Four watts doesn’t look impressive. Until you know what it cost to get them
I test my FTP every month.
Same protocol. Same 20 minutes. Same music. Same average power staring at me on the screen inside Zwift like it’s judging my life choices.
It’s the Standard FTP Test. The average wattage sits there the entire time. No mystery. No recalculation at the end. Just a number you either protect… or watch drift away.
This month it went up four watts.
Not 24.
Four.
And honestly, that’s the whole story.
The Ritual
The playlist never changes.
AC/DC opens with Highway to Hell. Appropriate. Slightly optimistic. Mildly delusional. Major kick-ass tune that really gets you going. When it starts, the song could not be more fitting. I feel like I am on THAT highway.
Then Dragula from Rob Zombie. Things tighten.
Runnin’ with the Devil by Van Halen lands right when breathing becomes strategic. The Devil is not in Georgia today. He’s in Indiana and he’s willing to make a deal. I’ll run with him, but no dealing. Just work.
It’s a Long Way to the Top from AC/DC shows up just in time to remind you this isn’t supposed to be easy.
Enter Sandman by Metallica closes the suffering portion. Lights flicker. Vision narrows.
And then, after the test ends, Click, Click, Boom by Saliva plays.
The boom represents the gain. Hopefully.
New reality for sure.
Protect. Then Negotiate.
The first 15 minutes are about protection.
You guard the average power. No early surges. No emotional decisions. Just steady execution.
Then the final five minutes arrive.
That’s when the negotiation starts.
Two minutes left. Grab a gear. Make it harder.
Thirty seconds. Maybe another gear. Hopefully. The legs are on fire. It seems like there’s still an eternity left. Heart beating out of your chest. Hoping to see the average tick up by one. Maybe two.
If executed properly, the last two minutes are where the gain is made. The first 18 minutes were just to get you to this spot.
No one else cares or matters at this point. It’s you and that average power number staring you in the face. You’re looking for proof you’re better than you were a month ago.
This time it went up four.
Four watts is enough.
The Floor Test
Kona usually walks in near the end.
She stands there watching me like she’s either concerned… or calculating whether this will be her last meal. She cares only because I feed her.
The test rarely ends with a graceful cooldown. It ends with me unclipping, stepping off the bike, laying flat on the floor, gasping for air, trying not to lose my cookies.
Two, maybe three minutes pass before anything else happens. Click, Click, Boom plays loudly through the Bluetooth speaker. Breathing returns to normal. Sweat wiped off with the towel covering the bars on my bike. And hopefully the wry smile emerges.
If I could casually spin after the test, I know I didn’t go deep enough.
That rarely happens, and it did not this time.
Four watts were everything I had.
The Long Way Back
April 2022 was my peak. 260 watts.
Then injuries shut me down. Not a rough month. Not a minor setback. Shut down until basically the end of 2024.
2025 started slowly. Careful. Measured. Skeptical. I’ve really only been consistently building since May 2025.
Last Tuesday: 244 watts.
That’s not 260.
But this isn’t a verdict. It’s a checkpoint. I’m still improving. Becoming my old self again.
When you’re inconsistent, gains come fast. When you’re consistent, they come in low single digits. It gets hard. It’s never easier—you just get stronger.
The more consistent you are, the harder it becomes to improve.
Four watts doesn’t look impressive.
But it represents months of not missing. Months of protecting the number. Months of grabbing the gear with two minutes left instead of backing off and calling it “close enough.”
Click. Click.
Boom.
Not an explosion.
Just a small shift upward, but the boom is felt.
And I’m still chasing 260.
Not recklessly.
Patiently.
I’ll get there.
When was the last time four of something felt like everything?
Leave a Reply