It's all good. Do a few rides at about 65-70% of (your real) FTP for your next few workouts until you feel better and then get back on track. Dead legs should heal in less than a week this way.

Could it be that you ride aero for most of your training? I find that I fatigue faster climbing than on steady flat efforts, which makes sense since I have done most of my FTP work aero on a rollertrainer or on a flat strech of road (I unfourtenately have any 20 minute climbs nearby to vary it with).

My thought exactly. How do you do intervals too hard? I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing.

I mean, I can maybe see feeling good and crushing a workout or crazy group ride above and beyond every once in a while and digging a hole for the next couple of days, but consistently doing workouts too hard? Maybe it's a time trial training thing?

Did your training prepare you for the specificity of this time trial? I'm guessing not. Don't worry about it, keep doing what you've been doing, but start incorporating rides specific to the nature of your A race to dial in your pacing.

haha, definitely an ego blow to have my ftp actually be 30w lower than predicted. I was having sooooo much fun imagining the possibilities!

as for the race-specificity, that is a good point and I'll definitely take that more seriously in my next buildup. but as far as workouts go, when I had my "old" (overestimated) ftp, all of the workouts were completable but close to all-out. then again, I never did intervals over ~25 mins so I was still technically playing in the field of my overestimation.

Go do a lactate threshold test at your local university or get a bsx insight

I rode Roth, based on that well know metric. Not IF, Av Power, NP, HR, but ego. Guess what happened at mile 14 of the run.....?

yeah next year i think i'll take all guesswork out of the equation and do the physiological test at a local uni.

You could just do the testing outdoors if you've got a power meter. Don't be a pussy, just go give it full gas for your test(s). Repeat now and then.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Your money would be better spent figuring out how to better utilize the powermeter you have. Physiological tests are only indirect predictors of performance, and as such, are imperfect.

General reply to this thread....why does everyone on ST seemingly have a higher FTP than Frodo and then they all race infinitely slower! Sheesh Frodo biked 4:26 in Kona off 260Watts.

Seems like age grouper beef up their FTPs and pros try to downplay theirs!!!!

Have you thought that maybe you just had a bad day on the bike when you did your 1ht TT?

FTP is just another number, another input to help guide you on the right training intensity and race pacing. Personally I like to combine data from my 20 min tests with longer outdoor rides that try to 'mimic' the demands of my events. When I put the full picture together it gives me a so much more deeper understanding of what I'll be capable of on race day.

If you're really worried you've over estimated your FTP, why not approach the first half of your race with a minus 5-10% wattage goal, then if you're feeling good bring it home stronger in the second half. You won't leave much time on the table of any, and you'll minimise the chances of going too hard and blowing up

I think in terms of race simulation workout, more important is harder than race pace swim for a tad longer than race duration and then race pace ride ideally for race duration (this SHOULD be a relatively easy workout for full IM, reasonably hard workout for half IM). You can forget about the run in race simulation...it is pointless when pretty well everyone overcooks the race swim and then they wonder what happened when they got 80% into the bike duration on race day and the legs fall off.

Source?

I always think the same thing... when I've held 360 Watts on flat ground I'm going north of 33 mph... more commonly 230 Watts for about 26 mph.

Unless these people are TT'ing at 32+mph, they're bricks or their power meters are faulty.

^for clarification, all of this is on my road bike; 360w earns me about ~26mph

My 280w in a very flat 21 mile TT this year was ~25.5mph. 281w in a 40k at Church Creek in 2014 was 25.9. I am envious of the Slowtwitch Power Beasts!

Edit: I weighed 180 and 178 respectively for those two events.

I never understand the need to criticize people with higher FTP's than theirs (or lower). I'd say it reeks of insecurity but then it seems like you're not that slow on the bike so I'm at a loss. I don't know about OP's size or height but with some extra weight to throw around it's really not that hard to reach those numbers, especially when you look at it from a w/kg perspective. I'm slightly lower (or higher, depending on how it turns out?) FTP than the guy taking the hits here, which for my weight only amounts to about 3.8W/kg. You understand larger people have more body mass to push through the air right? Doesn't necessarily make them bricks. I will never be able to go down to as low a CdA as someone weighing 60kg, just not gonna happen. Good for you that you can reach that speed with that wattage. My recovery rides have more watts than your 26mph wattage, so lets stop the d*ckmeasuring, its useless without proper context.

I think Frodo comes on here and starts panicking that his FTP sucks. Then he goes to 70.3 World's and wonders if all those age groupers with FTP's bigger than him racing 1 hour slower and riding with brakes rubbing+parachute+10 kilo backpack and the carrying the 10 kilo backpack for the run.

Frodo: "Hey Empfield, I was checking your forum and I think my powermeter is broken or we have the next incarnation of Miguel Indurain multiple times over on your forum. I am worrying if some of these guys turn pro"

Empfield: "Frodo, don't worry, I have some analytics software running on my server. Everytime someone posts an FTP number my software inflates it by 50% just so that it looks like my forum is filled with studs rather than plugs. I don't want readers confusing this place with beginnertri or something like that"

Frodo: "OK good to know, but what happens when Lionel Sanders posts his numbers. Does your software have a <if Lsanderstri, then divide by 0.7> exception handling case so that I get over confident?"

Empfield, "The analytics does not run any correction factor on Sanders or Skipper posts. What you see is what they claim".

Frodo: "OK if what we see is what we get for those guys, I appear to be safe on Skipper based on Roth. But I heard that Sanders guy actually stopped using his parachute camelback and went to the windtunnel"

Empfield, "I cannot confirm nor deny that and what he will show up with at Kona"

Frodo: "Well I hear that Potts rode 4:31 in Whistler. Did he post his powerfile on ST or did you filter it? Maybe we can swim together and ride to T2 together"

Empfield, "You'll have to break into Pott's house and stand beside his computrainer to get his watts....but are you sure you want to tow Andy around Kona. He's lighter than ever and you just shredded your legs with a 2:38 run in Roth. Andy was waltzing around Whistler for 2:58. I think you better plan on dropping him early"

....and so it goes

Hey, my fault for derailing and was not picking on the OP in particular, just the ST trend in general. In fairness, this place has a lot of really strong athletes to start off so you do see a lot of big numbers. It's the same thing on the swim threads when people post split times and if you're not leaving on 1:20 Long Course Meters, then you just aren't doing enough 50,000m weeks and expecting the results without the work (even though most of us will never get there)....same thing on the run thread....every is running 100 mile run weeks and can run a 60 second 400m and sub 4:40 mile rolling out of bed. And it's true if you have people posting from around the world and the fast guys from each community posting on here, then it sounds like everyone is that fast. There are guys who really do have FTP's higher than Frodo and as you said, they are just bigger....in any case back to the OP's question

with 4 weeks to his race, plenty of time to get ready even if he overcooked it a bit (if)

Hahah this is exactly why I didn't post my numbers in my op and only did once I figured that specific examples were more useful.

Doesn't matter anyways, the point of the thread was that my ftp was LOWER than I thought :)

Appreciate the replies nonetheless. Some good advice buried in here.

Haha that was quite funny Dev ;) Hey trust me, it frustrates me seeing people with laughable (to me) powernumbers go wicked fast, so a high FTP in and of itself is nothing to pat yourself on the back for. If anything, it generally always prompts a response along the lines displayed in this thread ;) And yes, there are alot of studmuffins on this forum, for sure.

But yeah, lets get back on topic! Maybe the FTP is off, but like others said, as long as the goal wattage for the event is doable then it doesn't matter, as long as he can rest up enough. What distance is your A-race, and how do workouts feel at that goal wattage/intensity?

It's the endurance athlete equivalent of "HOW MUCH CAN YA BENCH?!?" .

Personally, I'm a dick about it if someone asks me what my FTP guesstimate is; I'll give it to them in some obscure engineering unit like tons of refrigeraton, or BTU/hr

I never made "fun" of anyone's FTP. If anything I'm more amazed and curious.

Dev's parody pretty much covers what I intended to say so I'll drop it here.

Yeah, but then you go to races and there's barely anyone who is that fast outside of the pro's, i take everything with a grain of salt. Outside of the few races I've done where ITU level guys turn up, i don't see people running 15min 5km or an hour for the 40km.