This weather sucks....

No, not for the reason you think. It's freakin gorgeous out. But, high humidity and temps make for lousy painting conditions. Not only do I have customers getting impatient, I am getting impatient myself. But there's not much you can do. Decals wrinkle. Clear coat bubbles. It's a great big mess. And I was looking forward to fun Friday evening of total bike-geaking-outedness.

Testing...Testing...1.2.3...Testing...Is this thing on?

I started my cross preparation on July 2, after racing mtb in the spring and early summer. I began week 9 this week and it was time for a test. I have never done this type of "Power Profile" test before. Basically, you are trying to capture your best 5 second, 1 minute, 5 minute and 20 minute powers. Convert them to Watts per kg and then see where your limiters are. Here is how the workout is supposed to go:

20 min warmup
3 x 1 minute high cadence intervals to prepare your musles and heart. 1 minute rest in between.
5 minutes rest
5 minute all out effort
10 minute rest
2 x 1 minute all out efforts with 5 minutes rest in between
10 minute rest
3 x 20 second all out efforts with 3 minutes rest in between
10 minute rest
20 minute time trial
20 minute cooldown

This was a hard workout in and of itself. I cracked myself pretty good on the 1 minute efforts. Here are the results.
Weigh in that morning - 156.5 pounds
Average 5 minute power - 347 watts, 4.87 watts/kg, Avg HR - 180 bpm
Average 1 minute power - 516 watts, 7.25 watts/kg, Avg HR - 177 bpm
Average 5 second power - 1057 watts, 14.86 watts/kg
Average 20 minute power - 238 watts, 3.35 watts/kg, Avg HR - 176 bpm

I am pleased with the results considering the order in which the intervals were done. I am very happy with the 5 minute power because that is what I have been spending time training to get ready for cross, along with threshold power. But I was really having a tough time recovering after the second 1 minute interval. I have done higher 5 second powers in sprint workouts (1176 watts is my best) and I have done better 20 minute powers in hard group rides and threshold interval workouts ( 260 watts is my best). I have been using 250 as my functional threshold power in my workouts and I will keep it there. I will repeat this test again at the end of September to see if I make progress in this next block of training.