I don’t know, seems like the appropriate volume for 50W.
If you plug in some numbers here:
at a like achievable aero position with a .25 CDA (Metric), it seems like you’d need to do around 73W to do 15mph. .25 is definitely on the low end, so that would be in the drops, head down, arms in. Change that to in the hoods, sort of aero and make that .3, that number goes up to 85W. 25W error?
@JASON_C_WILLIAMS you could plug in some other power numbers and see if this all measures up as a consistent “wrong” number on your power meter. If it’s consistent through all the various speeds you are going, then you’re probably ok.
That being said, it’s unlikely the 4iiii is really off that much, unless there is just something wrong with yours:
“Okey doke – so overall I’m just not seeing any issues with the 4iiii Precision unit from an accuracy standpoint. It’s matching other power meters on a wide variety of conditions and environmental scenarios. And numerous other tests I’ve done match these results as well as being very stable and clean from a data standpoint, both for power and accuracy data.”
The biggest issue I see is that if you’re looking for feedback, and the numbers you are sharing just don’t make any sense, it’s gonna be hard for us to help. If the problem is the power meter, you either need to figure out the adjustment factor and share that number with us, or you need a more accurate power meter.
I’m still stuck on 59W, 15.5mph average speed for someone your size.
When you can’t trust the power data, its time to focus on hours.
Pretty big week over week increase in hours over the last 4-6 weeks.
FWIW @JASON_C_WILLIAMS I’m similar height but built like a weight lifter / truck at 200lb. Here is a Wed group ride from a year ago that didn’t end well as its titled “EG Wed Ride - 2 plugs, 3 CO2, 2 tubes” Relative to my 260W ftp at the time, doing 50-80W is “going for a easy walk” pace in terms of breathing, heart rate, and I can have a full on conversation as if I were on a walk and talk.
so almost as if my power meter were listening to this conversation, my numbers jumped up wildly over the last 2 days.
What was 50W is now all of a sudden 90W - problem is now the numbers seem way too high and it’s really hard to know how much effort I’m actually putting in - I’ve had to ignore the power meter and go on heart rate which is a lot harder.
I guess I can take my old bike and my new bike and swap left cranks to get my old power meter on my new bike.
Ugh - what a pain this is.
BTW this is a brand new from the manufacturer 4iiii Power Precision Pro that I paid full retail for - not super happy.
I’m not going to address criticisms about my training plan.
You’ve aggressively ramped training hours and you feel tired. No surprise.
I’ve had several top coaches. There are books on this stuff. Smart training for a July event involves some type of structure and the most popular is linear periodization. First week you settle in, the second and third weeks you push harder to the edge of overreach, then take 3-4 days off to send a strong adaptation signal to your body. When pushing hard, you must have deloading to tell your body it’s ok to adapt to the previous hard training.
There are basically two camps on endurance. At a muscle level, both heart and legs, easy contractions are sufficient to drive adaptations but the debate comes to a couple of things. How many hours for a particular athlete which depends on the athlete. Training for performance or health? Does the athlete need more mental training to push hard? Just a few of the questions on this topic.
The timeline for fitness changes is measured in weeks, so training for an event the rule of thumb is that your fitness is baked 4-8 weeks before the event.
I don’t want to repeat myself. But it doesn’t matter: if you don’t calibrate it, your numbers are just garbage. You’d then better go with HR.
A simple calibration step takes seconds but ensures your data is reliable. It will eliminate installation variability, do a temperature compensation, and a zero offset correction.
Regarding your initial question: After several weeks of increasing your training volume, a rest week is not just beneficial—it’s essential for recovery and adaptation. When you push your body consistently, fatigue accumulates.
If you’re feeling tired, it’s a strong signal from your body that it needs more recovery. Listen to your body!
The problem isn’t necessarily that when you are overtrained it’s all bad. Sometimes you feel great! The problem is that your performance is inconsistent. You show up at a race and you’re killing it. Great, you keep the training going. The next week you’re sh%t. Better up the training! The following week you kill it again. Great, keep up the training. Another week, this time the race is terrible. Usually at this point the good happens less than the bad. But you’ve just buried yourself for a month.
Calling 4iiii support is a great suggestion @WindWarrior! But @JASON_C_WILLIAMS if you can relatively easily get the old power meter on the new bike, that could help give 4iii more info. Hell, just ride the old bike for awhile as you figure this out.
Random other thought - maybe your position is wildly -or even not so wildly - off between old and new bikes? Have you double checked that? How long have you been on the new bike?
I’ve been riding for a couple weeks now on the re-calibrated PM - numbers feel insanely high but at least now I’m not in danger of overtraining.
I don’t really have time to deal with swapping cranks or RMA so I’m just kinda stuck until July 19th (RAIN event, 160 mile ride)
The good news is that I can carry a 15mph pace for 120 miles and I think I could do another 40 without killing myself. I am going from grey to red on these last 2 120 mile rides but I take the next day off entirely so I’m mostly staying in the green.
I’m going to have a forced break in the action during the last full week of June due to a business trip and then a weekend getaway so I’m going to be getting rest whether I want it or not.
I’m trying to figure out 2 things right now.
Do I keep extending the mileage? The last 6 weeks, I’ve ridden 80, 80, 100, 100, 120, 120 on the weekends averaging 200-250 miles a week. I was thinking about extending to 140 this weekend but also thinking that I don’t think it’s really going to help me (more is just more at that point) and I’m sort of tired of giving up entire weekend days to this.
When do I start spinning down for the event? We are still 6 weeks out now so way too early to think about starting the rest cycle but is it 1 week before? 2 weeks before? Trying to puzzle that out.
after comparing 50 rides from march 10 to May 17 to 25 rides from May 18 to June 11, it appears that my watts were understated by 25 watts on any given average ride although that would say that those centuries I did at “50W” were 75 W and that doesn’t seem right either. Also my Avg HR is down about 10 beats between the two time periods so its possible I’m not working quite as hard and the power difference is actually greater.
I love how easy it is to make that comparison with this tool.
I have paused the long rides for two weeks to try and get some of my life back (riding for 8+ hours on a Saturday was getting old). I have one more long ride planned for next weekend 6/21-22 and then I will start spinning down / maintaining until the event 7/19 - I am out of town for a fair chunk of that next week so that’s the the primary driver of the timing.
Relative to my 260W ftp at the time, doing 50-80W is “going for a easy walk” pace in terms of breathing, heart rate, and I can have a full on conversation as if I were on a walk and talk.