Without seeing something like lactate curves pre and post training, its a bit hard to say.
However, I will say that a decrease in threshold is not abnormal.

Keep in mind that you completed a super-threshold effort to estimate threshold, which is exactly the opposite of what you've been training.
I'm willing to bet your FTP didn't drop as much as the 20 min test is indicating. (Similarly, this is why I do not use 95% 20 min power to estimate FTP for everyone. It could be between 90 and 95%)

(The other side of this is that if your aerobic engine is especially strong, training significant amounts of base may not help you improve. Its hard to judge limitations without more information. Additionally, I do not believe that high intensity training should ever be taken completely out of a program. Therefore, if you were only training zone 2, then add a little SubLT and VO2 back in).

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I talk a lot - Give it a listen: http://www.fasttalklabs.com/category/fast-talk
I also give Training Advice via http://www.ForeverEndurance.com

The above poster has eschewed traditional employment and is currently undertaking the ill-conceived task of launching his own hardgoods company. Statements are not made on behalf of nor reflective of anything in any manner... unless they're good, then they count.
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first step is consider whether the way you tested yourself is reliable. Good power meter, you understand how temperature affects it and took precautions, same environment as your previous test? etc etc. do other hard workouts show the same pattern of less fitness?

then consider if losing a little bike fitness makes sense right now given your overall plans. it might, are you running a lot right now? etc

If you were hoping to maintain or gain fitness, many people make the mistake of not doing enough volume when they do a period of lower intensity. Basemiles are great if you do lots and lots of them.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

nice post!

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

In other words, have a method of tracking training load. If you want to build aerobic fitness with low intensity, you need more training load. It's shocking how many slow easy miles at a lower Z2 intensity you can ride to equal a higher intensity session. 3 hours at a low zone 2 can easily be equaled by a focused 80-90 minute ride.

Depending on the race distance of your "A" race, you "base" might actually be higher intensity alternated with recovery rides, not lots of lower intensity.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

You lose what you don't work on, in my experience.

If you don't do threshold work, I wouldn't expect to improve it. Same with vo2, sprinting, etc.

edited for...crazy typing.

yep, this is a good point.
if you are not doing much high intensity work, the 20 minute test will probably start to underestimate your FTP by a greater amount.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

A.k.a. specificity, specificity, specificity, specificity, specificity.

Thanks for your responses.

I don't have any lactate data unfortunately.

I would also guess that my aerobic engine is not particularly strong, which is why I thought I may be able to get some improvements from base training.

I followed the mid level base training plan on trainer road exactly. My weekly TSS is about 400 with this now. This was coming off the back of a marathon in October followed by some unstructured cycling, but some high intensity work. My training load is higher now than it was in the autumn.

I wasn't until I completed the first month of the base programme that I noticed the big drop off in power. Previously I lost about 10W between August and November, which I had expected through more running and less cycling.

I try to keep the testing scenario the same for consistency. I use a stages power meter and test on a turbo trainer with an aim for a consistent temperature, although I do this outside on the balcony in temperatures below freezing.

I track my workload with golden cheetah so aware it is not too low.

I considered throwing in some higher intensity work but was conscious of that potentially damaging the aerobic work I was doing.

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http://www.thedeludedcyclist.wordpress.com

x2

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____________________________________
Fatigue is biochemical, not biomechanical.
- Andrew Coggan, PhD

Many have their own ideas about base training.
This is what I do for base training to keep my 20 min power at 430w year end and year out
M off
Tue (2 to 3 x 20 min.at 90% FTP)
Wed(2 to 3 x 20 min.at 90% FTP)
Thurs.(90 minutes at 85% FTP)
Fri (1 hour at 75% FTP)
Sat (2-3 hours outside at 85% FTP)
Sun(2-3 hours outside at 85% FTP)

That's base off season training.

I just do 100% FTP for 3 hours, 7 days a week. My FTP is then the same, 365 days a year.

I'm worried that I might be overtraining though.

I thought I did a lot tempo stuff, but you are the undisputed king of tempo/sweet spot training!

You havent googled Kevin metcalf then!

How fresh were you when you did each test?

2x20 @ 85% 5 days a week, indoors, during the winter?

I guess you neither run or swim much, if at all.

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On the internet, you can be anything you want. It is a pity so many people choose to be stupid.

The idea that doing some higher intensity work during base would somehow degrade the improvement gleaned by doing the lower intensity work was completely debunked decades ago. You will not explode newly forming capillaries but instead will induce the formation of new ones.

Even the big advocates of polarized training have their athletes hammer hard for 20% of their efforts all year long.

Bring on that intensity!

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Like it!

While I am not following the recent study of polarized training (80:20 ratio) I've stepped up the past 6 months to setting my targets to be 100% to 115% for 3 days with intervals inside. On the weekends with having more time available I am able to go with more saddle time and adjust the intensity based on the duration. If it is really cold and I can only tolerate 2 hours I will put in some solid blocks of L3 and L4 as long as I can recover to get back into hitting those higher indoor intensities. Since I don't compete I have nothing to lose with this N=1 experiment, but so far no trouble with recovery, no feeling of burnout and seeing some good results out on the pavement. I have a bit more volume in the higher intensities than the 20% ratio from the study. I do not have enough training time available for the lower intensity high volume, as Jackmott stated.

Previously I would probably say that I was doing more of what the OP is doing and did not feel like I was improving. Well the data certainly pointed out that I was not improving and on the road not sign of improvement.

I have wondered for a while if it is too simple to say, "adjust intensity based on time available"? I know that is probably too simplistic and there is a lot more to it, but I found it odd to do L2 for only 60 minutes. It doesn't take long to see that L2 for 60 to 90 minutes will yield very low TSS/d and that PMC begins to trend downward. Now if I had the hours available to get 90 to 100 TSS/d at a lower intensity I wouldn't mind giving that a try, but that is a lot of hours per week that I don't have. (not in relation to chasing numbers, but in context of getting something out of the hours spent).

Some people have mentioned that if there were some Lactate data, this issue would be easier to interpret. Can anyone expand on that? If LTHR and FTP both decreased, then yes fitness may be lost, but if LTHR was the same and only FTP went down, then maybe it's because the test isn't accurately predicting FTP?

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Dtyrrell

Agreed with Jack...either you do a lot of mile at low intensity, or less miles at high intensity. You can jack up your FTP riding at RAAM intensity across America, or you can jack it up by training like Chris Boardman for the hour record. Or something in between. But if you train at track cyclist volume, but at RAAM intensity, you will lose fitness.

well the difference you measured was well within the possible error caused by normal left/right variance so who knows

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Said user has posted that he's done a 33 10k after a 40k bike in a tri/du.

Partly right then, duathletes don't swim!

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On the internet, you can be anything you want. It is a pity so many people choose to be stupid.

In his book Boardman explained that he did in fact de train through some months of the year when he was doing high mileage but that it was necessary to do this. He didn't explain it it terms of how many watts he lost at FTP but definitely said that the de trainimg was accepted because he knew the base had to be built up and that the rewards would be there when he moved into the next phase of training.