Threshold
My experience subjecting myself to intense pain on my bike. Biking is fun, they said.
Weekly Three
HEAR: “Space Oddity” by David Bowie
READ: Americans are confused eaters. Mark Hyman’s book, Food: What the Heck Should I Eat? is a good place to start when it comes to eating better and more responsibly.
VIEW: The Midwest may be flat, but it appears to be the birthplace of gravel biking. Here’s a video from the Gravel Worlds, a 150 mile race in Lincoln, Nebraska.
No. 66: Threshold
Yesterday I woke up with a single thought in my half-asleep head.
Today is FTP test day.
I said the words aloud as I laid there in the comfort of my bed, staring at the ceiling. My girlfriend didn’t respond, but I knew she was awake.
“Today is FTP test day,” I said louder.
“Yeah?” she replied generically, which is all I needed to commence an explainer, an explainer I had to get off my chest for two reasons 1) describing the reason behind doing an FTP test would give me the added motivation I needed to actually do it and 2) I needed at least one other person to know I was doing an extremely hard thing to make me feel better.
What’s FTP? It’s a biking term. It stands for Functional Threshold Power, and it represents the maximum amount of power—measured in Watts—you can maintain for a one-hour effort.
Why bother to produce such a number? It’s useful for a few reasons.
It’s a good indicator of fitness. A high FTP means your heart and lungs have established a good working relationship with your muscles, allowing you to endure high-stress (a.k.a. power) for a good chunk of time before you begin to enter an anaerobic zone, when your heart and lungs basically say, “Peace out, muscles, we can no longer help you.” A lower FTP means you hit the unsustainable anaerobic zone sooner.
It’s helpful for getting stronger. Knowing your FTP can help you improve. Once the number is determined, spending a lot of time below your FTP (called “Endurance” or “Base” training) and above it (called “Sprint” or “Interval” training) can help make you a stronger rider.
It lets you know where you stand. Using your FTP and body weight, you can come up with a universal power/weight ratio that can be used to measure yourself against other riders. This is useful if you plan to race. For example, world class riders generally have a ratio of ~5.8; domestic professionals, ~5.3; locally competitive riders, anywhere from ~4.8 to ~3.4; Casual riders, anywhere from ~3.3 to ~2.5; Just-got-a-bike riders, less than ~2.0.
Ah! Data! I know, what the hell are these numbers? Biking is about having fun, right? For the longest time, I didn’t get involved in any of this stuff. I just rode my bike. Mostly all of the riders I rode with had the data in their pockets. I didn’t, and I didn’t care. In fact, it was—dare I say—satisfying to outperform someone who took data and training seriously. It’s that petulant joy that comes with having no regard for the establishment while continuing to thrive within it.
But that was a very small part of it. The point was, and is, to have fun riding bikes whether you pay attention to the data or not.
I had done one FTP test before. It was excruciating. As you can probably deduce from the information above, an FTP test requires pushing yourself to the limit. To do this, you have options.
There is the traditional FTP test where you go as hard as you can for one-hour. This is the least preferred method. With the emotional and rollercoaster that can occur over the course of an hour—not to mention other variables—it’s considered too long to get a totally accurate reading.
The second option is the ramp test. For this one, you start at a given Wattage—say, 100w—and increase by 20w increments every one to three minutes until failure. I've heard this isn’t a preferred method because it’s too easy. Apparently, people tend to record an FTP higher than their actual.
Finally, there’s the 20-minute FTP test, which is the most popular and, arguably, the most accurate. This is the one I did and the one I was going to do again. In this test, you go all out for 20 minutes, usually uphill. At the end, you take your 20 minute average and do some math (I don't, the computer does) to produce your 1-hour average, which is your FTP.
That first FTP test was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had on a bike. I pushed myself to such a painful place that, with 5-minutes to go, I was becoming delirious. Strange thoughts were surfacing unprompted. I thought of hugging puppies, having sex, eating ice cream, being cozy and warm in a soft bed. It seemed my mind was evoking the memory of any experience that felt good, because my body was feeling so . . . not good. I was screaming expletives. I was dripping sweat. But I finished.
My first FTP ever? 289w.
Which was pretty damn good! I thank my history as a competitive swimmer. (Aside: I miss the days of having a coach tell me do hard things. Now, I have to do them voluntarily. Boo.).
Since then, a month or so had passed. I hadn’t done any dedicated training in particular, just continued to ride as usual. But after arriving in Illinois about a two weeks ago, I cranked up my riding somewhat to begin preparing for races this summer. So, I thought, what the hell, let’s do it again.
I ate breakfast. I watched a few YouTube videos of pros being badasses for inspiration. I scrolled on my phone. In short, I stalled. Then, I got on the bike and did it with Metallica blasting into my ears.
At the halfway mark I was dead, but I was halfway! So I kept going. The minutes felt so long. I did the test on my indoor trainer beside an open window. Our neighbor, whom I hadn’t yet had a chance to meet, walked by in the middle of it. He decided the 15-minute mark of my test was a good time to say hello. I saw him out of the corner of my near-crying eye. I turned. I smiled. He was saying something. I pulled my headphone speaker to the side, and at that moment he gave up on me with a resigned wave of his hand and went inside. I neared the final minute of the test. I felt like that meme of a dog in a burning room with a coffee cup who says, “This is fine.” I finished.
I felt like yakking. I got off the bike and stumbled outside the front door in my biking skivvies. There were construction workers outside staring at me. I was panting loudly. I laid on the ground until I recovered, then went back inside.
New FTP: 299w. (At 175 lbs, that made my ratio 3.76).
Yes, a near-death experience for an increase of 10w . . .
Biking is fun, they said.
After making it out alive, I went to over my neighbors house to apologize for basically ignoring him. I also wanted apologize for his having to witness whatever it was he saw—my expression at the moment in time he saw my couldn't have been pretty. Turns out, he’s a nice, old man named Jerry. He’s a widower, he told me. His wife passed in that very house. We chatted. I apologized, again, explaining the situation I was in.
“I heard you before I saw you,” he said. “I thought: he’s either on a stationary bike or having sex.”
That comment alone made the pain worth it. ♦
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