Normalized Power Pothole

Click the graph to enlarge... if you want to see why a grown man will cry...

This is what my mean maximal normalized power chart looks like from before and after the injury. It is pretty ugly and I cant seem to change it. Yes, there is a 70-80 Watt difference in my performance across the board... and that is the good part of the graph. If you want to see something really ugly, you should see the MMP graph for average power. It shows clearly that of all the things that are lost, my sprint is by far the worst. My 5 second has gone from 1250 Watts to 830 Watts and my 15 second has gone from 1046 Watts to 572 Watts. I don't mind telling the competition my weakness because there are so many weaknesses and I don't really have competition anymore because I cant race...

The poor sprinting does not bother me as much. High power output has been difficult on my bad hip. When I move above 500 Watts, I can feel that it puts pressure on my hip in a bad way. My main frustration is with my threshold power. I went out this week to do an FTP workout. I had set a goal to hit 300 Watts for 18 minutes and build from there... longer and harder each week. I held 270 Watts for 5 minutes before I crumbled. Of course, I went out way, way too hard. I told myself that I felt great in the first minute when I averaged 320 Watts... and you know where it went from there. I guess the thing that bothers me is that I don't feel that I am challenging my cardio/resp. systems right now. They are falling back to meet my hip with every passing week without stress. Then I have the weird left leg injury thing going with the ergomo. God knows what that means in reference to FTP. Should I set a new FTP for myself based off of left leg only? I think so. Should I sell the ergomo and buy a powertap so I don't have to worry about my left leg anymore? Yes, I think so, but then again, that might be the worst thing to do. Then I wont know how bad my left leg is and I might overcompensate with my right forever.

I abandoned my previous training program because I just could not get it together to complete the effort. It all based on FTP and my FTP is yet to nailed down. I plan to determine my left leg FTP this week and will use that for all of my retraining workouts from hereforward. I will do an all out 30 minute effort and use my HR monitor as a guide for the first 10 minutes and then go as hard as I can after that. That will be my new FTP and I will possibly quit being a crybaby and start working toward a solution to this problem... such as getting better. Since my fitness must run through the bad leg, that is how I will train... I think I have convinced myself that I will stick with my ergomo... If I can fight through FTP workouts again now like I did during the winter, I can track my progress and use that for inspiration. The first one is the hard one... setting the baseline at such a low number is painful and discouraging and difficult to pace... all at the same time. I will do it Tuesday... just like over the winter... I will track my speed, too... that will help me to relate my left leg to overall output and keep up with those efforts...

The doc says that my femur will be clinically healed at around 12 weeks from the injury. It has been 6 weeks. He said that in 3 weeks, it should feel back to normal. I am walking without the cane now and really can walk without limping if I am not too tired.

I love to ride, and thank God that I am able to do that... but I miss the thrill of the race. Will I be ready for the Tour of Atlanta in three weeks? It looks like a long shot, but one I have to work towards...