Hi all, you guys have already know a bit of myself in some posts.
As a beginner im sure ive made my mistakes trying to coach myself. Ive always done sports and have a coaching background in other sports, so i started trying to study about cycling and im still learning a lot, thanks to you guys and other sources.
During January i decided to ride more regularly. Increase the hours on the bike (ive got them to 9 or 10 a week), and from march on i also increased climbing time and time on a single ride, so i could prepare for my event this saturday (117K, 2800+).
Although i learned what it is a base period etc and what structure riding should be, im guilty of not really sticking to a really structured program. Rather i was just riding (most times alone), and when a small climb came i did Z4 or Z5 depending on the length of the climb, so i wasnt really doing until a few weeks ago any structured training like doing 2x20 mins at FTP or things like that, i was just riding and saying ok im going faster on this section, or today i feel good im going at tempo, etc.
So really i ended up most rides trying to go ‘as fast as possible’ depending on the length of the ride of course my avg W or NP would be higher or lower, but i usually end up on 75 to 80 something intensity for the rides. If the ride had more climbs as my last weeks then i would try to not enter too much Z4 if it was a longer ride, but of course if you have a lot of climbing i would end up on high Z3 most of the time.
good thing is ive found i can ride at tempo for long now, ive definitely improved on this, but my ftp has gone a bit up, but not that much, and i suspect it may be cause i have made mistakes on my preparation.
So in this graph you can see my 3 levels training on weeks, i think i may ended up doing too much Z3 (out of 7 levels), but im not sure. What do you guys think?