August FTP test

I last did a FTP test on June 30 and I had an incease from 206 o 219, since then I have completed the Sufferfest Three Week climbing plan and put in another week on the TrainerRoad Build plan. I wasn’t sure what the results were going to be but I felt good and knew that my fitness was improving quickly. I had bested my 40k Time Time on the trainer but 2 minutes and had had a solid week of training.

As before I added an extra warm up time and teed up some motivational video! In total there were an extra 2 miles warm up/cool down. I stayed with FTP line and increased slowly over last 7-8 minutes. 5 weeks on training plan plus 10 days at altitude is paying off in spades.

This is the highest my FTP has been with a Power Meter, previously I had a high of 256 and that would have been using Virtual Power which is about 20% over real power on the Trainer!

Take one!

Everesting Week 4

Becca and I were very lucky to be able to work remotely for the first half of the week leading up to Ironman Boulder. Anyone who has done an Ironman knows that this is a 2-3 day event before you even get to the start line. Check In, Expo, Briefing, Transition drop off and so on takes a while to sort out.

Monday through Thursday Becca and I camped out and worked away. One thing we realized that we were an hour ahead of the West Coast and that gave us a head start on our workouts.

Monday. Ironman Boulder bike first 14 miles (The Nelson climb). Easy 5 mile roll out. Fast five miles on rolling roads. 4.2 miles climbing to turnaround. Blazing fast downhill will minimal coasting. An easy roll back into town! Fun times!

Tuesday. Lookout Mountain (Golden) Followed the Gran Fondo Piccolo route (missed first and last mile). Aim was to ride steady and solid up the hill and see where that left me vs the Gran Fondo ride 4 weeks ago and determine the improvement. Overall took 3 minutes off of the longest segment (33 mins) so that's a 10% improvement. Very windy descent down Route 40 so took that very steady and rolled back into town. Very happy with this.

Wednesday. Ironman Boulder bike first 10 miles. Apparently this is the Boulder Sprint Tri bike course! PZ2/3 ride round the first 10 miles of IM Boulder course. Lots of time on the drops. 

Thursday. Lookout Mountain. Really went for it today. I forgot to pack a HR strap so a new one arrived yesterday. I was at 90%+ of my LHRT most of the way up. Much more aggressive riding. Lower gear. Higher cadence. Better tangents. Took another 90 seconds off my PR! Very happy to go sub 30 minutes for the largest Segment (Pillars to Grave). That's over 5 minutes taken off my time since the GGF a month ago. Took a nice and easy ride down stopping for some photos and then missed a turning and ended up on the Freeway...oops!

Friday. Ironman run around!

Saturday. Rolling Loop along the Flatirons. Solid two hour ride with some seriously rolling terrain!

Sunday. Ironman Boulder you can read Becca’s Race posts; Race Report, Gratitude, Photos and What’s Next!

A pretty solid week with good climbing and realizing the benefits of the three weeks prior block.

111 miles in 7:24