Some background. As noted in my MyWhoosh Power Passport Test for 13 July 2025, MyWhoosh estimated my FTP to be 114, which seems fairly reasonable…

Further back. I learned to cycle as most people do, as a small child, around elementary school. I rode off and on throughout the years, early 80s going the Sheridan Colorado area, riding to downtown a couple times down the South Platte River Trail (about 12 miles), to a mall in Littleton (about 8 miles)… then again in the later 80s, when I thought I could become the next Tour de France type star… got a nice bike, then living in the Akron/Canton area of Ohio, and realizing that it was near impossible to even make it around the country block (probably only a mile or so).

Then in 2020, getting back into cycling. First with a hardtail mountain bike, aiming to do the trails in North Park Pittsburgh, and realizing, that such a bike is really hard on the roads. Sold that bike eventually, then got my current Cannondale Topstone 4, an entry level alloy gravel bike. Even with the hardtail mountain bike, 80% of the goal back in 2020, was to do training on Zwift and the like. Even more so after getting the gravel bike. So not sure when I’d say I started cycling, probably more semi-seriously about 2024, and now that I have a way to train, 2025 on.

Putting that background out there in case it matters.

Anyhow, so we’ll say I’m fairly new to cycling on a serious effort. So I’m still confused on some things that might be basics.

The main questions coming up are how to keep power from going too high, when it wants you to do say 50% of FTP? When it wants you to do 85 RPM, how do you keep from spiking in power? My “natural” cadence is closer to 70-75, so when I push to 85, it seems harder to keep it power down… I guess I’m having a hard time breaking cadence from power. I’m also assuming that while doing a workout in ERG mode, that you aren’t supposed to shift gears.

So for this, we’ll be looking at 3 recent workouts. All 3 done on MyWhoosh, though it’d be the same regardless of platform. I am using flat shoes on flat pedals, which might be part of the issue. Some of this would be easier if I could overlay the results over what was wanted… if anyone knows a tool for that, let me know. I’ll give a link to the workout that was prescribed in the plan, then the Strava then the Intervals.icu links to results.

So here’s the first workout, What is FTP? My 50% mark is 58 Watts, and if one looks at MyWhoosh – What is FTP? – Workout – Questions Coming in Strava or Intervals, power didn’t stay in the zones it wanted, especially at the lower watts, where it looks like I was in the mid to high 60s.

Workout two was Base Miles #1. MyWhoosh – Base Miles Workout – Still Confused on Cadance and Power on Strava and Intervals. This is the one that wanted me to stay at 85 cadence, and I’m having a very hard time keeping at 85, and not sending the power up… It did seem possible, but I have zero clue what I’m doing to keep it from spiking. I know 80-90 is the more ideal cadence, and my “natural” 70 or so is probably part of why I get tired so quick. So it would help to push cadence up. Still need to figure out though how to do high cadence and keep power without going too high.

Workout three was What are Training Zones? Again, results in Strava and intervals. This whole ride was done near 70 RPM, and I had a hard time again keeping power in zone while at the lower watts. I did try to push to 80 RPM on the last two main power sessions. Workout was easy enough like the other two. Makes me nearly think my FTP may be set too low, but we’ll see. I couldn’t find my heart rate monitor, and my Garmin Venu wouldn’t link to either the Link app, or MyWhoosh directly, no matter if it was in direct broadcast mode, or in a workout with broadcast on.