I just finished an Open 60 that I chose to do outside, so I attempted to ride for approximately 60 minutes at about 65% of my FTP. Now since I am outside it is nearly impossible to ride with steady power for that duration due to shifts in terrain, stop lights, signs, traffic, and what not. My question is how do I determine that I met my goal of riding for 60 minutes at about 65% of my FTP. Should I just look at my average power or should I look at the IF for the ride? In this instance of things my average power was 171 which is about 65% of my FTP but the IF for the ride was 0.75. Now I am aware that IF=NP/FTP which is a feel factor. In this situation could I use average watts as my goal power and IF for for how steady state I was?
It is possible to analyse this in great detail, with how much time was spent in a given zone Vs heart rate and compare to IF.
To answer your question - did you achieve your goal?
Iâd go with RPE than use specific analysis and get too in depth about it.
Did you âfeelâ like it was a fairly easy and enjoyable ride? If so, done job.
This may be one if those times when taking the analysis in to detail can be a distraction as there is no right or wrong way to âanalyseâ it in my view. It risks creating worries where none need exist. Youâll know yourself if you worked harder then you wanted to
For what itâs worth - an IF of 0.75 sounds perfectly good to me as a recoveryâish ride from my experience, but Iâd course that could include 2 all out 1 minute sprints and a bunch of coasting on the flat (extreme example) So it comes back to how you felt again.
I feel great and the legs feel flushed out and ready to go for next weeks suffering. I agree, analysis can get in the way of goals sometimes so I guess the job is done.
gâday, youâll never get a training session that is as compliant IRL vs on a trainer. because⌠well. real life. Basically - donât overthink it. Try to pick routes that make it easier, where possible. One thing to keep an eye on though is going uphill / crest / downhill. If youâre working to a target⌠try to use your gears and cadence to keep as close as possible. That simply wonât be feasible on a really steep incline / decline, but if itâs rolling hills - then guess what⌠you need to pedal downhill too
when i got a power meter on the road I got caught up on that kind of thing too, has taken me a while to âlet it goâ. For context, my regular Saturday is 6-8 hours, Sunday 4-6 hours, total volume is typically 400-600km / week. At the moment Iâm doing 5-7 x 20min threshold blocks in the Saturday ride. The difficulty is finding stretches of road where you can actually ride at that intensity consistently, for that duration. Short version - you canât. Whether itâs traffic lights, climbs / descents / poor road conditions / etc - thereâs always something. I used to stress it a lot, but basically my coach (repeatedly) told me to stop sweating it. As long as youâre getting sufficient time in target zone, short dips + highs are not going to kill the training outcomes youâre going for.
This is a good point, if you are trying to maintain a very consistent power then ideally you want the normalised power to be very similar to the average power. So the intensity factor should ideally be closer to 65%. However as the open 60 is very much just an aerobic ride, you just need to ensure that you stay below where your lactate threshold 1 is. For most people that falls between 70 and 80% of FTP so I would say that you are still in a comfortable zone to be working the aerobic system mostly.
Of course it is more difficult to keep power consistent outside simply because of the changes of terrain and also having to slow down for junctions or traffic lights. But sometimes it is good for the head to be able to go out and enjoy the Sun. So I donât think you need to worry too much about anything in regards to where your average power was and what the normalised was, and what the intensity factor showed. The intensity factor does show the overall intensity level of the ride based on the normalised power, but in this situation it is still within the realms of suitable for the ride
Thanks for the response! I just recently did another similar sorta ride outside as well and my NP & IF where in the same range and I felt like it it worked my endurance a bit. I decided this based more on my RPE at the end of the ride as suggested here than on the analyzed numbers.
What I have been trying to do is take those âOpenâ or Endurance categorized rides, that are just consistently blue all the way across the workout map, outside. My hope is that it will help with all those balance & stability muscle groups that donât really get worked when your sitting static or locked in on a trainer.
. Well⌠that is why Iâm hereâŚ