# Realistic Goal Setting



## hrumpole (Jun 17, 2008)

As I try to plan next year, I wonder whether the following is realistic (without quitting my full-time job): raising FTP 50%/100 watts (would like to go from 200 to 300). I don't know if that's achievable, pipe dreaming, or what. Current weight: 'bout 180. Goal weight is about 165.


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## Topher (Jun 5, 2005)

Seems like the better, more achievable goal would be to drop the weight and keep your power the same... its more about power to weight anyway...


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## Undecided (Apr 2, 2007)

hrumpole said:


> As I try to plan next year, I wonder whether the following is realistic (without quitting my full-time job): raising FTP 50%/100 watts (would like to go from 200 to 300). I don't know if that's achievable, pipe dreaming, or what. Current weight: 'bout 180. Goal weight is about 165.


For "FTP" I assume you mean something like 95% of best-20-minute-effort power.
It sounds like you are currently untrained (for lack of a more polite term). 4 watts/kilo (your goal FTP/weight) is a middling number for FTP for youngish men; I'd guess it's achievable for most of them on a fairly reasonable schedule, especially if that's what they're prioritizing (not that I have any extensive survey data). So can you go from untrained to middling in a year? I would say that many people can.

As to losing weight instead of working on your power, it doesn't make much sense. Obviously it makes sense to lose excess weight if you're interested in racing or riding fast up hills, but if you can only lose about 8% of your weight, but think you might increase your power by 50%, well the power increase is going to trump the weight loss (that is, you don't have so much weight to lose, but you might have a lot of power to gain---you'd get a different answer if you said that your were 205 looking for 165, and already had an FTP of 350 watts; then I'd also suggest prioritizing the weight loss).


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## dwgranda (Sep 8, 2009)

If your ftp is really 200, 300 might be doable by just riding a lot. I'm just guessing but when I started riding a little over a year ago I was probably around 200 FTP and now I'm at 300. I rode as much as I could, I didn't have any training plan. A lot of people on here seem to have 300+ FTP's and do it with a lot less training time. I'd be more concerned if you said your FTP was 250 and you want to go to 350. You would probably already have some training to get a 250 FTP and 350 is just unimagineable to me  



hrumpole said:


> As I try to plan next year, I wonder whether the following is realistic (without quitting my full-time job): raising FTP 50%/100 watts (would like to go from 200 to 300). I don't know if that's achievable, pipe dreaming, or what. Current weight: 'bout 180. Goal weight is about 165.


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## hrumpole (Jun 17, 2008)

Thanks for the replies. I know that this is a sport that you have to really work hard at just to suck. 


"Ride a lot" just isn't that much of an option. 2 kids, job, etc., plus short days and so forth during the winter. Lucky to get two and a half hours on the weekend in the fall/winter/once kids are in school. I began cycling a couple of years ago (after a ten-year layoff) to and from work as it was the only time I had for exercising. I've become completely addicted both to the riding, and to the feeling of freedom that you can just pedal away from everything for a couple of hours. (I've heard that happens.)

I will need some sort of structured plan next season, I think. "Ride a lot" will work for the winter, but that load is relative; I'll just do enough to keep everything from falling apart. The FTP of 200 I estimated from the carmichael field test on a KK trainer using the power curve, which is roughly 10% less than your 8 minute interval number. My power might be higher; it might be (ulp) lower. 

I'm seriously considering a PT to focus the use of my time, and give me some idea of how I might better use my daily commute, for example. It doesn't mean that I'd have to ride less, just that I'd have to ride smarter. I freely acknowledge that at the moment I'm functionally untrained. What I'm curious about is if middling is an achievable goal (it appears to be), and then I can take it from there to see whether or not I could actually become good. From what it sounds like, such goals are realistic, but they'll have to be approached systematically.


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