Raising The Bar

I'm not a very powerful cyclist, I'm more like the little engine that could; I motor along at a reasonable pace for a ridiculously long period of time. The diesel engine that goes and goes, the Energizer bunny though I prefer DuraCell batteries. The...never mind.

After months of training and some concentrated effort,s I've raised my FTP from 210 watts to 220 watts. Oooooh! Well to me it's a big deal. Yesterday I rode to work and was within a few seconds of my absolute best time, which was with a significant tail wind. Yesterday's ride to work had virtually no wind effect so it was me, not Zephyrus pushing me along. And I arrived winded but not ready to fall off the bike like the last time I

Here's screenshot from the iBike software showing the effort. This is smoothed to 5 minutes which does a better job of showing the big picture.

Solid 

Today, Sunday the 14th I did a fairly hard ride with some friends. It was my last big effort before the Cool Breeze Double Metric and "things" have come together nicely. I did a hard ride, but didn't feel like I needed a day off afterwards and my heart rate stayed reasonably low. I'm ready. My best 30 minute effort came fairly late in the ride (see below) and that's a good sign.

A SportTracks screenshot showing my best 30 minute effort.

A recovery ride for the August 15th, some high intensity short intervals on the 17th and a short ride to open up the legs on the 19th.

Then it's showtime! My companions and I are starting out at 6AM and will probably be on the road for 8 hours of riding. After all, it is 130 miles including the ride from the hotel to the ride start and of course the return. Barring a disaster, I'll put up a report next week.