What’s a KOS quest without fresh numbers!
Even tho I’ve done HM a few times this year, I was due for a real Full Frontal. (After the test I checked and discovered I haven’t done FF in over 16 months! I better report to flogging station #7). I have lots of reasons for this… but I’ll just leave it at that and let GvA sort it out.
So, this morning I dutifully performed my FF 4DP. And my suffering was glorious.
It was probably one of only a couple really complete FF attempts where I hit every section hard and felt like I didn’t mess any of them up and really couldn’t have gone harder in any of them to make any reasonable difference in the numbers.
I’ve been doing a lot more long Z2 rides and 1 or 2 HIT sessions every week, and riding between 9 and 12 hours almost every week (averaging around 11 hours). So somewhere close to 80/20 (probably more like 85/15). And it seems to have done wonders for my FTP and my MAP (not so much my AC or NM).
I tried my best to stare at the video, not close my eyes, ignore the power numbers on the screen (as much as possible), and just ride to feel. Mostly I just wanted to be able to see a red or neutral background to my power numbers more often than blue without trying to look at the actual numbers, but try not to care and just ride so that I felt I did my best.
The 2 sprints felt a little off, but I gave them all I could. Mostly they felt like I was out of practice and I probably could’ve hit higher numbers if I practiced my technique a bit more. Between losing the use of my big ring for most of last year and chronic back issues that had me mostly off the bike the end of last year and the beginning of this year, I haven’t done a lot of sprinting. I did Violator during last year’s KOS attempt but it was all in the little ring while seated. Today I still hit over 1,200w peak power, and my 5-sec power was down, but not enough to worry about.
I felt like I nailed the 5-minute section. I got all I could out of it and I couldn’t have gone any harder or lasted much longer. My cadence was a bit lower (closer to 90rpms or slightly below) than when I’ve done my best numbers before, but at the same time I felt like my power was more consistent with fewer fluctuations. And while I couldn’t put out any more power at the end I wasn’t fading either. I felt strong and well-paced to ride a perfect even effort.
The 20-minute section was brutal, as usual. I didn’t try to hit a specific number. I took the first minute or two to ease into the effort and then tried to hold it for the next 17-18 minutes. Like the 5-minute effort, my cadence again felt a bit lower than usual. I prefer it to be between 82-85rpms, and in my past tests I’ve sometimes had to constantly jump back and forth between gears and end up doing 85 for a couple minutes, then 75rpms, and then jump back and forth to switch between muscle usage. This time I stuck almost the entire time around 78-80rpms. If I switched up a gear I needed to be at 90+ rpms which was too quick for me to keep enough pressure on the pedals for 20 minutes and so I focused on staying right at 78-80rpms the entire time. When I was feeling better I was closer to 81-82rpms and when I was tiring I would slow to 77-78rpms. And again, I was trying to just burn a hole in the video and watch Sagan power to victory while only vaguely keeping aware of whether the power background was red or neutral or blue and keeping an even cadence and smooth out my pedal stroke.
In the end, for the 1-minute section, I was completely gassed. I wasn’t able to sprint to start the effort. It did start as a standing effort, but instead of a sharp start I kind of ramped up the power and tried to sustain it and not blow up. It was my typical stand, sit, stand, sit, stand, collapse & whimper and curse GvA. The last 10 seconds I tried to sprint again, but my legs were toasted and I just tried to keep my power over 300w. lol.
So how did I do?
- NM -53 (14.01w/kg) (yeah, I’m not surprised, but at least I’m still over 14w/kg!)
- AC -3 (5.08w/kg) (I’m surprised it wasn’t lower; maybe if I gave more I could’ve broken even, but I really was broken at this point)
- MAP +15 (4.00w/kg) (MY BEST MAP number EVER!! +7 more than my previous best numbers from last year!
- FTP +6 (3.24wkg) (MT BEST FTP number EVER!! +6 from my best number ever from Half Monty from 4 weeks ago!)
So, I’m over the moon with my new numbers. And with a bit of work I can have my NM and AC moving back to where they were while improving the rest of my numbers.
And of course that means extra suffering in 2 weeks for my 2nd KOS Anniversary Quest! Glorious