Bike training based on wattage

Is that the coolest dog you have ever seen or what !?

Its like a small bear . . . and now that I have met him he has gone straight in at number 3 on the “pets I’d love to have”. Number 2 is a Silver Back Gorilla and number 1 a big lazy Lion.

Can you imagine my Lion ? I’d call him Jim. There he is lying on the couch with the remote, staying out of the Shire sun - I’d take him for a walk to Tesco without being bothered by the Big Issue boy, let him answer the door to when the Holy’s come round etc etc (its my blog and therefore my dreams !).

Anyway moving swiflty along, training has gone fine so far this week and I will race in Blenheim Palace at the weekend. I am getting into a familiar routine with my 3rd weekend on the trot to the Airport.

Over my reflection porridge I am thinking about WATTS these days.

If you work with power there’s an initial simple test you can do without having to go to into the lab and it’s just a 20min time trial - you take your average wattage and subtract 5% (multiply it by 0.05) to get a theoretical threshold power or functional threshold power (FTP).

Of course there is a wide explanation around this but to save us all some time thats it in a nut shell ! So once you have your FTP you work out all your different riding zones - and then probably turn into a bit of a prick to ride with - my main usage will be for when I ride hard alone I promise.

So I did a 20min test before joining in with one of the chain gang rides the other night - I got my magic number and I am working from there. Working just above it, working on it, working just below it, working at double it (thats a bitch), riding at a number which is meant to feel like I am not working at all etc etc its all very exciting stuff.

BUT  (and here are the main points of discussion with Mr Voice over my cereal) ….

Whats the difference with my WATTS when I am riding fresh and then having just smacked out a swim?  For me one of the hardest parts of the race is exiting the swim and the first 5k on the bike.

How can I get better at this ?

Swim more efficiently ? Increase my FTP ? Increase my max power ? Be more skilled in Transition ? More and/or better Swim-Bike bricks ? Manipulate my diet ? Be more specific in my bike training ?  . . . . there was a long list

We came to a conclusion this morning just before the last mouthful of Scottish Porridge oats mixed with milk, raisins, apple, banana, vanilla protein and random seeds - and it was

YES

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