Although I'm still very much basking in the "glory" of my Kona experience I'm beginning to turn my attention to 2011. I have begun to map out a race plan for next year and will share that here in the next couple of weeks as I sort through all of my options.
I've taken it relatively easy the 3 weeks (since Kona) but now am motivated to begin pointing my training towards my 2011 campaign. Here is what last week and the month of October looked like training wise:
Last week:
154 miles on the bike
19 miles running
13 hours training
October:
14.5k swimming (nothing since Kona)
560 miles on the bike
87 miles running
55 hours training
I'll share a more detailed overview of my 2011 training plan in the next couple of weeks but a key component will be to really focus on intensity in both the bike and run. In fact, increasing my FTP on the bike will be the principle focus of my winter months. My "off-year" in 2009, my IM focus over the last few years, and my increasing age have all led to what is (in my honest judement) a pretty significant fall-off in my FTP on the bike. This has impacted my racing at all distances, from sprint to IM. In sprint races I used to always have a top 5 bike and occassionally have the fastest overall. This past year it's been more frequently top 10 or 15 with an occassional top 5. I'm still a strong cyclist but I've lost that edge that I once enjoyed. This costs me 1-2 minutes in sprints and probably 5-10 minutes in my half-IMs and more in my IMs.
I've decided I need to work aggressively to get it back. To do so I have launched "Project FTP300". In 2007, when I had the top FTP in the Cadence Kona Challenge (out of 100 finalists) I averaged 308 watts in a 20 minute CP test. This translates into a FTP of 293 watts. Over the next 4 months I intend to follow a very specific training protocol to get back to those levels or higher. I intend to execute 40 workouts that I believe collectively have a good chance of returning me to this prior level of cycling capability. Basically, I'll execute 2 cycles each month of the following 5 workouts (this does not include warm-up/warm-down, just the high intensity parts):
1: 20 minutes--highest possible average watts (set FTP=.95 of this number)
2. 2-3 X 20 minutes @90-95% of FTP with 5 min rest inbtw
3. 8-10 reps of 3 min @ 115% of FTP with 2 min rest inbtw
4. same as number 1
5. either 2 or 3
In the second week where I just do 2 of the hard workouts I'll substitute a full rest day.
I started this week and here are the results for workouts 1-3:
1. 20 minutes @ 275 average watts (FTP=261 watts)
2. 20 minutes @ 250 (96%)/5 min rest/10 minutes @ 250
3. 6 X 2 minutes @ 300 watts (115%)
On average this is 62 minutes @ 268 watts
I obviously have a long way to go--by March I want to be able to do:
1. 20 minutes @ 308-315 watts
2. 3 x 20 min@ 290-300 watts
3. 10 x 3min @ 335-345 watts
Stay tuned for future reports
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