ideas on training

i'll rephrase the question.

how much improvement in my FTP can I expect over the course of a year, with about 8 hours of training a week?

thanks.

No one can say with any certainty how much you will or won't improve on eight hours a week, but for a relative newcomer you can increase your FTP substantially on eight hours per week.

If you love riding and you make very good use of those eight hours it's entirely possible to race on that much training. The key thing is dedication and a lot of focus to make the best use of those hours.

Assuming you haven't worked a lot on sprinting, especially the technique of sprinting at various leadout speeds and on varying terrain then it's probable you can break 1000 watts with some work. A lot of folks approach sprinting a lot like out of the saddle climbing and never really hit the sort of peak powers they're capable of. Play with sprinting on different terrain including downhills to get you up to speed possibly followed by flats or gentle uphills. Try to explode and put everything into those first few pedal strokes and then wind it like mad to the line. Try it in higher and especially lower gears as a lot of folks overgear sprints and bog down.

Anyway, if you're time crunched, do your SST and L4 work, and ride with purpose and focus when you train and you should see substantial gains. Whether it's enough for racing can only be determined by getting out and racing and there's a lot more to racing success than pure power numbers so the most important thing if you're thinking about racing is that you really love riding your bike fast and you'll stick with it for long enough to learn the skills and build the fitness necessary to compete.

Good luck,
-Dave

Like Dave says above, it is oh so hard to say how much you'll improve. How structured will your training be? How committed to your training will you be? How well-planned is said training? then you get into the whole issue of your own physiology and potential....

Regardless of genetics, if you do train smart, consistently, and hard, then I think you can expect some notable improvements. Maybe though it is worth keeping realistic expectations as people who are genetic anomalies (e.g., gifted) will always progress quickly.

FWIW, I started just over a year ago.....looking back to this very day last year, my 20mmp was 47% lower :eek: I don't consider myself particularly genetically gifted with some massive vo2, nor am I a slow-twitcher.

So have a go at it and remember that racing success is far more than just power numbers....you have strategy, bike skills (huge!), and mental preparation too. The better I got at those this year, the better my results got even when I wasn't necessarily seeing big improvements in power.