On the Rise

My training is going well. This month I have tested different zones to see where I am at strength/weaknesses. For being a Cat. 3 racer all my power zones 5 sec., 1 min., 5 min., and 20 min F.T. the program says that I am a strong Cat. 4 racer. WOW, that is like a kick in the balls, that will put a person into perspective if they/me are feeling strong.

Anyways, I did a 20 min. F.T. (functional threshold) test last night and by the way the last one I did was at the end of March. My training this week lead up to this meaning that Monday was off, Tuesday I did a little warm up for the test and Wed. I did a short workout keeping the legs fresh and ready to work. So, with the prior workouts I didn't have a very good feeling about my test, felt weak or well at least felt that I wasn't going to be as strong as I was in March.

I did my little warm up before doing the test and I still really wasn't feeling it. I am still practicing the pacing of this workout, which can make or break you. The first 5 min. I started 15 watts lower than what I thought I could hold for the whole this. The next 5 min. I ramped it up just a little and did it again the next 5 min. and then the last 5 min. I went even harder all the way to the end time. These workouts are very hard physically and mentally. Wow, that was tough, but WOW I beat my power, new high for me this year.

My power didn't go up a lot, went up 8 watts, but in my mind up is always a good thing. I know it is the end of the year for me and I don't have any races in the near future, so I need to watch myself not to over train at all and give myself a break.

How am I doing this? By using my Training Peaks Software and watching my TSS (train stress score). I am very new at this program and am still learning how to use it and having it make sense to me is even more of a challenge.

So, with this software I download my workout and then I can analyze just about everything in my workout. I compared this FT test to March's and what I did notice was in March I jacked my HR up and held it there. This time it was on the rise the whole way and never maxing out. What does that mean? Not sure, but if I were to guess, I would think I could have gone a little harder. My avg. hr for this time was @ 10 beats lower than March's. My cadence was high this time, which makes sense, because I have been conscious about working on upping my cadence, and my power was up, so all in all, I will call this a win in my training. I am hoping to rise my F.T. through out the winter with out over training and only time will tell how this work out for me.