Next week is test week.
On Tuesday, I do a 20 minute maximal test – after warm up, I ride as hard as I can for twenty minutes. This going to hurt.
On Saturday, I do a 5 minute maximal test. This is going to hurt worst.
My last 20 minutes test blog post is here. I started the effort too hard and then settled down an effort of 250 watts after a few minutes. Then, my power slowly decreased until near the end when I redoubled my effort. As such, my power graph looked like a valley with hills on each side. I final watt average was a very respectable 246 watts. I will not predict my result, but I do hope it to be better.
My last 5 minute test was on a day I had a migraine. It happened shortly after I woke and I went back to bed for the day. I finally got out of bed and did the test in the late afternoon. Again I started out too strong and faded during the entire test. My final power average was 265 watts.
The two power averages, and my weight resulted in a Critical Power of 244. This test will be the first opportunity to show if and how much this program has been working.