CTL has risen 6 points in the last week and it feels good. It’s time to plan the comeback.
For the past 2 (or is it 3?) years, I’ve been a beta tester for EweTSS, now termed the Performance Manager as part of Cyclingpeak’s WKO+ software. As a beta tester, I could only say so much about EweTSS…but now that the cat is outta the bag my tongue is tied no longer. It’s is hands down the best tool to manage training volume. It’s a perfect tool for coming back from injury, and that’s a new use for me!
Generally speaking, I’ll be building CTL steadily until mid-spring when I’m back to the 120-140 levels where I prefer to be for ultra racing. On the way, it’s good to have some intermediate goals, and since I already registered for Old Pueblo before the accident, it gets the nod. Without further ado, here’s the pictorial of my plan from today until OP.
One of the things I’ve done with my down time is create a windows program to help analyze my EweTSS data. I’m fussy and want the ability to track all sorts of stuff besides CTL/ATL/TSB. Plus, I wanted an easy way to use the concepts in planning mode. That’s just too much to expect from a commercial software product…so I took matters into my own hands. It’s been more challenging than anticipated, largely cause most of the work was done while on narcotics. Not so good for the clear thinking!
This plot illustrates some of the functionality of the new program. Anything prefaced by a “p” is a planned value. The “7” series is a 7 day rolling sum. The TSB=0 is simply done for a neutral reference point for TSB.
The plan to OP is quite conservative for me – but recovering the shoulder area takes a bit of oomph out of my sails so it prolly won’t feel so conservative. Some interesting things to note in the chart:
– As per Andy Coggan’s quote, “the more you train the more you can train.” Note how as CTL rises, so does the 7 day TSS sum, yet TSB holds fairly constant. This shows that the higher the CTL, the more training can be done.
– Long ride progression. TSS for OP is predicted as for a conservative race (no, I’m not gunning for it this year). Looking at the race requirements, the long ride progression is designed to best get prepped to survive for 24 at OP.
– OP “taper.” It isn’t really much of a taper. Typically I’d have more of a taper for a 24, but this race is happening in the middle of a long build, so I ease back just enough so that the CTL crest post-race is where it would have been if the build continued instead of dong the race.
OK, that’s really techy to some folks I understand…but there are a few years worth of personal insights buried in this chart as it applies to training for ultras. It’s pure gold to me, and if you can wrap your head around it there might be a nugget for you too.
Happy training!