Road Bike Racing - Interval question

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snoboard2
02-14-08, 08:34 PM
Hey guys. I'm supposed to do a pyramid interval tomorrow and I'm not sure what wattage to shoot for on each.

First off, my power levels (tested last week):
CP20 - 260
CP5 - 323
CP1 - 587
CP5sec - 1472

My pyramid is 1:1 effort to recovery (i.e. for a 2 min effort i take 2 minutes easy before the next effort)

The pyramid goes (in minutes) 1,2,3,4,4,3,2,1

I was thinking
1 @ 450w
2 @ 350w
3 @ 300w
4 @ 275w

man i need a coach. Am I close? I don't want to overshoot and not get a good workout...

DrWJODonnell
02-14-08, 08:52 PM
You are undershooting. If those are your numbers, then try something a bit higher.
450
380
320
300

My guess is that you could pull that off.
snoboard2
02-14-08, 08:55 PM
i'll let you know how it goes

waterrockets
02-14-08, 09:48 PM
I agree you're a bit under.

First off, I think your CP1 has to be low. With your 5s power, 1m should be around 620-650W in my opinion. Next time you do a 1m test, start with your 1400W sprint, and just keep every pedal stroke as hard as you can until the end. You'll fade, but you need to keep trying.

DrWJ's recommendations still seem a bit soft to me, but it depends a lot on your recovery ability. After the 2nd 4m, decide if you need to go up 10W or so. I'd write the original targets on a cheat sheet for your handle bars so you don't have to do any math.
fuzzthebee
02-15-08, 03:40 AM
There is another method where you use the same wattage for each duration....try [edit] ~315 w.