Page 238 of 270

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 11:55 am
by cerb
Crit season is just around the corner and with the new baby now 3mths old, I'm finally getting a chance to get back to riding (albeit only on the trainer still - haven't ridden outside since April).

Harsh realisty of a bit over 3mths almost completely off the bike: I'm up 9kg (10% increase) and FTP has dropped about 40W (10% decrease).

A lot of work ahead to get back up to speed and I think I'll probably DNF the first few races of the crit season... but I'll certainly be hanging in for dear life if I can!

Am trying to get back to some regular interval sessions on the trainer and also throwing in some Zwift races here and there. The legs are struggling right now - 100TSS per session seems to be about my limit. Any more than 300TSS per week also seems a long way off at this stage... Trying to balance a sharp rise in fitness within a limited timeframe (and without getting any injuries) is an interesting balancing act!

On the plus side... the new addition to the family is pretty chilled and fun. :)

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:01 pm
by jules21
you'll be back there before long Cerb if you are able to stick at it. I had a rough first half of 2017 punctuated by a wonderful holiday but which put a hole in my training and form. I've lost 5 kg from that holiday and coming back into form. consistency and commitment pays off.

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 3:56 pm
by kb
cerb wrote:Crit season is just around the corner and with the new baby now 3mths old, I'm finally getting a chance to get back to riding (albeit only on the trainer still - haven't ridden outside since April).

Harsh realisty of a bit over 3mths almost completely off the bike: I'm up 9kg (10% increase) and FTP has dropped about 40W (10% decrease).

...
Pretty similar to my baby related time off. Weight's coming down at around half the rate it went up :-). Power up now for short intervals but still decidedly sub-par for anything longer than 10 minutes.
On the plus side... the new addition to the family is pretty chilled and fun. :)
Fantastic. They can be a bit hard to exchange / return ;-)

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 5:38 pm
by march83
cerb wrote:Crit season is just around the corner
Oh wow, the reality of this hadn't quite dawned on me...

So I'm tapping away at about 500-600 TSS a week which is leaving my legs reasonably heavy. Unfortunately it's almost exclusively road work (no trainer sessions) and the road work is almost exclusively commuting (so backpacks and baggy shorts, not super fast KOM hunting).

On the plus side, I'm reasonably light and I have managed to knock a few seconds of a few of my favourite KOMs in the last few weeks. So IDK, maybe there's something going on, maybe there isn't, but I won't know until I actually have a rest week (not likely) and I do some testing (even less likely)...

Truth be told though, I don't really need fitness at this point - I'm only really interested in getting light and going long for summer, in particular the Audax in January. Any racing I do on the way to get there is just icing on the cake...

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2017 8:35 pm
by jules21
club road champs today. treating it as training. 2 hrs 15 mins at NP of ~308w. ouchies!

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 2:23 pm
by cerb
On the plus side... the new addition to the family is pretty chilled and fun. :)
Fantastic. They can be a bit hard to exchange / return ;-)[/quote]
Haha.. too right!
jules21 wrote:club road champs today. treating it as training. 2 hrs 15 mins at NP of ~308w. ouchies!
Solid ride! No suprises to see #1 & #2 on the podium...

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 3:39 pm
by g-boaf
jules21 wrote:club road champs today. treating it as training. 2 hrs 15 mins at NP of ~308w. ouchies!
Nice work - that's a decent normalised power. :)

I haven't done anything for a few days, yesterday was super tired from flying back to Australia. I did get some sleep on the flight. Might go out for a ride tomorrow.

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 12:08 pm
by jules21
cerb wrote:No suprises to see #1 & #2 on the podium...
just a solo training ride for #1 :shock:
g-boaf wrote:I haven't done anything for a few days, yesterday was super tired from flying back to Australia. I did get some sleep on the flight. Might go out for a ride tomorrow.
nice one g-boaf. give yourself an opportunity to recover from jetlag before hitting it too hard

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2017 1:04 pm
by g-boaf
jules21 wrote:
cerb wrote:No suprises to see #1 & #2 on the podium...
just a solo training ride for #1 :shock:
g-boaf wrote:I haven't done anything for a few days, yesterday was super tired from flying back to Australia. I did get some sleep on the flight. Might go out for a ride tomorrow.
nice one g-boaf. give yourself an opportunity to recover from jetlag before hitting it too hard
Good advice, I did do a coffee ride yesterday about 60km, felt a bit lethargic so took it easy - but had some real power today. :)

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2017 9:44 am
by jules21
~350 TSS aggregate over the weekend with 3 rides. stress balance now -37 which is a bit much but I'll take today off (commute only). a couple more weeks of hitting it before my target race. :twisted:

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2017 9:43 pm
by g-boaf
Had an hour today at 263w average and 274w NP. Numbers I've not seen in quite a while, pretty happy with that.

Riding quite alright at the moment. :)

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 12:41 pm
by kb
g-boaf wrote:Had an hour today at 263w average and 274w NP. Numbers I've not seen in quite a while, pretty happy with that.

Riding quite alright at the moment. :)
Rebound :-)

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 5:45 pm
by g-boaf
kb wrote:
g-boaf wrote:Had an hour today at 263w average and 274w NP. Numbers I've not seen in quite a while, pretty happy with that.

Riding quite alright at the moment. :)
Rebound :-)

Seems like it, similar yesterday and today as well so quite consistent. :)

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 10:21 am
by jules21
how do others manage their training load? I'm upto short term stress of 110, with long term stress (Cycling Analytics' version of chronic training load) of 68. I've got another week of hard work before I taper for a target race.

I used to have a coach who helped me with writing and monitoring a training plan, but he was always telling me to back off. the thing is, the more I do and the more I go into the red (stress balance of -42), the stronger I feel. I'm tired but I can still smash it out.

those careful, balanced plans with recovery regularly programmed in don't seem to work for me.

I need 9-10 hours sleep at the moment, which I'll admit is causing a bit of stress with the wife :)

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:40 pm
by g-boaf
jules21 wrote:how do others manage their training load? I'm upto short term stress of 110, with long term stress (Cycling Analytics' version of chronic training load) of 68. I've got another week of hard work before I taper for a target race.

I used to have a coach who helped me with writing and monitoring a training plan, but he was always telling me to back off. the thing is, the more I do and the more I go into the red (stress balance of -42), the stronger I feel. I'm tired but I can still smash it out.

those careful, balanced plans with recovery regularly programmed in don't seem to work for me.

I need 9-10 hours sleep at the moment, which I'll admit is causing a bit of stress with the wife :)

If you are at -40, I'd probably back it off for a week. Have an easy week. Maybe don't race that week, ease the training off a bit and then the next week get back to normal. The idea is to let the TSB come back to 0 and at that point, you should feel well rested and very strong. The worry with pushing yourself very hard is fatique and getting run down, then you get sick.

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 1:15 pm
by kb
I don't race but from memory my best 3 peaks was with around 90 CTL and -5 TSB. Fitness vs freshness requirements probably a bit different though :-)

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 4:44 pm
by jules21
g-boaf wrote:The worry with pushing yourself very hard is fatique and getting run down, then you get sick.
I know this is the theory, but I just feel stronger. I did get run down/a bit sick during winter, but as the weather improves I find my body responds more strongly.
kb wrote:I don't race but from memory my best 3 peaks was with around 90 CTL and -5 TSB. Fitness vs freshness requirements probably a bit different though :-)
irrelevant if you race or not. 90 CTL is pretty high! mine is a bit higher in practice as I don't measure commutes, but they wouldn't bring it up too much higher.

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2017 4:58 pm
by cerb
The stress balance level where people perform well can vary quite a bit, so if you feel good and the numbers agree then I reckon you just soldier on. Just make sure you listen to your body and if things start to hurt or you start to get tired/sick then dial it back. If you're looking to keep your legs running hot for one more race (before the real racing season starts ;) ), then you are probably fine.

The downside to this is that I don't think you see much long-term improvement if you continue on with heavily skewed stress balances. To see real improvements, I believe you really need to dial it back and let the muscles fully repair before dialling up the load again.

You can also get to high CTL in a number of different ways. A good dose of high intensity, or lots and lots of easier kilometers - these tax your system in different ways...

I've found that if my CTL is high due to lots of (easier) km in the legs, I lose my punchiness. I can still put down power for good durations, but I lose some speed from my top end 'fast twitch' ability until the stress balance has dropped back a bit.

Conversely, if my CTL is high due to lots of VO2 work, the legs recover quickly (24-36h) and (once i'm warmed up) I can still put out the punchy efforts.

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2017 6:24 pm
by g-boaf
jules21 wrote:
g-boaf wrote:The worry with pushing yourself very hard is fatique and getting run down, then you get sick.
I know this is the theory, but I just feel stronger. I did get run down/a bit sick during winter, but as the weather improves I find my body responds more strongly.
kb wrote:I don't race but from memory my best 3 peaks was with around 90 CTL and -5 TSB. Fitness vs freshness requirements probably a bit different though :-)
irrelevant if you race or not. 90 CTL is pretty high! mine is a bit higher in practice as I don't measure commutes, but they wouldn't bring it up too much higher.
You're lucky to be able to do that. I do get fast doing a lot of kms and getting the CTL high, but some of it is because I also get very lean. I also can get very fatigued.

Anyhow, I got 283w NP for an hour today. That's higher than I've done in ages. 8)

Tomorrow I think will be rest. Cerbs' reply is a timely reminder.

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2017 10:15 am
by jules21
cerb wrote:The stress balance level where people perform well can vary quite a bit, so if you feel good and the numbers agree then I reckon you just soldier on. Just make sure you listen to your body and if things start to hurt or you start to get tired/sick then dial it back. If you're looking to keep your legs running hot for one more race (before the real racing season starts ;) ), then you are probably fine.
I'm doing a VRS race on Oct 7, so only 1 more week of hard training. I'm feeling good. Tired, but strong. I agree on going with the signals your body sends. Although sometimes they hit you very suddenly :)
cerb wrote:The downside to this is that I don't think you see much long-term improvement if you continue on with heavily skewed stress balances. To see real improvements, I believe you really need to dial it back and let the muscles fully repair before dialling up the load again.

You can also get to high CTL in a number of different ways. A good dose of high intensity, or lots and lots of easier kilometers - these tax your system in different ways...

I've found that if my CTL is high due to lots of (easier) km in the legs, I lose my punchiness. I can still put down power for good durations, but I lose some speed from my top end 'fast twitch' ability until the stress balance has dropped back a bit.

Conversely, if my CTL is high due to lots of VO2 work, the legs recover quickly (24-36h) and (once i'm warmed up) I can still put out the punchy efforts.
I can never quite work this out. I tried following Joe Friel's training bible (not his Training with Power, which is what I should have used, although I do use power) and I found it too easy. He suggests a mix of intensities and durations - I just didn't feel like I was working hard enough. It worked, my form was good, but I felt it could be been gooder.

I've mostly given up longer rides. I'm unconvinced that long km at low/med intensity is a time-efficient way of gaining form. I'm do multiple high-intensity sessions - Vo2 max stuff. maybe 5 a week. it's a heavy load for me but I've noticed that I can sustain high power output better - I can push through the fatigue.

I'm smashing myself right now and I reckon my form is pretty strong. It must get better when I dial back the training load/fatigue?
g-boaf wrote:You're lucky to be able to do that. I do get fast doing a lot of kms and getting the CTL high, but some of it is because I also get very lean. I also can get very fatigued.

Anyhow, I got 283w NP for an hour today. That's higher than I've done in ages. 8)
that's what you want to see! improvement. I'm getting some of my highest power figures while on a significant -ve stress balance so I reckon if the numbers tell you it's working, go with it :)

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2017 12:01 pm
by vander
Ill throw my 2c in.

ATL, CTL, TSB are highly dependant on threshold being set properly. If you are actually fitter than your threshold you might be able to handle more. It can be skewed slightly be some session. This is not someting that is backed up yet but I feel some sessions arent adequatley accounted for the fatigue they cause usually the short duration high power stuff.

Some people perform better with fatigue. Past -30 is generally a fair bit of fatigue (as a rule of thumb). It may all of a sudden catch up with you you may get away with it for a while. I don't believe there is a need for rest weeks or to bring it back to 0 but maybe shift a little bit further towards 0 keep the fatigue but not quite as much.

There are many other factors such as work stress, diet and sleep which you have mentioned that have an effect on fatigue and probably bigger than we give it credit for.

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2017 12:21 pm
by jules21
actually my FTP is set a bit low. I did an FTP test with a uni researched in January. I was in good form then, so my FTP would be about the same now. but the raw number they got on their lab bike was lower than what I'd get on my power meter.

but wouldn't that balance out? if the short term stress is measured high for that reason, then surely so is the long term stress? so the stress balance shouldn't be affected that much?

I feel that I'm someone who performs better with a degree of fatigue.

here is my training chart:

Image

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2017 1:14 pm
by kb
Also worth keeping an eye on ramp rate.

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/why- ... ng-metric/

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2017 5:35 pm
by jules21
kb wrote:Also worth keeping an eye on ramp rate.

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/why- ... ng-metric/
it says my ramp rate is too slow. which is weird cos I feel like I'm working hard at the moment! I guess that's because I haven't periodised my training and my CTL is already built up, although OTOH it's not that high - only 70-odd

Re: The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2017 6:42 pm
by g-boaf
Great discussion and good points!

Ramp rate is definitely important- too quick is risky as far as I know. Vander certainly has it right that your FTP has to be right for it all to work out properly.

I should be doing a test, but I love those tests about as much as I love 14 hour flights... :oops:

I did decide to do a couple of interval sessions today. Did them both pretty well. Feeling very good at the moment. Legs feel very strong.