It's official. I am losing the top-end of my bike strength. There's nothing there anymore. Granted, I'm in a pretty deep hole right now, with swimming, marathon training (including speed work), and trying to move. My recovery is poo, but all of that can't explain the significant drop-off that's happened.
Intervals tonight of 2 min, 1 min and 30 seconds. The two minute block was survived, but just barely. The ones and thirtys sucked. I can barely hold for one minute what I used to do for 3. I can't handle thirty seconds at 50 watts less than where I used to do 30s. I'm not impressed, but everything considered, I have to say, "It is what it is."
I may change things up for the last few weeks before the marathon. Perhaps I shouldn't be bothering with super-threshold stuff right now. With the change in focus, how much time do I really need to dedicate to these efforts? Most important is raising my FTP and 3 hour thresholds. I do believe in "raise the left, fill the right", but I think I'm too recovery-compromised to but the right efforts in on the bike with everything else happening. I can get back to this with a bike-focus block in the spring.
Bike: 90 minutes, w/ 6x2 min @ 340w, 6x1 min @ 400w, 6x30 sec @ 460w (as written, 1 min and 30 sec reps were short and under-powered)
Run: 2 miles @ 6.5 mph
I don't buy a 50 Watt drop. I think it far more likely that you're experiencing the joy of the iMagic power meter.
ReplyDeleteI've been riding the Cannondale on my trainer and, as usual, I'm finding the iMagic power readings to be all over the place. Sometimes I'll be working really hard only to see "240 Watts" on the screen... other times I'm spinning easy at "240 Watts".
Have you calibrated lately? Even if so, has there been a change in temperature, relative humidity or other environmental factor? The craziest things seem to set off my iMagic powermeter.
I seem to get the most accurate readings if I warm the thing up for 20 minutes, calibrate 3-4 times until I get an average calibration number and then stick to Catalyst with a 2.0% grade. Under those circumstances, I get pretty accurate numbers between about 120-250 Watts.
I can't say I've noticed a real consistency issue before. I left it untouched for 6 months after the initial calibration, and just re-did after changing tires. Since then, things have been getting progressively tougher.
ReplyDeleteI'll start with your system soon, I think. How do you do the calibration? Mine tells me to hold 30 kmph and never actually go to the spindown (held it for up to 30 minutes in the past), but as soon as I take it over 30, say 33, it moves to spindown. Is mine insane, or am I doing something wrong?
I think the software messages for the iMagic got mangled in translation at some point. If I "hold" 30km/h during calibration... I'm in for a long ride.
ReplyDeleteI looked it up on the Tacx forums last year and the general consensus is that the message should tell you to exceed 30km/h and that's pretty much how everyone on the forums proceeds.
Except for the crazies who insist you should just always leave the calibration at 0.0...