Why Would I Think I'm Gonna Do a 60' Field Test (similar to IMMoo rollers)?
Yeah, got an FTP from the trainer, way back when, during the OS.
Used it, have swagged it up appropriately, since I've been hammering outside intervals.
Terrain here is rolling hills, so Avg Power and Pnorm always come out a little lower cuz of the downs.
Say the interval calls for something like 20' at 270w. If I try to cap the Ups at 270 to 280, I KNOW that the Pavg and Pnorm will be WAY lower cuz I'll max out on effort at 240's on the Downs. If I allow the Ups to creep up to 300-320, I have a hard time holding all of the downs at 240ish, coming in a little lower, still dragging the Pavg and Pnorm down.
So, as far as I see it, my FTP of 260-270 always seems to earn me 230's Pavg/Pnorm at the end of a 100% effort.
Here's the question....is there any benefit of going out and doing a 60' test to get a number specific to the terrain? After doing enough homework, I feel like the rollers around here will tax my legs in a similar fashion as Madison will. My hills might be a little shorter, maybe steeper, but pretty close terrain. And, would there be any value in racing with that kind of terrain specific FTP?
I know that I'm overthinking it, but, I doubt I'm the first one who's thought about this.
If you're response is from the Do All Your Work On The Trainer school, 
Comments
While I do tend to do most of my FTP intervals on the trainer, perhaps you are over-thinking this?
If you want to do 45 mins of FTP work, I don't think it matters that much whether it is 3 x 15 or 5 x 9, or whatever.
Do you have a hill where you can do, say, 10 mins @ FTP? If so, why not try that (4 or 5 reps @ FTP)?
The other approach could be just to hammer the uphills and flats and slight downhills. Use the bigger downhills for recovery, and then hammer again when the road tilts up again.
my hills are usually only2-5' long. That's why riding around here is 'dangerous' as far as EN strategy riding goes, cuz it's real ez to string together back to back to back etc. burnt matches and not feel it until much later. I do try to 'add' up the minutes. Most of the time end up overshooting the scheduled time by a ton, cuz of hills that pop up in recovery phases. Chillin' up a hill in a recovery phase usually = flat FTP numbers.
As far as your last point, that is how I generally approach it. 'Hammer' is a feel, right? That's RPE. I know what my FTP effort (or TP effort on the run) feels like. So, I just go that hard for the interval, no resting on the downs. The downs are often harder than the ups cuz the ups get capped and I'm chasing an unreachable number on the downs.
So, I guess I'm a hybrid of a numbers guy and an ol' skool feel guy.
How 'bout my other question, tho? Is there anything applicable to getting a FTP terrain specific number? If a FTP 'efforted' test gives me a Pnorm of 235 instead of my flat land FTP of 270, is the 235 something I should/could use on race day? Or, if I'm at IMMoo, know my FTPoutside is 270, 67% is 182 goal watts, and the terrain will affect my numbers like they do here in Suwanee, then I should expect Pnorm to stay significantly lower than goal watts based on 'effort' rather than chasing the Pnorm up to 182?
Sorry, I don't mean to be confusing. I'm just trying to find that sweet spot of pushing hard to maximize my bike but not blowing up my run because I'm trying to push my numbers up to goal when they won't get there cuz of the downhill numbers.
So we don't have a different FTP for different terrains, we simply have one FTP and we use it differently on different terrains. On certain terrains, it is likely that you will be unable to maintain 100% of your physiological FTP. That just means you will be riding at some percentage of your FTP. If you rode only downhill for that 60’ test, you would think your downhill FTP was even lower by your logic... Inside EN, our FTP is used to set our training zones and to help measure the amount of work we are putting into our bodies over time, that's it. Then some percentage of our FTP is used to plan out race effort for a given distance to accumulate the optimal TSS for our bike leg to allow us to have a fast enough bike split, but more importantly to allow us to have a great run.
So... I think you should calculate your FTP one of the traditional ways. Then do your best to hit your numbers in training, but don't beat yourself up if the terrain won't allow it all the time. Ideally, you will do your race rehearsal on terrain that is similar to your actual race, so great for you that it is similar to where you normally ride. When you are trying to hit say 70% for that RR, this will be very similar to race day and you can use this to help you dial in your old School RPE and feel to help tweak that percentage for your second RR. When you are coasting or going slightly easier downhills, the fact is that there is less strain on your legs and they are recovering slightly. When you push way too hard going up hills, you are burning matches. So in training, burn all the matches you can. But for your RR and your actual race, there is a balancing act to ride steady by going hard on crests and downhills before you spin out and riding slightly above goal effort on the uphills. Ideally you land pretty close to your goal IF, while riding at a relatively low VI. But this is a bit of an art that is learned over time and definitely refined through your RRs.
I don't plan on reinventing the wheel here. EN Protocol all the way. But, VI is a process here. I wonder how my a training day would go if I set VI on my dash. Hmmmm, that's an idea. Will have to compare some rides doing that.
I just freakin' hate HAMMERING my a$$ off on downhills so that I can try to keep my Pnorm up! And losing that battle every time! Silver lining is that I'm easily putting in long efforts at threshold and/or above threshold efforts. And, that was the other point....my outside rides are, for lack of a better term, done at Threshold Effort as opposed to Threshold Powers. Again, silver lining is that my Mean Max Power Curves are showing really big jumps over the last 6 weeks. If using the big dropoff in the curve as an indicator, and using the same course, then FTP has moved from 240 to 270-280. Seems to be real because I'm able to use that number in my FTP interval stuff on the longer weekend rides (tho, it does come in a little low due to the downhills).
And, very good points on the value of FTP/RPE on the race rehearsals. That will be key in my journey.
thanks for the feedback, keep 'em coming.
Remember the coaches prescribe 95% to 100% of FTP for our Zone 4 intervals (IF = 0.95 to 1.0).
Yeah, I've been thinking about this off and on since I saw Chris' first post. I agree with JW - your FTP is your FTP. The issue is, how does one use that in various conditions like rolling terrain, heat, wind, etc. For that matter, the question is the same for one's swim TT time and VDOT, when one encounters wind and chop on the water, or similar environmental challenges on the run course, either during training or racing.
I'll just relay my own experience this past weekend on the bike, part of my continuing education about how to pace in more difficult terrain. I used to do a lot of my FTP work on either the trainer, or on a relatively flat road, or a constant, steady uphill. But there's a good five mile course about 35 minutes ride from my house, on a park road closed to cars Sat/Sun mornings, so I've been going there this season. This week's ride was: 2 x 15' (5'), followed by 8' of ON time. It takes me 14-15 minutes to do the loop, which is a constant series of 50-200' hills of 3-10% gradient, so it's just not possible to settle into one steady effort level.
As Peter says, I just look at my IF (on my Joule) for that interval constantly throughout the ride, and try to keep it within 0.95-1.00. I ignore my actual watts, which probably vary from 0.8-1.1 at any moment (182-242 for me). I'm happy if I end up at the end of the 14 minutes near 0.97 for the whole interval.
The VO2 work is a bit less structured. On the way home, the terrain is more of the same. So I just work as hard as I can up each hill. I'm working too hard to start and stop the interval button, and since it's on the road (bike lane, at least), I'm watching for cars pulling up in front of me, not looking at my watts. The hills end up taking anywhere from 30-120 seconds. I don;'t coast down, but pedal enough to feel a bit of work. Looking at each interval after the fact on WKO, I saw that I was usually hitting an avg power of 1.12-1.17 for those efforts.
To answer the specific question, "Should I test for a "Terrain Specific FTP", my answer is, "No". But training in the rollers as I describe above is feasible, and you can even do the same thing for intervals @ 0.8 or 0.7 IF, to get a feel for how I will ride during an HIM or IM. For those efforts, the idea becomes, not to maximize the work effort, but to keep within, say 0.65 and 0.75 IF at all times while watching IF (or the equivilants for an average power) for the interval. Making the intervals short enough (no more than 5 miles or 15 minutes) ensures that I don't overcook up the hills or underwork down hill.
couple of things I need to tidy up....I need to update my Joule to my most recent FTP so that my IF's are accurate. Have had a software glitch on Device Agent and have never gotten around to straightening that out. And, I need to get IF on the main Dash. Because my Joule still thinks my FTP is from the beginning of 2012, I have been staring solely at real time watts (3s). This may have had me going down the 'wrong path' as far as governing effort (some people may call that a 'factor of Intensity'! duh!).
Al, I need to get you on speed dial. Your rollers sound eerily similar. Not necessarily hard to get into a rhythm because the lack of rhythm is it's own rhythm!
Looks like there's more trial and error to come. My trainer FTP results are nothing more than a starting point for my outside rides cuz my delta is consistently large, too large. Think I'll start lower than I think my FTPoutside is and try this IF viewing strategy. If my latest, hardest one hour effort Mean Maximal Power Curves keep telling me 270, I'll dumb it down to around 250 for the first couple of experimental rides. If it's 'easy', I'll bump it up a notch and repeat.
BOTTOM LINE: I would REALLY hate to go into Madison thinking my FTP is higher than it really is. If I head up there thinking that I'm going on 67% of 280 (goal watts of 187) vs 250 (gw of 167), then I'm already behind the eight ball. And, finding this accurate FTPoutside is a bit more involved than I originally (3 years ago) had thought.
haven't updated the firmware or changed my FTP in the Joule since early 2011.
this might help a little bit.
All great advice from the posters. My notes:
Again, good feedback from the team. Nice work!
...and applying.
(looking forward to not putting in an RPE of 11 in order to nail 70%FTP on rolling downhills!)