerRoad CX Plan. I veered away from the plan in the last week as other events took over, (Nosco, DV Century, IMAZ etc) so now seemed like a good time to refocus and push through to the end of the year.

Mentally I scheduled the test for the Friday after Thanksgiving. I prepared myself as best as I could leading up to it. The test should take everything you have and there is no point setting yourself up for failure!

I usually use the TrainerRoad 20 minute test, this time I had to use The Sufferfest Rubber Glove test. It’s basically the same protocol but the warm ups are different. The meat of the test is the 20 minutes.

The basic description of how it went along the lines of; a classic off the front "breakaway" FTP test! Felt better than I could hold, sucked back in around minute 9 and spat out the back 5 minutes later.

My plan hjad been to hold 290, this would be 10% more than the target of 273 Watts. Here is a close up of the 20 minutes;

As noted I fell off pace just under halfway in and then went out the back. With all that said and the fact that it was a poorly executed That said my FTP just went from 249 to 258! I also improved a bunch of duration records.

I had to look back to confirm my suspicions but this is the highest my FTP has been since I have trained with Power, be it Virtual using TrainerRoad or real with my (now retired) Stages PM or currently in use Garmin Vectors. Testsament to the power (no pun intended) of the TrainerRoad training plans!

The Knight contest starts on the 30th and lasts 5 days, I report back at the end!