Fitness Test 2

I’m now near the end of February and I have just completed my second test week. The training program I am on goes through a cycle of hard training, a rest week, hard training then a rest combined with a fitness test week. I have currently just done the fitness test combined with the rest week. The amount of time actually training has dropped from 11 hours last week to 7 hours this week. I just have to complete the three fitness tests again.

The constant fitness tests this program makes you do is a real benefit. The threshold, heart rates, pace and power are put back into training peaks and it automatically updates the relative zones for each training session. This means I am training at my optimum capability. So, when the session wants me to do some easy zone 2 work, I’m actually in zone 2 as opposed to a zone that the fitness test in week one gave me. It basically means the training changes with my fitness levels.

You’re most likely wondering how I did. After the first week disaster, I was hoping for a significant improvement. I did not get it. I have improved but not by the margin I was expecting. It’s the first time I have done this training plan, maybe it was a bit naïve of me to expect anything at all.

The first test at the beginning of the week was the functional threshold power (FTP) test, on the bike. For this, to keep it consistent with the first, I used the turbo trainer. Again, the test started off with a 10-minute warmup, followed by the 20-minute FTP test, then a cool down. In total it was only about 45 minutes long. It was hard, really hard. I mean the test is a maximum effort so, I don’t know why I was expecting anything else. The results came in and I had improved by 5 watts for the FTP, 251 watts up from 246 watts. I had also improved by 5 bpm for my threshold heart rate, from 166 to 171 bpm.

My next test was the swim. As we know with the lockdown restrictions, all the swimming pools in England are closed. There is nothing I can do about this and worrying or stressing over doesn’t help anyone. Because this was a combined test week and recovery week, instead of the swim I just went for a really easy steady state run.

My last test was the run. A 5-minute warm up, followed by a 30-minute best effort, then a 5-minute cool down. I had not done the run test in the first week and just taken the results from my marathon training I had done at the end of last year. I’d actually taken my thresholds from the last fitness test at the end of the marathon training, when I was the strongest. Therefore, when I did this test, there wasn’t much improvement. I improved by 1 second for the threshold pace, from 6:58 to 6:57 minute per mile. For the heart rate, the results I got, I thought were unreliable. I was getting far higher results than I’ve ever got before. Due to this I am keeping the threshold heart for the run the same at 176 bpm.

One real positive from the fitness / recovery week was the Sunday ride, I actually had nice weather. The wind was a little high but it always is, other than that it wasn’t too cold and the sun was shining. I really enjoyed the ride and finished wishing the ride was longer. With it being a recovery week, the ride was only 2 hours long, I felt like I could have easily doubled that.

That’s the fitness tests done for a good few week now. Not really a great improvement. I am confident they are accurate though. More accurate that the test I did in week one. So hopefully now I can start to see a steady improvement. Only time will tell.