A Event Completed - Mixed Feelings With Result

Training
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I just completed my A event for 2025 this past weekend, and am having mixed feelings about the outcome.

TLDR: I completed the event in close to my planned time, but didn’t come anywhere near to the planned TSS for the event, even though I was completely wiped out at the end. What could/should I do differently, if anything?

Background:

I started on a TR training plan at the beginning of February, for my event at the end of June (100 mile gravel ride with around 7500 feet of climbing). I had been riding a lot prior to actually starting the training plan (including having done this event in each of the two prior years, and having been racing/riding for the past 40 years). I picked an ‘aggressive’ Masters gravel plan, and started with 5 days a week, going to 6 days after a ‘check volume’ update a couple of months into the plan. I had started with 7:30 hours a week, later being changed to 9 hours, and then 11 hours after more ‘check volume’ updates. My FTP started at 261, and was up to 275 by event date (based on AI FTP). In the training plan the event was planned for 6 hours at ‘all out’ effort, resulting in an estimated event TSS of 439. I completed all of my workouts, and accepted nearly all of the adaptations, and my longest rides (as per plan) were 3 hours.

The Good:

I did complete the event in close to my planned time of 6 hours (6:06:32), and and would have likely gone under last year’s time (5:53:21) had I not had to make multiple stops to empty my bladder this year (no stops in 2024). Additionally, I was the 77th overall finisher this year as opposed to 146th in 2024 (identical course both years), with the fastest time in 2025 being 5:12:36, and the fastest time in 2024 being 4:38:00 (though we may have ‘lost’ some of the faster riders to the ‘race’ this year, which was scheduled for the following day), so my ‘time behind winner’ was less this year than last. I also had (what I feel was) a good nutrition plan, consuming an average of 86g of carbs per hour (which I had trained with quite a bit), and around 5 liters of water(it was a reasonably warm day). Additionally, outside of the repeated port-a-potty visits (all between miles 20 and 50), I was regularly catching and passing other riders, while only a few people passed me during the entire distance, whereas in 2024 I felt decent for the first half of the ride, but was passed by many people in the second half.

The Bad:

Despite conscious effort to keep my power under FTP (and largely closer to Z2 levels) for the first 5 hours of the ride (having learned through the various workouts that I do well at Sweet Spot levels, but not so great at Threshold/Over-Under efforts), I still found that I didn’t have the energy to do much above FTP in the final hour. When I crossed the finish line I was completely wrecked, with cramp just starting to set in, and had to lay down on the sidewalk for a while before being able to do anything else. Additionally, I do feel that for a 6 hour event, there should be at least a couple of 5 to 6 hour rides scheduled in the plan, even if they are not hard. Without that amount of time in the saddle (and shoes), I didn’t feel like my body (and probably my stomach) was truly ready for this length of effort, even if the training intensity needed was figured into the shorter workouts.

The Ugly:

Perhaps the most confusing piece to me is that, at least in theory, TR was training me for a 6 hour event with 439 TSS. And while my time was close to the expected 6 hours, my TSS was only 324, or 26% less than the 439 expected, yet I was completely exhausted at the finish. I would have thought that if my workouts were preparing me for an event of 439 TSS I would have either been able to come closer to that, while still reaching the wiped out level, or felt reasonably decent at the end at the actual TSS of 324. So I’m really baffled as to what to make of this disparity, and what plan modifications I might want/need to make for future events.

In the end, while my event could be considered a success at some levels, it also feels like a failure at others, and I’m struggling with reconciling between the two. If anyone out there has read through all of this and has some feedback based on their experiences I would gladly welcome it, since I do plan to ride this event again in 2026 (if it is held), and would like to finish - and feel - better than either of the past two participations.

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It was hot at SBT this year.
Are you doing any strength training?

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I have done some since last year, including a few months of CrossFit last fall, but stopped doing any lifting a few weeks ago. I’ll pick it up again in a few weeks.

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What makes you think the TSS would be 439? Events are not ridden at a nice steady power, where you can work out TSS purely by looking at duration you’ll hold it for. Unless it was a 6 hour time trial of course.

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That was what TR calculated (I don’t know how, though) and showed in my training plan.

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I’d call it a success; you did the distance in your target time and were able to dig deep in the end to do so. I wouldn’t worry about an estimated TSS, the former trumps it :clap: :clap: :clap:

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I’m guessing that “all out” from TR is different than “ride as hard as you can for the 6 hours”, which is your actual effort level on the day. No one can ride all out for 6 hours. What was your IF for the event? If it was say .8, plug in a fake event to TR and say an effort level of 8 for 6 hours and then see if the TSS estimate is closer to yours.

That said, I’m not sure it should matter. I’ve never gauged my success or failure in an event based on TSS. It’s more about, did I do things right tactically? Did my nutrition work? Did I go as hard as I could that day in the right places to go as fast as possible? Stuff like that.

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I think you’re doing what a lot of us do, and being hard on yourself after your A-event

It is very common to feel a bit of depression in the aftermath of the A-event, regardless of outcome. You’ve been training for something, and physically peaking for it, for months. There is both a physical and psychological letdown after this

All that said - you seemingly performed better than last year compared to the field at large as well as within your specific age group. You also completed the course with a capacitive effort, which means you likely paced the effort very well. Congratulations on both of those things!

I’d suggest trying to celebrate the achievement and then looking back for improvements in a week or two. The rest suggested after a true once (or maybe twice) a year peak is important for both your mind and body.

Once you’ve completed that rest - when you’re restarting the physical training - that’s the time to be introspective for future peaks and events. One area of improvement might be to focus on a few 60-70% duration rides in the run-up to a long event just to ensure your gear (and body) are ready for that amount of saddle time. Even that might not be necessary once you have a bit more distance from the event itself

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Hmmm. Interesting point. Perhaps the TSS that was calculated by TR is based solely on the length of the event, and the fact that I said my expected effort was ‘all out’ (which I recall that TR shows as an IF of 1.00). In reality, my IF was 0.73 for the event, which is 27% less than 439, and strikingly close to the percentage difference between my actual of 324 and the ‘anticipated’ of 439.

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I really don’t like TR’s event TSS estimation. I always throw something in TP or Intervals.icu to get a rough TSS based on IF and possibly big climbs if you know them ahead of time.

An IF of .80 for 6 hours would be quite difficult for many people, and that’s “only” 384 TSS.

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I’ve just put together a comparison of data from the last two years. The key things that stand out are:

IF: 0.823 (2024); 0.729 (2025)
Anaerobic Training Effect: 3.3 (2024); 1.0 (2025)
TSS: 406.8 (2024); 324.2 (2025)
Calories Consumed: 2764 (2024); 2186 (2025)

There are some other differences, but most appear to be just ‘noise’. Discounting the caloric consumption (which I may not have counted correctly in 2024), there seems to be a theme of ‘relative lack of intensity’ in 2025. I am wondering if I might be been served better by picking the ‘hilly road race’ plan, instead of the ‘gravel’ (fondo) plan, in hopes of getting more intense efforts into my training. :thinking:

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Another factor…maybe the .8 IF was against a lower FTP and the .72 was a higher NP for the day?? I don’t know. IF is not the end-all be-all anymore than TSS is. How much power were you able to produce and what was your average speed? The point is to get to the finish as fast as you can, so when I compare two years on the same course, if I went faster, I’m pretty happy. Obviously that can be due to a bigger stronger field, etc.. But if you pushed higher NP and went faster, for example, that means progress. There are so many factors.

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Also interesting. My FTP in 2024 was set at 251, while it’s 275 this year. I’m not sure if that could account for the entire difference, but certainly some of it. Average (moving) speed for both years was the same, sadly, while average power was 7 watts more in 2025, and NP was 6 watts lower in 2025. Both of these seem negligible, so I’m counting the differences as ‘noise’.

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The simplified formula for TSS (using standard algebra to remove duplicated values in the long version of the formula) is
TSS = IF^2 x Duration in Hours x 100
439 = IF^2 x 6 x 100
439/600 = IF^2
.73=IF^2
.86 = IF
So TR assumed a .86 IF for 6 hours to calculate the 439 TSS.

A .86 IF for 6 hours is a huge ask for anyone IMO.

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Yeah there is just no way. I think that event tss calculator doesn’t easily give the right results for long races.

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I would never judge my race (especially a long one) based on some random TSS number TR spits out. Even they often say that all TSS is not created equal. Plenty of other objective and subjective measures to look at as far as how you did and where you could improve.

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First off, nice work on completing your event! I can’t see any reason why this could be considered a failure.. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

You paced your ride well, passed a lot of riders, placed higher than last year, and emptied your tank out on the course. Time is somewhat irrelevant here as there are many factors at play, such as temperature, as @AceLT mentioned.

Feeling exhausted and sore at the end of a race is pretty typical. I don’t think too many athletes finished feeling fresh, and if they did, they probably had some more to give out on the course.

86 grams of carbs an hour is pretty good, but at the lower end of the range, but 5L of water in a 6-hour race might not be enough, especially if it was hot. 1L an hour might have helped you fight off those cramps, but it depends on your sweat rate. How much sodium were you taking in?

In terms of our TSS estimation, it is just an estimation, so I wouldn’t spend any time focusing on whether you came close to the predicted TSS. It really doesn’t matter at all..

I think there might be some confusion around the effort rating, though. Those aren’t based on IF. An “All Out” effort is one where you simply gave your all during the event. For a 6-hour race, that doesn’t mean riding at FTP for the entirety of the race or achieving an IF of 1.0, but rather that you truly felt you gave your all. For a ~60-minute steady effort, this could result in an IF of 1.0, but that’s really the only case.

Based on your ride data, I’d say that you paced your effort pretty well. These long gravel races are more about seeing who can fade the least. The idea of saving energy for the end to use late in the race isn’t super practical or very commonly used, given that the starts are often plenty fast. It’s one thing for someone to sit in a group soft-pedaling all day during a road race and then launching an attack at the end, but these types of events are different.

Regardless, I do think that you’ll likely one day regret not appreciating your effort and the journey it took to get there. You did great!

Next year, you could try getting a few more “long” rides in before your taper, but I know you were doing some 3+ hour rides this year, so I wouldn’t expect that to ensure you’re comfortable at the end of a 6-hour gravel race in the summer. :sweat_smile: That’s not an easy thing to accomplish!

Try to stop thinking about the data for a minute and focus on the day, the journey, all of that effort during the ride, and how well you pushed yourself. That’s what it’s all about. :raising_hands:

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@NigelTufnel11 I’m going to tell you 100% what the problem is but first I want you to tear off a small bit of paper and write down your actual TSS for the event on it. Turn the paper over and write down your expected TSS. Now go to the toilet & throw the paper in there. Pause for a moment. Flush. Never think about it again.

Now, for the most important problem: let yourself celebrate accomplishment. You should go back to edit your post & delete the entire ‘The Bad’ section because it all sounded good to me. You stuck to the plan, increased volume by close to 50%…which says you were also consistently training…and added about 15W to FTP. Then you went to the event & executed the race on target.

I mean, holy crap, good job @NigelTufnel11 No mechanicals. No major nutrition issues. No life flight. Can we all just raise our favorite beverages together for a few seconds & acknowledge that’s pretty freakin’ good? Way to go @NigelTufnell11 you absolute beast & way to go TR.

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Others have already chimed in with this, but it’s a race, not a training session - so TSS doesn’t really matter here.
My A race for 2025 was Gravel Nationals, and while I’ve looked over the data thoroughly, I paid no attention to the training stress. I was mostly comparing myself on various sections to riders of similar fitness to see if my strategy was the right now (I intentionally let the lead group get away on the first ramp of the first climb, and this was planned).

I think your physical exhaustion at the end of the race indicates you put in a fabulous effort and maximized what you could have accomplished. To me, that sounds like a win!
Despite doing as well as I possibly could have on the day, for about 10 days after my race, I hit a bit of a “now what?” sadness, since my planned road races are mostly off the table following an incident in which my road bike was wrecked by a vehicle (I’m fine - was just a bit scraped/bruised for 1-2 weeks).

Advice: try to get used to taking in more fuel; I’m not sure what your average power is like, but I would completely bonk if I did 6hrs at “only” 86 g/hr.

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Hang on - you can get near FTP in the final hour of 6? I think that shows that either your pacing was really effective, or your FTP estimate is too low. Or that my pacing is terrible because after 2 or 3 hours of racing I have a lot of trouble getting over 80% of FTP.

This

I was the 77th overall finisher this year as opposed to 146th in 2024 (identical course both years)

shows a huge improvement from last year (everyone was slower, so relative placing gives a better idea of how you really did.

But this

had to make multiple stops to empty my bladder this year (no stops in 2024)

is something that happens to me sometimes - I suspect that it’s when I don’t have enough sodium ?

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