Ironman Wisconsin is now over, and I've taken about a month off to rest, relax and spend time with the family. However, it's now time to get started with the offseason training, which is much reduced from the in-season work.
My coach has put together the first 8 weeks of my plan based on my goals for next season. Although I won't be doing an Ironman race, I want to tentatively plan for one in 2009. To that end, I've asked him to plan on a couple of half ironman distance races this year, with the overall goal to be ready for a fall Ironman distance race in 2009.
My offseason plan begins with bike and run fitness tests to get a baseline measurement of where my bike and run fitness is currently. Because I train the bike with a power meter, we'll be using funtional threshold power (FTP) as the benchmark for my bike fitness. FTP is basically defined as the power output an athlete can sustain while exercising at "lactate threshold" intensity. Lactate threshold reflects the ability of the athlete's muscles to match energy supply to energy demand, which in turn determines the fuel "mix" (i.e., carbohydrate vs. fat) used and the development of muscle fatigue. For a good description of FTP, see this article (Threshold power: what is it, why is it important, and how do I measure it?)
Essentially, my goal is to raise my FTP as high as possible. I started with a test to determine what my current FTP is. My coach recommends a 2x20 minute all out effort with a 2 minute rest interval between work intervals. The normalized power measurement for the entire 42 minutes is an estimate of your FTP. The graph below (the portion in black) shows the workout data corresponding to my FTP test.
Below is a picture showing a listing of the data from the 2x20 graph. Normalized power for the interval was 274, which is right about what I had estimated prior to Ironman Wisconsin.
I've rounded the FTP measurement to 275. This will be my baseline for future workouts.
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