Power Loss Update

During my previous FTP estimation test things didn't look so good. I planned to have another recovery week. For the most part I've done that, except for my second place at the GMSV Short Track this past Tuesday. I'm not putting too much weight on that because I did race the C's and earlier this season I said I'd move up, but since my fitness appears to be falling on it's head I stayed in the slower group.

I did another FTP test on Thursday morning and basically saw the same results as last week, maybe a little worse. This past week I've been resting, going to bed early and tyring to do all the right things. It appears to be something else.

I've taken a step back to look at things, these are some possible causes I'm pursuing.

Option #1: Medical - Is there something wrong with me? For those of you that know me, there's obviously something wrong, but I wanted to know if it was something new. Blood work is all clean. Hell, my cholesterol is down 30 points from two years ago (I assume that's due to my vegetarian/vegan diet I switched to at the beginning of this year). Hematocrit is 46.1%. Everything looks good, all the numbers are within the appropriate ranges.

Option#2: PowerTap is out of Calibration - Maybe I'm fine but the powermeter is broke. I find it unlikely because my legs are actually sore after my rides, but I checked. My wife humored me to do some "stomp" testing. Basically you stand on the peddles and have the powertap tell you the torque at the hub. You can calculate what it should be and then you compare. It wasn't the most rigorous of tests but we tested different gears and with different weights. Results were always low, within 1-7%. I'd expect a low reading as the bike was tilting a little in the trainer and we had to hold on to each other a little to stay on the pedal, making the weight on the pedal a little lower than our body weight. Due to how the measurements were performed and the fact I've lost over 15% power, I'm going with the assumption the powermeter is fine.

Option #3: Diet - Since I made the switch to a vegetarian/vegan (when possible) diet this past December, things have been going well. However it's possible something is missing and when training the hardest I'm likely to figure that out. I'm most concerned with my protein intake. Some online references say that for an endurance athlete you should be in the 1.2 to 1.4 g per kg body weight protein each day. After tracking my diet for a few days, it looks like I'm a little short. So I'm going to try and bump it up and see if that helps.

I'll let you know how things workout. My plan for know is to keep riding, maybe start running for cyclocross and make some diet adjustments. The Mt Evans HC race is still a few weeks away, hopefully I'll at least feel like racing. If you have any good ideas I'm not considering, let me know.