Some nice gains there.
Out of curiosity and to provide some perspective what level of conditioning did you already have prior to your coaching? has your volume change at all during this period? and was your training structured before?
Not to discredit your progress at all
but I'm keen to see where more precisely the gains made can be attributed to. As I'm sure with some simple structure and the will to progress many here could derive some good increases in power too.
Sure - I guess before this I was spinning the turbo over the winter but no particular thought to what training etc/structure. I was a weekend warrior mainly and never really thought about much other than getting the miles in - I.e one night I'd maybe do some zwifting, another night one of the sufferfest videos. Also I never really knew my "baseline" etc - where was I at?, was my pedaling efficiency 50/50?, pedal stroke? heart rate zones? etc - all this has been very useful information during the coaching process (amazingly I have pretty much perfect 50/50 split in my pedal stroke, even that last 607W effort was bang on 50/50!!!)
What's mainly changed for me is with the coaching/training session once a week, I started using trainingpeaks as well which gives a much better idea of what your effort/fitness/tiredness etc is. Along with that some simple, easy to replicate sessions from my coach to work on the turbo and out on the road.
Will to improve myself has been one big thing, some really hard training sessions once a week really push me to my limits, which is hard to replicate in the house on the turbo. Yes - we've all felt tired and done in getting off the turbo, but has it been pushing you to your limits in the right way.
Heart rate zones are very important which is something I've never really put much thought into. Not just how much power you can put out etc.
Great reading here for those interested - Decoupling heart rate effect -
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/how-to-use-aerobic-decoupling/
Overall I would say the general education about the science of cycling has been the biggest eye opener for me over the last 6 weeks. Got another couple of sessions in this block and I'll give a proper FTP test at the end of the 8 weeks and see where it's at. But also I've learned that it's not all about FTP - fitness, fatigue, heart rate, power, efficiency are all things to consider, not just banging out 200 miles a week without any actual thought of what your working on/training for/striving for.
A good quote from today when I was utterly done in from my coach was the famous Greg Lemond quote - “It never gets easier, you just go faster." - That's how I now think about it.
We can all spend money on wheels/frames/shoes/rapha gear etc - but honestly £120 over the last 8 weeks has been way way better money spent to get a proper idea of how to train and what to train for the future.
Long winded answer but hope that makes sense!!
