45 min Race 102% only 68 TSS? Fried, But No Adaptations! : (

Training
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Hi all,

Deep searched before posting: Nothing similar.

Entered a B Race on my cal on Sat & marked as complete. 45 mins @ race pace. TR nails it as 68 TSS.

[Actually ended up utterly frying myself; did 35 - 40 mins @ 95 - 105% FTP, Zwift race so zero micro-breaks, w sprint finish peak @ 271%.]

Next day was green to ride. No impact at all, and zero adaptations once marked complete. Logged out, back in, multiple times over the next 2 days; nothing.

Barely care now; past. But for future… I really do want the proper TSS tracked, particularly RE: Adaptations for the next 1 - 4 d WOs. I know damn well I started a hole, and I want AT to toss me a rope and help me climb out of it, not jump in with me, pick up a shovel, and help me dig!!! :slight_smile:

So what do we do? I mean… I could lie to TR and manual input an “Outdoor Ride” that never happened, and manipulate it until a guesstimate TSS was achieved, and then delete the race event, and enter a note that it happened… utter slop show, though.

Must be a clean way, right?

[No ride data yet; sync issue from Zwift; our problem, but not rly relevant to the post. No ride data: B Race, Race Pace, 45 mins…absolutely nowhere hear 68. From any reading I could find, sounds like prob 150 - 350… could barely walk next 2 days… yes, idiot move, stupid…pls leave it & focus on the question! TIA!! :slight_smile: ]

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If your IF for the entire 45 minutes was 1.05, your TSS would be 83.
If your IF for the entire 45 minutes was .95, your TSS would be the 68 that it sounds like TR predicted.

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@BrianSpang grabbed a pic to try to help. There’s absolutely no way these two below are even remotely similar in TSS. Unless I just have no clue what “TSS” actually is!! :slight_smile: Which is possible!!

Extra note: Ranked Baird Easy, was very easy, as conf by HR…
The race was the hardest thing I can remember doing on the bike. Also confirmed by recent / last 12 mo PRs in max 20 min, 10 min, 5 min, etc, powers.

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@Bbt67 appreciate your time to reply. Can you take a quick look @ my reply & two pics, just above? No way they’re near equal… right???

Or no, I don’t know what TSS is? [Tone: Legit Q, not confrontational! :slight_smile: I genuinely might not really understand it! Bc there’s no way these two were near equal, to me, in result of how I felt, after.]

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TSS is a measure of both intensity factor and time. 1 hour at threshold (NP=FTP, IF=1.0) is 100. So there’s no way a 45 minute ride is ever going to be 150TSS, only way that’s possible is if your FTP is set way too low. 45 minutes at Threshold should be 75TSS, so 68 is pretty close, as above I’m guessing your NP was at ~95% of FTP (and/or your FTP is set differently in different apps?)

In terms of red or yellow days, 45 minutes at Threshold also isn’t building up a ton of fatigue (assuming FTP is set correctly) - it’s hard but doesn’t take that long to recover from, so not surprising it hasn’t triggered any adaptations. If you linked it to a TR workout that involved riding 45 minutes continuously at close to Threshold (if such a workout exists) then you’d get a Progression Level update, but you won’t get that from a race.

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Search WL2 or Outdoors ride and association or RLGL. Currently outdoor rides not associated with workouts don’t cause adaptions. WL2 will carry out a detailed analysis and adapt your plan as a result. Just released in ‘opt in’ is RLGL which I think is to be a step/part of WL2 and it’ll look at the TSS of rides and adapt down if you need a rest, but you need to opt in.

Red Light Green Light is Available in Early Access! :tada: :tada: :tada::tada: :tada: :tada::tada: :tada: - Announcements - TrainerRoad

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That race effort looks to be around 35 minutes long per the timeline on the bottom? Can you get the Normalized Power & Average Power for just that section of the race before the cool down? And those power values relative to your current FTP would be helpful in framing the deltas between the efforts.

I will say this, there seems no practical way you would hit anything close to 150TSS in 35 minutes of effort unless it was massively over your FTP for the duration.

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My Zwift race today was 37m19s. AP 225. NP 243. IF 1.01. 66 TSS.

:blush:

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@all, really appreciate the input. FTP was 185 @ time of Baird, up to 195 just recently; AI FTP Det.

The race I added that dotted line right at 199 w. So; most of that time spent damn near that. I was absolutely destroyed.

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@mcneese.chad yes, could prob calc the NP & AP from this graph, right? With that line marked at 199 w ?

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  • No, that’s not right:
    (pic not wanting to load, so adding text for now… TR or something is being a pain)

You put that line at the peak of the sprint (or under the text in the legend… neither is right). Your line is well above the 199w value where you spent most of that race. See the actual black line near the legend and where it intersects the power graph. It’s well under your dashed line.

You sure could be destroyed from the effort, but the duration and relative power to your FTP don’t give the elevated TSS that you think it did.

Not really. Best would be a link to a Strava upload for actual analysis. We can guess at best from a picture.

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@mcneese.chad I’m a jesus idiot, bud. I meant to mark power, in a rush marked HR!! Sorry, all. Here. So ya; damn near 190 - 195 = FTP for the whole thing, with surges well, well above.

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Better, but still amounts to a roughly FTP based effort (195w per above) with surges above (that we have no real idea of power level without data) that is well under 1 hour (35-38 mins).

Normalized Power for that precise section would be the most useful data point to related to your RPE and aftermath. Unless those spikes are massive vs your FTP, there is little chance you hit triple digit TSS.

I’d say the values above seem close to my eyes without the actual data for review.

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@HLaB thanks for posting this. Doesn’t make the TSS make sense; but it solves why no adaptations resulted. In the back of my mind, I knew outdoor rides not linked to a WO didn’t cause AT, but my mind erased it, or thought a race would do something, due to the pretty extreme […obviously???..] exertion, well above any WO. But I guess it’s “just an outdoor free ride”, RE: Adaptive Training…

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@mcneese.chad any way to get that from within Z ? I can’t find anything… just the display.

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Not that I know. You really need to dump that into Strava, Garmin Connect, TR or other actual analysis apps to get decent info. Pics are only good at a loose idea.

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@Bbt67 buddy, I’m not trying to prove or disprove anyone, it’s really not the time to take me to task on this, or whatever!! :slight_smile: I’m really really trying to understand, and most importantly, continue my training in a productive way. My legs were super shot, and the system is telling me “it was the same as Baird”… as far as I understand…

Trying to figure out what’s up / how to understand the system, and how it communicates about total stress / fatigue , if it is not “Total Stress Score”… and also, I guess, per @HLaB 's point, that races won’t influence AT, I’m trying to figure out a way I can “hijack” / “trick” AT into adapting after a hard race.

Thinking of just inputting it as a completed outdoor ride, ass. w a WO, w HR data only… or trying to DL the fit file and upload it manually…

Edit to add: To address your point; I mean, if you’re telling me it’s 69 TSS, fine, cool, I’m all for it.

But if the “Total Stress Score” of these two is the same… how does TR differentiate the massive difference in fatigue? :slight_smile:

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That hack will likely be worse. Per the graph, it looks like you held a stead HR for the bit included to that 35-38m time. Hard to know without the first bit showing your HR progression, but my guess is that is around your Threshold HR or a tad over given the power and duration. All of which would still get you to a similar place for TR’s estimated TSS per HR.

But per my hit above, the steady nature of your HR vs the reality of the power spikes (where NP is meant to really shine) mean the two will present a different picture to TR. The actual power data imported to TR is the best solution and I’m confused as to why you don’t seem to have that present vs some manual data entry?

Seems you are taking a very long way around the data to suit your RPE to me. We get that you were smoked and the best would be for TR to get that race data imported (via Strava or other), set the rating as “All-Out” for that race (which is possible even without linking it to a TR workout) and let RLGL work it out. That new feature is your best chance of TR to self-adjust AT (which it will do even without WLV2 editing your PL’s).

At this point, anything other than that direct link, survey and see what RLGL offers is a hack at best IMO.

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Admittedly pedantic reference to definition and proper name: “Training”, not “Total”.

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For lots of reasons, a race, even a B race, is likely to feel harder than a TSS based simply on power and HR, and, depending on the discipline, even those may not capture everything. After a typical 45 minute cyclocross race, where there’s sprinting, coasting, running, my power-based TSS will be around 60 because the NP is well below my FTP, with an IF of around 0.8, probably based on 45 minutes at very close to max HR. The cognitive burden of racing adds a lot of fatigue, too (I suspect that’s one of the reasons everyone talked about how draining the Glasgow Worlds were–tough course with constantly changing conditions with no radios to help make decisions). I’m don’t think there’s any AI out there now that’s going to be able to judge all that based just on power, HR, and a few other metrics. If I’m wiped after a tough race, I just change the next workout.