Long story short I wrecked for the first time today and decided to make the most out of the day by going to the gym and doing my first FTP test on the gym trainer. I did the Kurt kinetic protocol for a 20 minute test and averaged 245 watt with 140 avg hr/147 max. Last 2 minutes I was able to stay round 270 so I didn’t pace perfectly but it is what it is. Was also done on a trainer bike with straps if that makes much of a difference.
Some background. I was a collegiate runner with 10k/5k prs of 29:58 and 14:29. Made the switch to experiment with triathlon with no background in swimming or biking about 2 months ago. I did a standard 16x100yd swim with 10 rest holding 1:23’s.
So my question is how does this look for an FTP after 2 months of biking? Better or worse than my swim? I weigh 62kg and certainly feel more muscularly limited on the bike than aerobically. Appreciate any feedback or advice for improvement.
Are you recently out of college? If so, I would say that HR is very low. I come from a running background with PRs not quite as nice as yours, but my FTP tests get my HR up to 190 at the end. I graduated 3 years back.
The run is clearly very strong and the swim is very impressive with no swimming background. You should see very quick gains early on with the bike, especially considering the engine you clearly have.
Relative to your run benchmarks and your swim set your bike test is a bit average. With limited data I would say your swim is around the upper 25% of the field your run is in the top 0.1% (if you can actually run that fast after swimming and riding?). You bike for a 20min best average power (not really a FTP, test but we’ll call it an FTP estimate=243/1.1=219W) I would put you in the lower half of the field on the bike (right now). Having said that you clearly have a massive aerobic engine and i suspect in a very short time you will see massive gains on the bike. Cycling is a blue collar sport, put other work in and you will see results.
I also suspect that your lack of cycling experience will affect your ability to run off the bike.
The other caveat is that you “wrecked” today. If that refers to a bike crash then I can’t see you being able to put out full effort after crashing your bike.
After 2 months your swim is impressive. Keep it up and learn good technique now!
As far as riding: “ride lots” keep it simple, put in the miles. Go hard when you feel like, easy when you don’t. Anything you do right now will result in improvement on the bike so keep it fun!
Assuming everything you wrote is true, I would expect you have the potential to go pro in 2-3 years. The swim progress is really good if you didn’t know how to swim 2 months ago. Hell I couldn’t have swum more than 200 yards straight after 2 months of swimming and I was 1st out of the water in my wave in a race this morning. I think the bike result is also pretty good though if understand it right. It takes a long time to reach your potential on the bike–if you were only able to get your heart rate up into the 140s it is because your legs are untrained on the bike. As your cycling fitness improves you will be able to get your heart rate higher (and the power numbers will also be higher). This is typical of those w/running background. Your cardio means you have a very high ceiling but you have got to get your cycling legs caught up with your lungs. But 4 watts/kg for 20 min after just 2 months is quick progress. That’s better than many people will ever be.
Swim: For someone who is new to the sport that is impressive. Being an Aussie, I am not 100% sure on the conversion. Around mid 1.30s/100m at a guess. My suggestion is join a swim squad and try and swim as much/long as possible. Days per week are key.
Bike: The caveat to this is that the test on that equipment is pretty unreliable. But that result is (compared to the other two) weak. Lots of improvement to be made there. I’d look at doing some strength endurance stuff on the bike. Some low (60-70) cadence stuff, working on strength. We do a lot of this in the early season. Time on the bike, will help.
Run: Obviously this is extremely good, will have you at a very compeitice level in any race (below WTS, where it would be an ‘average’ run) you do. With swim/bike training you will obviously not be able to train as much and will also put on weight. So don’t expect to run as fast. Back of intensity so you can put it into swim.bike.
Thanks for the input everyone. I don’t have a power meter but I did my best to estimate the power of my last race and for a 42.8k ride in 74:30 and inputting my position in the drops a website estimated my power for that race at 220. The course was pretty rolling with about 800ft of gain total. Again another rough estimate on power. I was able to run 25:00 for “5 miles” off the bike but I think that was a bit short. My guess is that my test was off by a bit maybe 10% based on the equipment I had available.