Riding by the Numbers

rottin'

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Great stuff @BrianGT3 I raced there a few years ago and it was sooooo fun. Except the first climb up "Leaf Hill". Or maybe it was the third? Dunno, but that course was a blast. Hope to get up there again
 

StayHydrated

Swedish Chef
I’m planning to post of a more in depth review as a separate post at some point this coming week and won’t go into much detail on my thoughts here other than the bike freaking rocks!)
Looking forward to the deep dive on the Blur! I'm on an Epic now, curious to see what you think coming from that to the Blur.
 

Magic

Formerly 1sh0t1b33r
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Looking forward to the deep dive on the Blur! I'm on an Epic now, curious to see what you think coming from that to the Blur.
Yes! Also have been eying it up for a while. Hoping for new colors next year or so.
 

Dave Taylor

Rex kwan Do
All good points, every 4 - 6 weeks is the goal, but I'm not losing sleep if I don't do it with in that time frame or if I'm getting the exact same results 3 - 5 weeks from now or 5 -10W under.

If FTP tests are dropping, I'm sucking at races, not hitting PR's on Strava, feeling tired, dropping weight, yea now it's time to reanalyze a bunch of stuff.

To me it's just another metric to measure progress, especially during the off season when I'm not racing or the opportunities to ride with other people are limited. This is going to be important this coming winter when I'm stuck inside doing long boring rides in my kitchen on the rollers.

In the future I'd like to get a power meter for mtn bike as well, more data can never hurt. I week into this I'm feeling good and liking the power meter training thus far.
FTP was higher in April because you were heavier. I generally have a pretty high FTP because I am a big guy. Watts/kilo or power to weight would be more appropriate to go by. At my highest I wass around 3.85 w/k. Some TDF dudes are over 6. I find FTP is great for training. I like it way more than HR which is too out of control with float. Truthfully I only use power training with three specific intervals. One is an over under, one is another shorter over under and one is for hill repeats. I always do my ftp test on a trainer but use my stages for consistency.
 

BrianGT3

Well-Known Member
No racing here but the Blur is on my short "next bike" list. Very interested in your review!
Looking forward to the deep dive on the Blur! I'm on an Epic now, curious to see what you think coming from that to the Blur.
Yes! Also have been eying it up for a while. Hoping for new colors next year or so.

Finally got around to writing up a little review and first impression tonight

Check it out:
http://www.mtbnj.com/forum/threads/...nitial-impresssions-review.45478/#post-815047
 

BrianGT3

Well-Known Member
Bearscat Two Five

This past Sunday I did the Bearscat 50 (Bearscat 25). I ran the team relay with @pooriggy. We drove up together and got there fairly early. So I was able to take my time checking in, getting changed and prepping bike. I was able to get a good warmup in and ride 1% of the course’s single track, as Iggy said, the prologue is your warmup! After a solid week of training and doing big rides I felt ready to go for this one planning to win and feeling strong.

After the race start I found myself in the lead group as we entered the prologue. The prologue lasted about 20 minutes with me in 3rd place. @davidtaylor ‘s teammate Don was Leading, trailing him was a guy that actually parked next to me at Round Top 2 weeks earlier and won the Cat 1 40-49 race. I had no idea where Iggy was, but I figured the bigger the gap I could put on Don/Dave later in the race the better off we’d be. After passing Don I trailed Matt (Cat 1 40-49 guy). I passed Matt on a fire road climb and tried to see if I could gap him, no luck. I noticed I was a little better on the rocks and descents, but not by much. But Matt responded and stayed on my wheel the entire time. What wound up happening is the Matt and I seemed to turn this thing into a Cat 1 XC sprint race. Soon we lost sight of 3rd & 4th place and caught a bunch of people doing the 50 miler. So far I was feeling pretty good, Heartrate was staying in the 170’s, right where I needed to be. I didn’t want to burn my candles, Wawayanda can be pretty brutal if you’re fatigued.

For that first 1 hr 40 min I was totally in the zone and riding awesome. I was crushing segments and powering up climbs. I remember looking down at the Garmin around that time seeing 17 or so miles. I’m thinking dude, you have 10 more miles! I was leading Matt this entire time, I let him pass and played the carrot for a while. After 2 hours I felt some fatigue kick in. Mind wanders a little, I get lazy on the bike.

When I get fatigued and stop being active on the bike this leads to lots of little mistakes. Little mistake lead to that gap to 1st growing, then lots of work to close the gap. When I’m no longer active on the bike, I feel like I ride heavy on the bars and pedals. This is when rocks and roots eat me for lunch. I made a few poor line choices on the rocks which resulted in loss of momentum, wrong gear, slow down or stop, then pedal hard to recover. Around Mile 21 there was a section of the course in a lowland area running through rhododendron trees. I was a hot mess through this section. The rhododendrons had these 45 degree roots rising from the ground the were slug slick. The dirt was wet, roots moist. This section kicked the crap out of me. I ping ponged off of everything and slid on the roots. I stopped about 2 or 3 times after some big slides and a foot dabs. After rhodohell one more huge climb up a rocky loose fire road, legs we’re putting up a fight but I kept digging, I wanted to win this thing overall. Coming down the double track on the backside of the climb and entering the final stretch thorugh the woods then onto access road I could see Matt ahead, maybe by 15 or so seconds so I began pedaling hard to see if I could close the gap. Wound up finishing 25 seconds behind him in 2 hrs 25 min.

We finished 3rd overall in the team race. The 3rd didn’t bother me, I felt very successful after this one. I’ve never been able to hold that kind of pace for that duration of time - ever. Wawayanda has notoriously been difficult for me these past few years. I won Cat 2 races there in ’15 and ’16, but I felt luck played a big role in that, not fitness. Cat 1 race there in ’17 beat me up big time and was a miserable experience. I was on a mission to change the tide and I felt for that initial 2 hours, a typical finish time for a Cat 1 race, I absolutely owned that course. My best ride there ever. The interval training and power meter based training has certainly been paying off. The Blur ran solid. I feel I am now better able to recover after smashing climbs. The system is working thus far. Feeling on a high after Wawayanda!

2 Weeks Pre Bearscat

Going back to two weeks earlier I think a lot of the prep work in this time 2 week spand helped me for Berascat. After racing Round Top on Sunday September 9th I was totally beat. I was incredibly tired the day after. Decided to take that following week off from gym and do two super easy rides. Additionally lots of stretching to aid in recovery. The Week before all of this was pretty intensive, 4 mile hike on Labor Day. Tuesday: 5 sets of 8-minute Zone 4 Intervals, a 34 mile ride lasting 1hr:40 min with Core Workouts in the Evening. Wed off, Thurs CR night ride with Iggy. Friday Sept 8th was a big 40 mile road ride lasting 2 hrs 25 min! Saturday 45 min Zone 1 recovery ride, lots of stretching. Race Sunday! So needless to say I was beat after all of that. Trainingpeaks said so, I felt so, take time off and rest to recover.

After my “off week”, the following Saturday I made my way out to Round Valley which features lots of rocks and lots of Climbing. I did a big 16.5 mile ride with 2900’ of climbing and went 16.7 miles in 2 hrs 16 min. I felt a big ride like that would prep me for Bearscat, espically the kick in your teeth climbs. During the ride I felt pretty good and got a little more acclimated to the Blur as this was my 4th outing on the bike. I struggled a bit on the climbing, the conditions at RV were pretty damp, which made things a bit challenging due to limited traction. Regardless it was good practice. During that ride I was happy I made some steep climbs for the first time without walking or stopping. The trick was to simply keep pedaling, ignore my legs whining and look where I want to go. After the big RV ride I did a hike with the girlfriend on Sunday to mix things up. I was feeling good and recovered. Post RV ride, the decision was made to I trim handle bars on the blur from 760 mm down to 720 mm. I knicked some trees at RV with the bar ends but hands where fine.

The Week before Bearscat 25 I put some work in. On Monday 9/17 a big road ride at an easy Zone 2 pace for base building going around 35 miles just under 2 hours. Took Tuesday off.

Wednesday was Zone 5 V02 Max intervals. This was a beast of a ride. I rode 30 min from home to Coppermine Road off of River Road along canal. Copper mine is a pretty big climb with a few steep sections, little to no traffic, perfect for training. I did two sets of 4 x 4 intervals climbing up Coppermine. This was 4 min on during climb. Then turn around and ride descent at zone 2 pace for 4 min back to base and restart. 30 min ride in between sets. This ride wound up lasting 2 hrs 30 min/43 miles with 2k feet of climbing total. My intervals were fairly consistent. Based off my FTP test I should’ve kept it in the range of 271 to 310 Watts on these. I wound up going extra for these.

Set 1 (4 min on, 4 off)

1 – 368 W – 168 bpm

2 – 371 W – 168 bpm

3 – 368 W – 170 bpm

4 – 359 W – 167 bpm

Set 2 (4 min on, 4 off)

1 – 352 W – 170 bpm

2 - 343 W – 167 bpm

3 – 360 W – 172 bpm

4 – 358 W – 170 bpm

I tapered off on the 2nd set of intervals, but not my much. I was surprised how strong I felt and happy to see my heartrate stayed pretty stable throughout. On the 4 min off, I was keeping the power in Zone 2 range. After this one I was pretty tired! Later in the evening I went to gym to do a nice n’ easy core/balance workout.

Thursday after the VO2 Max intervals was a quick 45 min Zone 1 recovery ride and gym at night for an upper body workout. Lots of stretching after with foam rolling.

Friday, I hit up Hartshorne Woods and did a quick 1 hour/10 mile ride and attacked a few of the climbs. Took some corners hard to push the blur at little bit on some dirt. I wound up having a fantastic time and lots of smiles! Bike was working great I was feeling strong. I was feeling like this new training method is working well so far. After uploading my ride to strava I noticed a got a lot of new PR’s which I was pretty psyched about.

Saturday before the race was another recovery ride and some stretching. I finally got around in the morning to converting my road bike to tubeless and pulling apart my bottom bracket to solve mystery creaking. I wound up finding that my bottom bracket bearings were shot. They actually rolled without resistance, they were just worn and had a fair amount of play! Fixed that too. Then I did a quick check over of the Blur and packed up all my gear and stuff for Bearscat Race. That night I went out for sushi with the girlfriend and another couple and absolutely stuffed my face. Ate a big bowl of Udon Noodle Soup, Carb up!

I feel the training is working and we’re on the right track. I felt great during Bearscat. I’m noticing that during my road rides my heart rate is seemingly getting lower relative to my power output. I’m looking forward to doing my next FTP test in October to see how I’ve improved. I’m certainly feeling it.

The trick is, when to do it? This coming weekend I’ll be doing my first century. I’m riding the Century for the Cure for Rutgers’s Cancer Institute this coming Sunday 9/30. If you’d like to donate, head over to https://www.classy.org/fundraiser/1653031

I’m imagining I’ll feel pretty nuked after this one, close to 6 hours of riding I’m estimating. As of now the biggest road ride I’ve done is 65 miles.

Later in October the Erie 80, or Erie 40 as Cat 1 Sandbagger (Yes that’s a class) October is going to be a good month!
 

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I used to do Hill repeats like that. Then one time I was turning around to go back down hill and I saw a gigantic bear about 15 feet behind me. I kept turning around and continued up that hill.
I think I bought a trainer shortly afterwards. ;)
 

Dave Taylor

Rex kwan Do
Bearscat Two Five

This past Sunday I did the Bearscat 50 (Bearscat 25). I ran the team relay with @pooriggy. We drove up together and got there fairly early. So I was able to take my time checking in, getting changed and prepping bike. I was able to get a good warmup in and ride 1% of the course’s single track, as Iggy said, the prologue is your warmup! After a solid week of training and doing big rides I felt ready to go for this one planning to win and feeling strong.

After the race start I found myself in the lead group as we entered the prologue. The prologue lasted about 20 minutes with me in 3rd place. @davidtaylor ‘s teammate Don was Leading, trailing him was a guy that actually parked next to me at Round Top 2 weeks earlier and won the Cat 1 40-49 race. I had no idea where Iggy was, but I figured the bigger the gap I could put on Don/Dave later in the race the better off we’d be. After passing Don I trailed Matt (Cat 1 40-49 guy). I passed Matt on a fire road climb and tried to see if I could gap him, no luck. I noticed I was a little better on the rocks and descents, but not by much. But Matt responded and stayed on my wheel the entire time. What wound up happening is the Matt and I seemed to turn this thing into a Cat 1 XC sprint race. Soon we lost sight of 3rd & 4th place and caught a bunch of people doing the 50 miler. So far I was feeling pretty good, Heartrate was staying in the 170’s, right where I needed to be. I didn’t want to burn my candles, Wawayanda can be pretty brutal if you’re fatigued.

For that first 1 hr 40 min I was totally in the zone and riding awesome. I was crushing segments and powering up climbs. I remember looking down at the Garmin around that time seeing 17 or so miles. I’m thinking dude, you have 10 more miles! I was leading Matt this entire time, I let him pass and played the carrot for a while. After 2 hours I felt some fatigue kick in. Mind wanders a little, I get lazy on the bike.

When I get fatigued and stop being active on the bike this leads to lots of little mistakes. Little mistake lead to that gap to 1st growing, then lots of work to close the gap. When I’m no longer active on the bike, I feel like I ride heavy on the bars and pedals. This is when rocks and roots eat me for lunch. I made a few poor line choices on the rocks which resulted in loss of momentum, wrong gear, slow down or stop, then pedal hard to recover. Around Mile 21 there was a section of the course in a lowland area running through rhododendron trees. I was a hot mess through this section. The rhododendrons had these 45 degree roots rising from the ground the were slug slick. The dirt was wet, roots moist. This section kicked the crap out of me. I ping ponged off of everything and slid on the roots. I stopped about 2 or 3 times after some big slides and a foot dabs. After rhodohell one more huge climb up a rocky loose fire road, legs we’re putting up a fight but I kept digging, I wanted to win this thing overall. Coming down the double track on the backside of the climb and entering the final stretch thorugh the woods then onto access road I could see Matt ahead, maybe by 15 or so seconds so I began pedaling hard to see if I could close the gap. Wound up finishing 25 seconds behind him in 2 hrs 25 min.

We finished 3rd overall in the team race. The 3rd didn’t bother me, I felt very successful after this one. I’ve never been able to hold that kind of pace for that duration of time - ever. Wawayanda has notoriously been difficult for me these past few years. I won Cat 2 races there in ’15 and ’16, but I felt luck played a big role in that, not fitness. Cat 1 race there in ’17 beat me up big time and was a miserable experience. I was on a mission to change the tide and I felt for that initial 2 hours, a typical finish time for a Cat 1 race, I absolutely owned that course. My best ride there ever. The interval training and power meter based training has certainly been paying off. The Blur ran solid. I feel I am now better able to recover after smashing climbs. The system is working thus far. Feeling on a high after Wawayanda!

2 Weeks Pre Bearscat

Going back to two weeks earlier I think a lot of the prep work in this time 2 week spand helped me for Berascat. After racing Round Top on Sunday September 9th I was totally beat. I was incredibly tired the day after. Decided to take that following week off from gym and do two super easy rides. Additionally lots of stretching to aid in recovery. The Week before all of this was pretty intensive, 4 mile hike on Labor Day. Tuesday: 5 sets of 8-minute Zone 4 Intervals, a 34 mile ride lasting 1hr:40 min with Core Workouts in the Evening. Wed off, Thurs CR night ride with Iggy. Friday Sept 8th was a big 40 mile road ride lasting 2 hrs 25 min! Saturday 45 min Zone 1 recovery ride, lots of stretching. Race Sunday! So needless to say I was beat after all of that. Trainingpeaks said so, I felt so, take time off and rest to recover.

After my “off week”, the following Saturday I made my way out to Round Valley which features lots of rocks and lots of Climbing. I did a big 16.5 mile ride with 2900’ of climbing and went 16.7 miles in 2 hrs 16 min. I felt a big ride like that would prep me for Bearscat, espically the kick in your teeth climbs. During the ride I felt pretty good and got a little more acclimated to the Blur as this was my 4th outing on the bike. I struggled a bit on the climbing, the conditions at RV were pretty damp, which made things a bit challenging due to limited traction. Regardless it was good practice. During that ride I was happy I made some steep climbs for the first time without walking or stopping. The trick was to simply keep pedaling, ignore my legs whining and look where I want to go. After the big RV ride I did a hike with the girlfriend on Sunday to mix things up. I was feeling good and recovered. Post RV ride, the decision was made to I trim handle bars on the blur from 760 mm down to 720 mm. I knicked some trees at RV with the bar ends but hands where fine.

The Week before Bearscat 25 I put some work in. On Monday 9/17 a big road ride at an easy Zone 2 pace for base building going around 35 miles just under 2 hours. Took Tuesday off.

Wednesday was Zone 5 V02 Max intervals. This was a beast of a ride. I rode 30 min from home to Coppermine Road off of River Road along canal. Copper mine is a pretty big climb with a few steep sections, little to no traffic, perfect for training. I did two sets of 4 x 4 intervals climbing up Coppermine. This was 4 min on during climb. Then turn around and ride descent at zone 2 pace for 4 min back to base and restart. 30 min ride in between sets. This ride wound up lasting 2 hrs 30 min/43 miles with 2k feet of climbing total. My intervals were fairly consistent. Based off my FTP test I should’ve kept it in the range of 271 to 310 Watts on these. I wound up going extra for these.

Set 1 (4 min on, 4 off)

1 – 368 W – 168 bpm

2 – 371 W – 168 bpm

3 – 368 W – 170 bpm

4 – 359 W – 167 bpm

Set 2 (4 min on, 4 off)

1 – 352 W – 170 bpm

2 - 343 W – 167 bpm

3 – 360 W – 172 bpm

4 – 358 W – 170 bpm

I tapered off on the 2nd set of intervals, but not my much. I was surprised how strong I felt and happy to see my heartrate stayed pretty stable throughout. On the 4 min off, I was keeping the power in Zone 2 range. After this one I was pretty tired! Later in the evening I went to gym to do a nice n’ easy core/balance workout.

Thursday after the VO2 Max intervals was a quick 45 min Zone 1 recovery ride and gym at night for an upper body workout. Lots of stretching after with foam rolling.

Friday, I hit up Hartshorne Woods and did a quick 1 hour/10 mile ride and attacked a few of the climbs. Took some corners hard to push the blur at little bit on some dirt. I wound up having a fantastic time and lots of smiles! Bike was working great I was feeling strong. I was feeling like this new training method is working well so far. After uploading my ride to strava I noticed a got a lot of new PR’s which I was pretty psyched about.

Saturday before the racehttps://www.cla
I’m imagining I’ll feel pretty nuked after this one, close to 6 hours of riding I’m estimating. As of now the biggest road ride I’ve done is 65 miles.

Later in October the Erie 80, or Erie 40 as Cat 1 Sandbagger (Yes that’s a class) October is going to be a good month!
Great job @BrianGT3 ! I felt really good and kinda did the opposite of you. I punished myself the three weeks leading up to Bearscat and completely tapered the last week. I mean all recovery rides. I have however added a lot of running into the program which seems to really help with the fitness and gives the cycling muscles a break while still being able to build. Iwas set on doing the 50 because I didn’t think Don would make it be last minute he said he was in. I didn’t really warm up much and basically jist hung close to you guys on the prologue. I road a little conservatively to be honest but it worked out. The only mistakes I made were newbie on gears stuff. I often found myself at the bottom of a decent in a big gear going into a techy uphill and couldn’t shift fast enough. In hind sght I felt great and probably should have done the 50. I am happy as this is my first race since kittatinny. I’ll see you at Erie...on my new SS hopefully.
 

BrianGT3

Well-Known Member
I totally dropped the ball on updating this thing! The entire Month of October absolutely blew by. I’m fully self-employed, and when work flows in I take it all on and everything else if life follows on priority.

I did a lot in October, lots of riding, my first ever century on the road bike and the Erie 80. End of last week I finally did another FTP Test

9/30 I participated in the Century For the Cure starting in Warren NJ. The was my first ever century which wound up being just over 94 miles. Met some great people and raised close to $1600 for the Rutger’s Cancer Institute of NJ!

That was an action packed weekend. Did some trail maintenance Saturday Morning at Chimney rock on 9/29. With all the tools out and gear on I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon doing yard work around my townhouse. Took some time to true the wheels and tension spokes on my road bike later after to prep for Ride. Out to dinner that night with the GF and another couple. While out to dinner I Checked my email an found rider check in was 6am to 7am for the century for the cure. Oh crap! For some reason I thought it was later. This meant wake up 5:15am, load up and drive. I remember reading that email around 11pm - so not much sleep the night before. Morning of I couldn’t find my light thermal shirt, decided to toughen up and deal with the cold. It was 50 degrees out in the morning, short sleeve jersey and shorts! Chilly!

When the ride starts I chased down the lead group and decided to stay with those guys. I knew it was important to pace myself. There were some doubts on that first climb when I saw the power I was laying down. Decided to run with it and see how much I could hold with these guys. My training road rides are usually in the 2 hr to 2hr 30 min range, 35 to 45 miles. I’ve done a handful of 3hr + rides. That it, this thing would be 5 hours, 100 miles. The time, the distance, unfamiliar roads and hills. This ride was digging mentally, finding something deep within to go on. My legs were complaining, I kept pushing myself and saying I can do this. Every time it was my turn to pull the group I had that feeling of self-doubt, but I looked down and said to myself I can hold 20+ mph and put out 270+ watts for 3 or so minutes, keep at it. The training and the racing are for the days like this. Days when your pre-conceived limitations on physical abilities established are challenged then undertaken and new thresholds found. After racing BS 25 the prior weekend, I tapered off big time the and arrived at this charity ride super fresh. Although it was a charity ride, I was there to push myself. My GPS didn’t show me distance, just time, heartrate, cadence, 3 sec avg power. Just keep on hitting those number and we’ll do this. I finished the ride feeling great, wound up doing 94 miles, 19.4 mph ave speed, 4000’ climbing. Took a fantastic nap later in the day. Felt incredibly accomplished, found some new personal thresholds.

Later that week I loaded myself up with rides and gym time. I wanted to see how much my body could handle. Mid week I had a fun ride at Sourland Mountain and gave the blur it’s first scratch.

Week after the Century I did a lot, but I was feeling tired towards the weekend following, so I lightened up the week of 10/8 to 10/12 aside from doing workouts in gym (Core, Legs and Upper Body)

I also signed up for the Erie 80, in the Men’s Open 50 Miler Class on 10/14

The Erie 80 sucked.

Just to note, I’m not criticizing the event organizers, course layout, competitors, any of that. They did and awesome job with this event. For me on a personal level it sucked. Course was fun and well-marked and aid stations were amazing.

Doing it sucked. I discovered on this race that long endurance races aren’t for me. 5hrs, 21min, 26 seconds of misery. 45.96 miles, placed 5th in Open Men. First 26 miles I was okay, that last 19 was freaking brutal. Back was getting tight and hurting, hands hurt, then legs cramping. Then getting hungry, the hunger trumped everything else. I’d stop quick, eat a gel or clif bar, drink, feel awesome for about 3 to 4 minutes, then the Back tight, hands hurting, leg cramp, hunger cycle starts all over again. But I finished. I felt good that I accomplished something but that was about it. After this race I hated Mountain Biking and riding. On the bright side, no crashes, bike ran great with no issues, just the rider had issues!

After Erie 80 I took a week off of riding. That race beat the $%!@ out of my body. I needed to recover, I felt burned out.

After my week off I eased back into riding doing a bunch of long Endurance rides in Zone 1 & 2. Also began doing leg work at gym again. Past 2 weeks I mixed a 2+ hour endurance ride early in the week in Zone 2, then another 2+ hour ride on Weekend in Zone 2 with 4/5 efforts of hills. When I could this past October I’ve been venturing North of the Raritain into the Watchung Mountains, great area for Road Rides and solid training on hills.

11/2 – FTP Test Day

8/28 I did my initial FTP Test, and structured my training off of those Numbers. Then calculatinging my new training Zones of power, I built my programs with lots of Zone 2 Rides. Once a week a rides of either Structured Interval Training, or just hitting some hills hard. Also mixed in there 1 XC race, 1 long XC race (BS 25), 1 Endurance XC hell race (Erie 80), 1 charity Ride (CFTC). As much as the Erie 80 sucked, positive takeaway is my threshold for pain was maybe elevated a little bit? Or maybe every time I push myself I can think, “hey this sucks, but not as much as racing Erie 80.” Also boosted my protein intake, gained about 2 lbs keeping same body fat, also throwing in leg workout in gym 1x week. Staying on top of rest and stretching. All in all 2 months of doing it right, where would I be at?

My goal was to hold 300w during the 20 min push on Canal Road. 10 min into it, I looked down, saw my Average Nominal Power was ~310, I kept pushing, it was climbing to 318-319, no I want 320! Wound up finishing my FTP test with 320w Avg Power, 322w Nominal Power! Hold crap, felt like I could’ve given it another 5%.

This now puts my FTP @ 306w. 2 months ago on 8/28 I was at 258w, big jump. My cadence was the same, but Average Heartrate decreased from 183 bpm to 174 bpm. So needless to say, we’re going in the right direction here. At 322w my Watt/Kg Sits at 4.44 coming from 3.77

New Training Zones:

1 - < 55 % = < 168 W

2 - < 75 % = < 229 W

3 - < 90% = < 275 W

4 - < 105% = < 321 W

5 - < 120% = < 367 W

6 - < 150% = < 459 W

By the numbers I’m getting stronger. I’ve also been feeling it. My 6 month goal was a FTP of 300w, in 2 months we’re already there. 90/10 Split of Low Intensity/High Intensity seems to be working. 2+hr Zone 2 hours rides are working. Lifting in gym is working. Most importantly of them all, Rest! I took time off of the bike when I felt tired, listened to my body. Yes a FTP test isn’t the end all be all, but I metric to measure progress, I’m happy its all working thus far.

Now my new goal is that by Feb March I want to see if I can hit 360w NP which would put my FTP at 342. Till then I’m going to put the work it to make it happen. Going to Nationals in Colorado July 2019 is mostly likely a go. Looking forward to doing my last race of 2018 on 11/17, the Catheral Pines Relay race with @pooriggy.
 

Dave Taylor

Rex kwan Do
I totally dropped the ball on updating this thing! The entire Month of October absolutely blew by. I’m fully self-employed, and when work flows in I take it all on and everything else if life follows on priority.

I did a lot in October, lots of riding, my first ever century on the road bike and the Erie 80. End of last week I finally did another FTP Test

9/30 I participated in the Century For the Cure starting in Warren NJ. The was my first ever century which wound up being just over 94 miles. Met some great people and raised close to $1600 for the Rutger’s Cancer Institute of NJ!

That was an action packed weekend. Did some trail maintenance Saturday Morning at Chimney rock on 9/29. With all the tools out and gear on I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon doing yard work around my townhouse. Took some time to true the wheels and tension spokes on my road bike later after to prep for Ride. Out to dinner that night with the GF and another couple. While out to dinner I Checked my email an found rider check in was 6am to 7am for the century for the cure. Oh crap! For some reason I thought it was later. This meant wake up 5:15am, load up and drive. I remember reading that email around 11pm - so not much sleep the night before. Morning of I couldn’t find my light thermal shirt, decided to toughen up and deal with the cold. It was 50 degrees out in the morning, short sleeve jersey and shorts! Chilly!

When the ride starts I chased down the lead group and decided to stay with those guys. I knew it was important to pace myself. There were some doubts on that first climb when I saw the power I was laying down. Decided to run with it and see how much I could hold with these guys. My training road rides are usually in the 2 hr to 2hr 30 min range, 35 to 45 miles. I’ve done a handful of 3hr + rides. That it, this thing would be 5 hours, 100 miles. The time, the distance, unfamiliar roads and hills. This ride was digging mentally, finding something deep within to go on. My legs were complaining, I kept pushing myself and saying I can do this. Every time it was my turn to pull the group I had that feeling of self-doubt, but I looked down and said to myself I can hold 20+ mph and put out 270+ watts for 3 or so minutes, keep at it. The training and the racing are for the days like this. Days when your pre-conceived limitations on physical abilities established are challenged then undertaken and new thresholds found. After racing BS 25 the prior weekend, I tapered off big time the and arrived at this charity ride super fresh. Although it was a charity ride, I was there to push myself. My GPS didn’t show me distance, just time, heartrate, cadence, 3 sec avg power. Just keep on hitting those number and we’ll do this. I finished the ride feeling great, wound up doing 94 miles, 19.4 mph ave speed, 4000’ climbing. Took a fantastic nap later in the day. Felt incredibly accomplished, found some new personal thresholds.

Later that week I loaded myself up with rides and gym time. I wanted to see how much my body could handle. Mid week I had a fun ride at Sourland Mountain and gave the blur it’s first scratch.

Week after the Century I did a lot, but I was feeling tired towards the weekend following, so I lightened up the week of 10/8 to 10/12 aside from doing workouts in gym (Core, Legs and Upper Body)

I also signed up for the Erie 80, in the Men’s Open 50 Miler Class on 10/14

The Erie 80 sucked.

Just to note, I’m not criticizing the event organizers, course layout, competitors, any of that. They did and awesome job with this event. For me on a personal level it sucked. Course was fun and well-marked and aid stations were amazing.

Doing it sucked. I discovered on this race that long endurance races aren’t for me. 5hrs, 21min, 26 seconds of misery. 45.96 miles, placed 5th in Open Men. First 26 miles I was okay, that last 19 was freaking brutal. Back was getting tight and hurting, hands hurt, then legs cramping. Then getting hungry, the hunger trumped everything else. I’d stop quick, eat a gel or clif bar, drink, feel awesome for about 3 to 4 minutes, then the Back tight, hands hurting, leg cramp, hunger cycle starts all over again. But I finished. I felt good that I accomplished something but that was about it. After this race I hated Mountain Biking and riding. On the bright side, no crashes, bike ran great with no issues, just the rider had issues!

After Erie 80 I took a week off of riding. That race beat the $%!@ out of my body. I needed to recover, I felt burned out.

After my week off I eased back into riding doing a bunch of long Endurance rides in Zone 1 & 2. Also began doing leg work at gym again. Past 2 weeks I mixed a 2+ hour endurance ride early in the week in Zone 2, then another 2+ hour ride on Weekend in Zone 2 with 4/5 efforts of hills. When I could this past October I’ve been venturing North of the Raritain into the Watchung Mountains, great area for Road Rides and solid training on hills.

11/2 – FTP Test Day

8/28 I did my initial FTP Test, and structured my training off of those Numbers. Then calculatinging my new training Zones of power, I built my programs with lots of Zone 2 Rides. Once a week a rides of either Structured Interval Training, or just hitting some hills hard. Also mixed in there 1 XC race, 1 long XC race (BS 25), 1 Endurance XC hell race (Erie 80), 1 charity Ride (CFTC). As much as the Erie 80 sucked, positive takeaway is my threshold for pain was maybe elevated a little bit? Or maybe every time I push myself I can think, “hey this sucks, but not as much as racing Erie 80.” Also boosted my protein intake, gained about 2 lbs keeping same body fat, also throwing in leg workout in gym 1x week. Staying on top of rest and stretching. All in all 2 months of doing it right, where would I be at?

My goal was to hold 300w during the 20 min push on Canal Road. 10 min into it, I looked down, saw my Average Nominal Power was ~310, I kept pushing, it was climbing to 318-319, no I want 320! Wound up finishing my FTP test with 320w Avg Power, 322w Nominal Power! Hold crap, felt like I could’ve given it another 5%.

This now puts my FTP @ 306w. 2 months ago on 8/28 I was at 258w, big jump. My cadence was the same, but Average Heartrate decreased from 183 bpm to 174 bpm. So needless to say, we’re going in the right direction here. At 322w my Watt/Kg Sits at 4.44 coming from 3.77

New Training Zones:

1 - < 55 % = < 168 W

2 - < 75 % = < 229 W

3 - < 90% = < 275 W

4 - < 105% = < 321 W

5 - < 120% = < 367 W

6 - < 150% = < 459 W

By the numbers I’m getting stronger. I’ve also been feeling it. My 6 month goal was a FTP of 300w, in 2 months we’re already there. 90/10 Split of Low Intensity/High Intensity seems to be working. 2+hr Zone 2 hours rides are working. Lifting in gym is working. Most importantly of them all, Rest! I took time off of the bike when I felt tired, listened to my body. Yes a FTP test isn’t the end all be all, but I metric to measure progress, I’m happy its all working thus far.

Now my new goal is that by Feb March I want to see if I can hit 360w NP which would put my FTP at 342. Till then I’m going to put the work it to make it happen. Going to Nationals in Colorado July 2019 is mostly likely a go. Looking forward to doing my last race of 2018 on 11/17, the Catheral Pines Relay race with @pooriggy.
Awesome work @BrianGT3 . Great work on the training.Endurance races aren’t for everyone. They require more mental strength where XC is just pin it. 4-5 hour races are kinda like XC pace and 100s are more 75-80%ftp. Keep it up. You are killin it.
 

pooriggy

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
@BrianGT3 , that is an impressive jump in pwr. What kind of power meter do you use, how much do you weigh?

Have you considered racing cx, with that much pwr this time of year it would be good to put it to the test.
 

Steve Vai

Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Watch as the weather changes as it'll throw the power meter off a tad. That's all I have. Good work, you're slaying it out there.
 

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I'm actually surprised they haven't been recalled yet. I think the PowerCal might be more acurate. :)
Their tech (after they sent me the 3rd one in a row that didnt work) finally admitted to me that they have a software issue that they have been unable to fix.
 

Steve Vai

Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Their tech (after they sent me the 3rd one in a row that didnt work) finally admitted to me that they have a software issue that they have been unable to fix.

It's a shame because the guys are all super nice. We still sell a ton of them to regular folks that don't really use the number to train, they just want some extra bells.
 

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
It's a shame because the guys are all super nice. We still sell a ton of them to regular folks that don't really use the number to train, they just want some extra bells.
it sucks bc they are super convenient since I have the same crankset on all 3 of my bikes...was nice being able to switch from the mtb to the road bike in 5 min....And I dont even mind if it was just 10, 20, 30 watts higher than my PT....but its completely random depending on the effort.
 
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