Spring Fling
Had my season opener this weekend. I am stepping back from the IM distance for the next couple of years to focus on increasing my speed, strengthening my mental toughness and trying to reduce overall costs. It was a pool venue sprint distance race with a time trial swim start. The course was moderately hilly on both the bike and the run. Having jus finished the NOS last week I was excited to test my new fitness in a race. In short the OS was brilliant. I have always finished in the bottom 50% on the bike and on Sunday I was in the top 20% and finished 8th overall in the run. I placed first in my age group which was such a stretch of my imagination just six months ago.
As I am new to power I have a question about my race. My FTP from my last OS test was 239. I had the pm on during the race but did not use it but was excited to look at the data following the race. It was really the first time I have looked at the outdoor data as I have done everything on the trainer to this point. Very different looking profile that what I am used to. I assume this is pretty normal especially considering the hilly nature of the course. Also, my NP was 240W for the race. I felt like I went pretty much all out so was this a pretty normal output for a sprint or should I have been able to muster a better effort?
Comments
Congratulations - you have started to set a new standard of excellence for yourself!
As to the power data - success in a sprint does not require close attention to steady riding, just a feeling of being at the red line the whole way. An NP of 240 sounds just about right to me. I think most folks will be doing a sprint at about 92-100% of their FTP. If your FTP was tested indoors, or more than 4 week prior, your current FTP may well be higher. In the past, I have used a sprint race NP as my new training/racing FTP, and done just fine with it.