Training Load

jsocia

I am not an owner of Cycling Peaks software, but I calculated the following training values manually...

CTL: 93.7
ATL: 111.65
TSB: -17.95

Assuming the above to be correct, would one say my training is a good balance for this time of year? Race season starts in mid April, and I plan on throwing in at least one L5 and one L6 session a week starting in a couple of weeks. Also, what should I target my TSB to be come the start of race season... and for peak races?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

daveryanwyoming

That depends on the nature of your races, the length of your season, how many "A" race periods you'd like to taper for, etc. But at a first glance and assuming a spring/summer road racing season you seem to be on track. A CTL of ~94 in late January is pretty good assuming you'll continue to build towards spring races.

The ATL and hence TSB values don't really mean much in a one day snapshot. They have more relevence when taken as a data series over longer periods. Your TSB is -18 today but over what range has it been moving lately, how deep are the holes you're digging, how much recovery are you allowing etc.

You don't really target a TSB for race season. It's too dynamic. Experiment during your spring B and C races and during training to find out where you have performance peaks relative to your TSB. For most folks it's in the low positive numbers but more isn't always better when it comes to TSB. For instance with your CTL of 90 you could stop training altogether and you'd get a huge TSB in a week or two with no workouts. But I doubt you'd race very well. You want TSB to rebound for important races, but exactly where and how it's trending at the time of your best performances is somewhat personal and related to the nature of your events.

I find I do well in road races and time trials with a TSB roughly in the +3 to +10 range, higher and I'm usually too blocked up to race well. Race day often doesn't line up with my peak TSB since I always do an "openers" ride the day before A or B races. So my TSB often peaks two or three days before the event and is moving back down on race day but still positive.

Anyway I'd strongly urge spending the $100 on WKO+, it's a great investment for the self coached athlete and pretty reasonable when you consider what we spend on cycling gear, race fees, travel, etc.

If you've gotta keep calculating this stuff by hand you can build a good spreadsheet pretty easily. There's one on the Google Wattage group files page, you've got to join the group, but it's free and full of good info: http://groups.google.com/group/wattage/topics


Good luck,
-Dave

jsocia

Very informative response... thanks Dave. I actually plugged the formulas into an Access database that I log my training in, but I'll definitely look into the WKO software. One more question though: regarding TSB, is there a low limit that I should try to avoid?

Thanks again!

daveryanwyoming

This question gets asked a lot and again it varies between different folks. The impact of a very low TSB also depend on where your CTL is at a given time and whether that low TSB resulted from one really big ride or a series of moderately hard rides without rest. Anyway, I've hit -50 a couple of times during very early season training when my CTL was pretty low and I was tired but recovered in a day or two. I've dropped to -30 or so in mid season after a hard weekend of racing and needed a day or two off. But no, there's no definite low limit to TSB it's one more thing to pay attention to and figure out what works and what doesn't work for you.

OTOH, CTL ramp rate is a bit more definite. An awful lot of folks have found they get overly tired and often get sick if they try to build CTL faster than 8 points per week. I try to limit my CTL ramp rate to 5 TSS/day/week or a 5 point per week ramp rate. I've been on a +3 point per week ramp rate since late October and have no trouble there.

-Dave