Looks like Wednesday has a pre-test workout as does Friday. Is this correct? 

yes, with the longer rest, jut throwing a few harder efforts to keep you "open".

Newbie question here - is there a good alternative to the FTP that doesn't rely on watts? (I don't own a power meter yet) In the past I've tracked progress with avg. lap times in Prospect Park, would that be a reasonable substitute?

Heart rate and perceived exertion, but a power meter will change yo life!

RileyHoonan said:

Newbie question here - is there a good alternative to the FTP that doesn't rely on watts? (I don't own a power meter yet) In the past I've tracked progress with avg. lap times in Prospect Park, would that be a reasonable substitute?

Riley,

Start with this:
http://help.trainingpeaks.com/hc/en-us/articles/204071864-Threshold-411


There here are some choices for calculating.

http://help.trainingpeaks.com/hc/en-us/articles/204071934-How-to-Calculate-Threshold-Power-Heart-Rate-or-Pace

http://www.active.com/triathlon/articles/use-a-heart-rate-monitor-and-find-your-threshold

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=633

http://steelcityendurance.com/testing/cycling-threshold-field-test-20-min/

Alright, I did my FTP test tonight since we're leaving for SF tomorrow.  As promised, here are the results:

Previous Threshold was 220
New Threshold is 250

My future workouts are gonna make me suffer!

Sweet!  Nice number!

YEs, your reward for getting fitter, you get to work harder!  YaY

Nice work Jill!

that's totally hardcore impressive!

Seriously hardcore. Jill is going to kick some major butt this year.

So I've been battling a cold this week. Is it advisable to wait on the FTP test?

Old FTP was 239
new FTP is 250
February training looks tough! Gotta get in shape for March spring racing.  

Huge bummer, I had family and friend obligations all weekend and ended up not being able to get on the bike at all.  Walked around with a baby in a bjorn for a few hours though...

Will be trying to do the FTP test tonight, but probably under less than optimal conditions (aka cold legs).  Thinking of redoing the test again this weekend, openers on Saturday, test on Sunday.

Just finished up the test and my results are consistent with Jill and Chaim at around 12% improvement from my old number.  Not a bad result from squeezing in just 5-6hrs of training a week!  Thanks Tim!

that post is 88% weak

Great work!!!!   Testing is training and training is testing!   Why?  first off it is a hard workout in itself!  Second, it ensure accurate training zones so make sure you update those with new targets!!!!

Hey Tim, don't know if you a) follow Adam Myerson on Twitter and b) have any pull with WKO4 functionality/updates, but I thought these tweets might be construed as user based development but he said recently:

"The way WKO4 sorts intervals I create in a file by the order I mark them, rather then by when they happened, drives me fucking bananas."

and...

"Then if I double click on an interval in WKO4, it should TAKE ME TO THE INTERVAL! Not give me a useless pop up with the time stamp."

We've got a couple of guys on the club who I think are running the new WKO4, not sure if they have the same complaint.

Marc Bertucco said:

Hey Tim, don't know if you a) follow Adam Myerson on Twitter and b) have any pull with WKO4 functionality/updates, but I thought these tweets]...

We've got a couple of guys on the club who I think are running the new WKO4, not sure if they have the same complaint.

Marc,
     Myerson presents with tact, as usual.

     Not my issues with WKO4.  I'm still learning it, though I did have some questions about charts.  I sent mine directly with Tim, and, I hope, a bit more constructively.

FRC & SST 
What in the world was this torture!!?!?!!!!

Wow, chart art!  Like it.  Started the first SST too hard.  The FRC intervals create some high fatigue! 

Mug - did not get questions, send to me at tim@wko4.com

Marc - For better or worse, I am the guy for WKO4 so target them to me.  Funny thing is he can just single click to get what he wants (A challenge of doing software in both PC and MAC) and the intervals will show in order they are in the file but I can see people at times wanting to over ride that....

Thanks for pointing out, will see if I can help him.

I think the SST crisscross is going to be the hardest of the week, especially with the new threshold numbers. #dread

So bumping up my zones with new power numbers just made the same workouts SO MUCH HARDER. Holy hell.

Can we please stop whining and just own it?

https://youtu.be/GK4lD3Uf8_o?t=3m25s

p.s. ACTUAL power numbers or it didn't happen

This is the challenge...the more you train, the more you can train!!!  Now, you need to measure fatigue and know if you are going just too hard, the best way to do this is to look at intervals, are you losing power?  Once you are more than 5% below min target as the average, should consider being 'Done" for the session.  

Vlad, we can't all be exhibitionists, but because you're my very special schmoopy schmoop I'll make an exception.

FTP went from 235 to 265