I am probably the last person that should make a comment on this thread, but I can testify that I was training in the 6 to 7 hour range and a couple years ago I changed it up a little and bumped up my time to 10 hours. That year life allowed it with a steady and consistent work week and home life was calm. Although I come from a completely different background and did very well competing in strength type activities at a higher level, I would consider myself to be a very hard gainer in the world of endurance.
At the ~7 hour training week for cycling I reached 230 FTP with the standard 2 x 20 @91% FTP during the week and group rides on the weekend. Bumping it up to 10 hour weeks I had to change a little in order to maintain the increased volume. Also strength training is still my primary training so that interfered with fatigue/recovery and hitting the prescribed training targets on the bike. My FTP did not go up with 10 hours, but some other things happened that year that gave me an appreciation beyond chasing moving that threshold ceiling up per a number. Sure I really wanted to get to 270 and closer to 3.5 watts/kg, but that did not happen.
What did happen was a drastic improvement to my overall endurance on longer courses and I was really excited about that. For the 100 mile course that I use on Saturday and sometimes only go 80 of that I was not fading as bad in those last 20 miles or so like I was on 7 hours a week. So where I was hoping that increasing my FTP would allow me to pace at a higher speed over the long haul at a lower wattage (78% of a greater FTP would be faster right?), but I did reduce the finishing times on this training course because I was holding ~78% FTP better on the same FTP from start to finish. I did fade in the last miles as to be expected, but no where as bad. Even though my FTP did not increase my finishing time improved with increased weekly training hours. Another thing that I observed that even though the increased training time was a little more fatiguing overall, I recovered from that long training ride faster as well. With lower training hour weeks and riding with my cycling group/friends I was always dropped in the first 20 miles of a No Mercy group ride and would have to finish out the last 40 miles or so as solo. After getting a tri bike, increasing my training week hours and spending a lot of time in a TT type pace of about 75%+ of FTP for 80 to 100 miles my friends were astonished that the guy that was always dropped was now on the front a lot and finished in the lead group. And this was with no real increase in FTP believe it or not. My ability to maintain a sustained power output had drastically improved.
On a 6 hour training week and doing a random long course I was totally useless after the ride and would nap for several hours. Once I increased my training time and threw in the long course every Saturday I did not need a nap and felt great doing home projects later that day. Like building a paver patio in the backyard that year. So there were benefits to me with increasing my training time up to 10 hours even if I am a hard gainer with a low FTP.
My point is that for a guy (me) that was really fixated on a FTP number since getting my first power meter back in 2008 I realized that year of increasing my weekly training hours that there were some other benefits that ended up being just as valuable. Well at least to me. Now I really want to get back to this and will have to work my way back up to being able to handle this training load, but first I have to get past these work deadlines.
At the ~7 hour training week for cycling I reached 230 FTP with the standard 2 x 20 @91% FTP during the week and group rides on the weekend. Bumping it up to 10 hour weeks I had to change a little in order to maintain the increased volume. Also strength training is still my primary training so that interfered with fatigue/recovery and hitting the prescribed training targets on the bike. My FTP did not go up with 10 hours, but some other things happened that year that gave me an appreciation beyond chasing moving that threshold ceiling up per a number. Sure I really wanted to get to 270 and closer to 3.5 watts/kg, but that did not happen.
What did happen was a drastic improvement to my overall endurance on longer courses and I was really excited about that. For the 100 mile course that I use on Saturday and sometimes only go 80 of that I was not fading as bad in those last 20 miles or so like I was on 7 hours a week. So where I was hoping that increasing my FTP would allow me to pace at a higher speed over the long haul at a lower wattage (78% of a greater FTP would be faster right?), but I did reduce the finishing times on this training course because I was holding ~78% FTP better on the same FTP from start to finish. I did fade in the last miles as to be expected, but no where as bad. Even though my FTP did not increase my finishing time improved with increased weekly training hours. Another thing that I observed that even though the increased training time was a little more fatiguing overall, I recovered from that long training ride faster as well. With lower training hour weeks and riding with my cycling group/friends I was always dropped in the first 20 miles of a No Mercy group ride and would have to finish out the last 40 miles or so as solo. After getting a tri bike, increasing my training week hours and spending a lot of time in a TT type pace of about 75%+ of FTP for 80 to 100 miles my friends were astonished that the guy that was always dropped was now on the front a lot and finished in the lead group. And this was with no real increase in FTP believe it or not. My ability to maintain a sustained power output had drastically improved.
On a 6 hour training week and doing a random long course I was totally useless after the ride and would nap for several hours. Once I increased my training time and threw in the long course every Saturday I did not need a nap and felt great doing home projects later that day. Like building a paver patio in the backyard that year. So there were benefits to me with increasing my training time up to 10 hours even if I am a hard gainer with a low FTP.
My point is that for a guy (me) that was really fixated on a FTP number since getting my first power meter back in 2008 I realized that year of increasing my weekly training hours that there were some other benefits that ended up being just as valuable. Well at least to me. Now I really want to get back to this and will have to work my way back up to being able to handle this training load, but first I have to get past these work deadlines.
Last edited by:
Felt_Rider: Feb 18, 19 4:09