FOP males mid to high 200's?

On the contrary Darren. 210 is 66% of 320 so you just proved the rule of thumb that your IM race power is about 70% of FTP...

Watts are one thing, but any bigger guy (100kg/220lbs) can throw down 300w for 20min. W/kg is the deciding factor. Power/Weight ratio is king.

300w FTP, 70kg (150ish lbs) =4.28 watts/kg

what if the road is dead flat? He/she with the most power/and less drag as a combo = winner winner chicken dinner?

2.6w/kg seems about normal for age groupers in the mid pack or so.

I've managed some age group podiums in short course with an FTP somewhere around 4w/kg in the 30 to 34s.

Yeah, the smaller ones. You've got to understand the balance between watts/kilo, absolute watts and watts/cda. I won this on 4 watts/kilo, but more importantly 335 absolute watts and a very aero position. It was 5th fastest on the day and not more than a minute off the top youngsters ( I was 40).

FOP 42 male. 4.2ish watt / kg

But... FTP is IMHO less relevant than your power profile. Ie how long can you hold X watts? In your case, if doing 70.3, can you hold 160 for 2 hours? For 3 hours? Can you hold 170 etc.

Hope this helps...

That's pretty cool that you can ride 335w and get a free bike..Congratulations!
How much was the entry fee?

Entry was like $100 I think. It was just a frame, took 9 months for them to deliver, and I could never get it to fit

Watts/cda is way more important than watts/kg for triathlons. I can avg 24-25 ish on 220 watts at 160lbs. Aero wins for tris by far.

I’m in your AG and have a few comments:

1. The FTP test is interesting, but I’d put a lot more stock in what your 3-hour Critical Power is. I almost always underperform on the indoor tests, yet have decent outdoor power and ability to sustain over a long duration.
2. IMAZ has climbing in it, but it’s mostly about how many watts you can put out and how aero you can stay. I’ve done it 8x now, and it seems there’s about a 50/50 chance of its being pretty windy, so your ability to ride in aero into a headwind with good power output is really key.
3. This year was pretty windy, and I had a 5:17 split with a NP of 188W. My best split was in a calm year (2012) with a NP of 195W - that got me a 5:04. This year’s was the 2nd-fastest in the AG, and 2012’s was 3rd-fastest, I believe. That’s not to say I’m the bee’s knees; just a data point.
4. I typically test indoors - and I don’t do it often - at an FTP of around 255W. I weigh 150. I can sustain about 20W higher outdoors, though.
5. Critical to race performance - particularly the run - is not just the NP but the VI - IMAZ is a course where you can be really even if you use your power meter for what it’s intended. I range there between 1.01 and 1.03.

Keep at it, do tons of sweet spot in the winter, and then monitor what your 3- to 5-hour power output is on your long rides - that’s more indicative of IM splits than your FTP. Also, I don’t know where you live, but for IMAZ try to find flat long ride courses that force you to pedal for the entire time. This takes work for those of us who live in hilly areas.

Ian

 Hmm on that chart I am a Cat 3 for FT and 5 minutes, sadly for 1 minute and below I am not and am not Cat 3/C

I think it depends how you're measuring (or in most cases estimating) FTP. If you have a decent ~1 hour effort to use then that's going to scale very well to a 2:xx hour 70.3 ride, or even a 5:xx IM ride. Problem is most people don't do 1 hour FTP tests because they're bloody hard, and taking the time needed to taper and recover from them puts quite a dent in your training schedule. If you're estimating your FTP from a 20' test then you're suddenly scaling up by a factor of 6 or more instead of 2 to get to a 70.3 effort. And if you're doing an 8 minute test you're scaling up by a factor of 15 or more.

I know I always get a higher estimated FTP from an 8 minute test than a 20 minute one. 20 minutes to 60 minutes (which I've only done once with power) is fairly consistent, and that seems to scale well to longer efforts. For shorter efforts FTP is largely meaningless - I ride with some roadies and there are riders who weigh 10kg less than me that I can crush in the hills but who leave me for dust in a sprint. Go figure.

FTP: 330W @ 75Kg = 4.4 W/Kg
AG:45-50

Been riding for just over 2 years and spent about 5 hours a week on the trainer, mainly on TrainerRoad with some Sufferfest & Zwift thrown in.

With this i can get in the top 10 for an IM 70.3 in my AG.

Well, this is Slowtwitch so my FTP is 375 and I weigh 65 kg, so that makes me 5.8w/kg. I won Kona with that running a 2:55 off the bike in Z2.


The truth, at the moment my FTP is hovering around 280 at 76kg (3.7 w/kg). During the season I will hover around 300 at 73kg (4.1 w/kg). In a field of 1000 at a 70.3, that'll get me a top 50 bike (and I'm not very aero). I can't swim or run for sh*t though...

After testing yesterday, I’m at 362W at 72.5 kg, so right at 5.0 w/kg.

I also test my 5 minute power and 1 minute power pretty regularly, and my 5 min from last week was 436W (6.1 w/kg weighing 71 kg after) and my 1 min from two weeks ago was 657W (9.25 w/kg weighing 71 kg after).

I also have had a number of races on Zwift around an hour with Normalized Power at 360W, so I know the 20 min is an accurate measurement.

For reference, I had the 21st OA fastest bike split at Racine 70.3 this last July, finishing in 2:10 on 265W (ftp was around 330W at the time).

Hmm sounds like you don't understand the purpose of the power profiling tables?

are you as aero as a brick and/or do you walk the run? You should be killing your AG with that number.

I swim like i'm attached to a bike... and i've never really done a HIM run i'm proud of yet..

Ya know, all these recent threads on FTP and other power metrics has me thinking i don’t understand any of this stuff either. When will there be a “Training with a Powermeter for Dummies” book?

All you need to know, when these threads appear, is......aim higher on the wall.

So .. I shouldn't send this chart in when submitting my USAC upgrade request?

Basically this is what TrainerRoad is for me. I kinda understand the basics of training with power, but i could never come up with an effective plan. You even get the explanations during the workout, so you might learn as well.

If you race triathlons that’s not surprising.

There already is. Unfortunately, concepts tend to get distorted when they are dumbed down for the masses.