Originally Posted by
carpediemracing
First off, 500w is insane for 20 minutes unless you're listed on one of the ProTour teams.
I haven't broken 270 ever for 20 min. Recently I did 220-225w and that seems about right.
Teammates (one a former pro NORBA racer) can do upwards of 380 normalized power for 20 min. For me that's absurd, literally almost 50% stronger than what I can do right now.
So the first thing you did wrong was to go all out at the beginning. Instead you should look at some powertap files and see what kind of max 20 min numbers you put out. Mine are always lower than my FTP test number, i.e. I rarely average over 220w when I could do a 260+w 20 min effort. So if you're putting out, say, 450w for 20 min, you should aim at 500w. If you see 250w avg, aim at about 300-350w.
Also something WR said a while ago, if you go 100% and then blow up, you pretty much end up maxed out (in the blown up part) at your threshold. If you're totally cooked and can hold 300w, that's about where you can aim.
Hope this helps.
cdr
cdr
First of all, thanks for the feedback. I appreciate your advice and BTW I love your blog and your race videos.
Anyway, I dont have the book in front of me but the instructions from the Training with Power book were:
20min warmup
3x1m at 100rpm
5min Max All out effort
10min easy
20min TT
Cool down
So the start at 500W was for the 5min all out effort. I knew I wouldnt be able to hold it there for those 5 minutes but I was hoping around 350-400 since WKO is showing my 5 minutes best in last 3 months is about 370W.
As per the 20min TT attempt, I have 20min 367W NP this month and I did a full hour at over 300W few times this year so I thought the 20 minutes at 300W shouldnt be a problem.
BTW I'm 6'5 192-4lb so those numbers are not that impressive anyway and I'm not even going into W/kg since I would have to lose another 15-20lb to be a climber. Got my first road bike 3 years ago (medical reasons and trying to lose weight) felt in love with cycling and last year I did just enough races to get out of the Cat 5.
Ideally I would like to do some Masters 35+ racing but I know that with only 3 years in my legs I cant expect too much but as a training I rather get my butt kicked at the 35+ races than sitting on a trainer at my garage
