Hypno Toad

I completed Week 9 Day 4 last night and failed to hit all the intervals (the 4th workout I couldn't complete all intervals since I started). The 90-minute workout had 6x5mins at FTP at the end, I got to the end of the 3rd interval and I knew that was all my legs had... I limped through the last 3 intervals. I'm not sure why I can't complete all the blocks. Is it the double-red blood cell donation I did last month (that left me really drained - ), or is the FTP set too high, or should the workout be difficult enough you can't always complete???

Here's the Strava graphic for last night's ride, I added marks to show where I feel short.



I'm really interested to see how I do when the summer bike hits the road... that will give me a better idea about the answer to my question.

I'm interested to know if anybody else had completed the 10-12 week FTP builder, what was your experience?

Roman Vintfeld

I have not tried any of the Zwift workouts and/or training programs. Failing a workout once is no big deal. It could just be an off day. With that said, not being able to do 6x5 minutes at FTP means you have your FTP set up too high. You should be able to ride anywehre between 30 and 90 minutes continuously at FTP. Five minutes at FTP should feel quite easy frankly. Also, not sure what 6x5 at FTP would achieve in terms of adaptation (my guess is nothing), but if that's what the workout calls for...

jsk

I agree with Roman, 6x5' at FTP should be very doable. I find it interesting that your HR dropped on the missed intervals, it doesn't look like you were actually going as hard.

Having said that, in my experience those types of intervals will feel quite a bit harder on a trainer than they would outdoors. Even if your current FTP setting is accurate for outdoors, you may need to drop it a bit for trainer work. I have my FTP set about 5% lower in my trainer app than what I use for interval targets when riding outdoors.

Hypno Toad

Thanks for the feedback. I agree, riding at FTP for 6x5' should be doable.

I don't have power on my bikes, so the only power meter I have is in the Zwift world (their estimate/calibration of my CycleOps trainer). Which may or may not be a good comparison to the real world... but since I have no comparison, it's not a big issue here.

Zwift bases your FTP on rides in the system (it's also rider-adjustable). I did some rides on Zwift at the end of December, including a century ride. So it had good data to base it's FTP estimate.

The wild card, I donated blood on Jan 5, and I donated double red blood cells for the first time - the donation center said I'd be the perfect candidate and I didn't do any research until after donating. The days following the donation, I could barely stay awake at work. Then I started doing some search and I found many blogs like this . It's now been 7 weeks and I don't feel it in daily activities. But I do feel weak when riding, specifically holding my FTP. I can hold tempo all day without an issue. It's my theory that the reduced red blood count is hurting my strength when riding at FTP.

Another factor I didn't bring up in my first post: I do ride outdoors 2-3 days a week, so I'm riding more than the Zwift schedule. However, this week I took a rest day before the work out above - I knew this was going to be challenging workout. Still couldn't get through it, mostly because of weak legs not cardo.

Edit/afterthought - here's a link to the workout plan: https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/10-...wk-ftp-builder

TexMac

Rest day should help tho some folks prefer easy spin the day before a big workout. Probably had a bad day, it happens.

Roman Vintfeld

Best thing to do (imo) would be to retest your FTP. I prefer testing to exhaustion, but nothing wrong with the 20 minute test.

Carbonfiberboy 

And dropped HR generally means you're way overcooked. And you should always stop when you're not hitting your numbers. Trying and not hitting them increases exhaustion but does not increase fitness. Maybe the opposite. Since you've never been able to do the set, I agree that your FTP is set much too high, so adjust it until it works for you. When it gets too easy, move it up.

Not really weak legs. Tired glands from pushing too hard. From the rpm graph it looks like you might have grabbed a lower cog near the end of the 3rd interval? Grabbing a lower cog is a good sign to quit.

You've probably been trying to make up for the RBC loss by pushing harder, but that moves the intervals up a level. So you've really been doing Z5 intervals instead of FTP, which makes your results look perfectly normal. 20' of Z5 power is a lot of work for sure. The way your HR ramped up on each interval before it went blewie looks perfectly normal for high intensity 6' intervals, especially for a tired rider.

I recommend riding easy on the trainer for a couple of days and then warm up and try an all-out go on it. If your HR doesn't pop right up there, keep going easy until it does.

As it is said, overcooking it is the most common mistake for a motivated rider to make.

Hypno Toad

Thanks again for the feedback!

OK, some I've come to the conclusion that my FTP is about 20-30 watts less than it was before I donated double red cells* on Jan 3. Here are two data points from Zwift (reported by Strava)

20-minute FTP test Jan 16, 2016 (the only time I did the Zwift FTP test):



Riding Zwift (without workout) on Dec 21, 2016:



Now, I'm thinking I should reduce my FTP on Zwift. However, I also know that as my red blood cells recover, I'm going to get stronger. So I could leave the FTP at it's current setting and be 'ok' failing to achieve all the intervals. Thoughts?

* if you're not aware, this is a blood donation where they take two units of blood. They separate the red blood cells, keeping the red cells and put the rest back in you (plasma & platelets). I've donated whole blood many times and never felt a significant effect, but the double RBC was a killer. Happily, based on my reading, [knocking on wood] I should be back to full strength (red blood count) by the time I get to my first race [/knocking on wood] - I have a 90-mile gravel grinder schedule for late March.

Hypno Toad

I have been able to achieve some the of the tough work outs. Week 7 Day 4 was stated to be the toughest - based on the arbitrary stress points:



This was on a Sunday morning, I was well rested at the time of this ride. That's way I was trying a rest day prior to my last hard day, but I still failed to hit all intervals. But I as I said in the previous post, I really think the blood donation is the main issue.

caloso

If your blood center can do double RBC, they can probably do platelets only. You keep your RBCs and you can ride the next day without any effect.

For next time.

rubiksoval

I fail a workout once or twice a month. I'd probably be worried if I didn't.

rubiksoval

90 minutes?

And I disagree on the blanket statement. Many times I've nixed a sweetspot or threshold effort because I couldn't maintain it for more than a few minutes. It's extremely dependent on where it is in the schedule and how your body is responding to the training load.

A one off failed workout tells you little. Routinely failing to hit the numbers, however, would tell a different story. You alluded to that initially, but then contradicted it in the latter part.

rubiksoval

Tim Cusick and Hunter Allen and those guys seem to disagree. They say you should continue another 1-2 intervals until you see a pretty big decrease because even though you're not hitting the watts, your body is still getting a significant training boost (the input is still very high, even if the output is diminishing).

rubiksoval

Have you ever done structured training before? This is where a good coach trumps a generated program. Sometimes you just get tired, sometimes you don't respond the same as others, sometimes the stimulus is too much, sometimes too little.

The more you do and try these things and the more data you accrue, the better decisions you can make in regards to what to do next.

Personally, I wouldn't give it a second thought. I'd take a day off if I were tired, or I'd try the workout again the next day if I wasn't. Sometimes I just feel bad and going out and bombing a workout gets me primed to nail it the next day. The body can be fickle at times.

Hypno Toad

Yes, this is my first structured training schedule. I've been a bike commuter for years, but now I work from a home office and I've turned to fitness-focused and competitive cycling. To those that know this terminology, I've been unconscious-competent and I want to get to conscious-competent.

Thanks for the feedback! It's very helpful!

Carbonfiberboy 

OK! Not what I was taught, but you probably have newer information. I'll try it your way. I don't have a PM, but my practice has been to quit when I don't get as far up the hill as I did on the last interval. You think I should do a couple more, until I see a big miss on the goal?

rubiksoval

I've always been the same way. Quite a few different workouts earlier this year I bailed when I dropped ~10 w below target. Now I try to eek out two more (within reason. I'm not trying to do 45+ minutes of vo2 work, but more like extending it out to 30 and then 35 minutes instead of stopping at 20 or 25) and the last time the last one was over 35w below target and I was drooling all over myself.

My hr was still almost the same (a little less, but within a few beats) even though power was so much lower, so on the surface what they're saying makes sense that there's still a huge training effect. As well as from a practicality standpoint, I always have to dig late in races when I feel like crap, so there's got to be some specificity to that. Since they've forgotten more than I know about high-level training, though, I'm going to defer to them and give it a go throughout this season and see how I feel about it (which is also what Tim seems to repeat a lot: try it yourself and see).

jsk

In Training with Power, Allan/Coggan give guidelines for when to stop the intervals based on interval length. The longer the interval, the smaller the margin. For instance 20 min intervals, they say quit once you've dropped 3-5%. For 1-2 min intervals, they say quit when you've dropped 10-12%.

I know for me, when doing stuff like VO2Max intervals the second to last is always the worst, and will be a bit low. But then I usually manage to dig in and get the power back up for the last one.