Turbo Man's Fitness Blog: FTP Test

NO LOVE HANDLES ALLOWED!

'It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.' Theodore Roosevelt 23 April 1910

Saturday, 9 May 2009

FTP Test

New Beginnings.

Before getting back into proper training there was one particular session that needed to be completed before proper training could recommence - the FTP Test Session. For those that haven't done one of these it means cycling as hard as you can for a fixed period and yes, it hurts. There are 2 accepted methods of doing this - the 20 minute test and the 30 minute test. Well that's easy then, I'll do the 20 minute test, after all, that's 10 minutes less pain. Right? Wrong. The 20 minute test requires a specific warm up routine to be followed (including some full on sprints) for the results to be accurate, whereas the 30 minute test just requires you to warm up thoroughly. So I do the 30 minute test.

After a few days of light training to ensure I was fully rested (like I need an excuse!) I was ready for my test this morning. I warmed up, calibrated the turbo, and then was off. I thought I might be able to ramp the effort up towards the end but when I tried there was little left in the tank which probably means I was quite close to doing the test properly. So how did it go? Pretty good actually, in fact I was well pleased. The result was the same as the results when I returned from Qatar in February, so although my training has been a bit hit and miss it would appear to have been sufficient to maintain my fitness level. Compared to my peak last year, I am some 10% down, but I reckon that with some specific bike focussed training I will recover that 10% in fairly short order and then move on to new highs. At least I hope so.

Moving on to domestic matters, we went car shopping this morning for a new car for Mrs Turbo Man. The Zafira is too big for the narrow and congested streets of Gosport so something smaller and more manouverable was required. To cut a long story short, we found a 2 year old Ford Ka in Zetec spec (air con, heated front screen, alloy wheels etc etc) in shimmering metallic apple green with just 7200 miles on the clock and in immaculate condition. Although it was a little more expensive than we wanted to pay it was too good to miss so a deal was done and we pick it up next weekend.