My plan for this year was to really make volume my highest priority. So lots of very early mornings. I finished up the last training block at 68 CTL averaging something like 9.5 hours a week (up from 5-7ish prior years), including rest weeks and time lost to illness, so it’s a pretty significant increase over previous years, especially for this early in the season. Interestingly, I lost a lot less time being sick this year with the focus on volume over intensity. Possibly coincidental, but I have felt less fatigued overall despite a significant increase in hours.
Here’s a graph of Fitness and Cumulative Moving time from intervals.icu, this year vs. last year. Intervals also has me at 294 eFTP vs. 258 eFTP this time last year, although the max effort last year was pretty iffy.
I know some other folks are doing volume pushes, so I’m feeling very eager to test my fitness at my events on 4/20 and 4/27 and to hear from others doing the same.
A few quick thoughts:
Rasputitsa is my annual burn test for fitness, and it moved back to Jay Peak from Burke this year, so it won’t be an apples-to-apples comparison. The previous course was 55 miles w/ ~7100 ft. of climbing, this year’s course is 53 miles / ~5200 ft. of climbing, and a good chunk of that vertical is 1000 ft in the last 4 miles. Losing 1900 ft. of climbing should be a much friendlier course, especially with my weight down a bit at 204 pounds.
That said, I’m kind of a dope when it comes to racing gravel, so we’ll see if I can avoid my usual mistakes of going too hard at the beginning and spending way too much time above threshold, then taking too much chilling out gazing at clouds between climbs.
The other big concern is that I’m abysmal at eating on the bike on outdoor rides. The Saturday app has been a huge help in this regard, but in cooler weather I just don’t fuel up enough. I’m most likely going to end up writing 'Eat More, Dummy" on my stem as a reminder. Any other tips for keeping fueled? I’ve got my Garmin alerts for water and fuel on, but they’re easily ignored, especially when the road is a bit too bouncy.
For all the time-constrained Dads out there, I’m currently at 25, hoping to find 50+ by race day end of July. I’ll give it my best and strive for consistency despite sickness (once a month on average), short sleep, kiddos events, and life responsibilities, etc. Amazed by all the high numbers (100+!!) on here. Maybe someday…
Are you using a hydration pack? That’s how I can ensure I can drink, even when bouncy.
Congratulations on the huge improvement! I did the same for the last year, and the focus on volume over intensity has kept me consistent, I’ve lost a ton of weight, and my FTP is way up. I still do some all out VO2 work, but making the hard rides hard and the easy rides easy has been miraculous for my health and fitness.
Yeah, the hydration pack’s not a bad idea. It’s something I’ve been considering, may have to give it a try.
And yeah, my focus was volume before anything, then add intensity at least one or two days a week just going by overall fatigue/freshness, and a few things like RHR, HRV, with Garmin and Fascat readiness scores as frequent objects of curiosity and occasional usefulness.
I will add that the Fascat app has been improving in leaps and bounds. Their readiness score lines up pretty well with how I feel, and their ChatGPT-fueled CoachCat is pretty handy. It’ll suggest workouts each day based on training status and load, and you can ask for a specific type of workout if you want and It’ll send it to Garmin/Wahoo automatically. I’ve also been tinkering with ChatGPT for creating workout files, and if you drop a screenshot of the description into the moble app, it’ll generate a .zwo file in about 30 seconds.
I really like the USWE ones (thanks Jonathan!). They don’t bounce around on your back like other brands. Whatever brand you try, get one with a quick connect tube so you can clean it easily and also get a magnetic attachment for the bite valve (you can get them aftermarket if yours doesn’t have one). Then you can put it where when you raise and lower your arm, it automatically connects/disconnects it straight to your mouth without searching for it.
Without getting too off topic, I like using hydration packs for local long rides and usually don’t for long events.
For events I use a frame bag that holds a 1 liter bottle, this way I have 3 1 liter bottles on hand. I don’t have a pit crew and using this method makes aid station stops much faster, imo. I can also visually see how much sugar water and water I’m taking in each hour.
I’ve had many times where I’d get done with a ride and still have more than half a liter of sugar water in my hydration pack. Plus I don’t have anything on my back especially if it’s a hot spring or summer day.
Using the garmin reminders to fuel every 20 minutes and if I don’t have time during that alert I make sure to take something in asap.
Cold weather is the big reason I separated fueling and hydration. My pack has Water, Electrolytes and Flavoring, and for races / events / big rides, I use exclusively gels now. (Wilmington whiteface was in the 30’s at the start last year, had to stop to pee 5-6 times because of liquid fuel) I’ll still use liquid fuel for shorter or hotter rides and while I’m on the trainer because it’s cheaper.
I turn on alerts on my garmin, and set a 20 minute eat notification, and eat a 40g gel every 20 minutes after a big loud beep to remind me. I just treat it as: HTFU, not optional, eat the damn gel you wuss…
Cargo Bibs help so I can have a stash right on my left leg, and discard wrappers go on the right leg. I’ve even toyed with an ultralight bar bag for wrapper discards or to store my gels to make it easier. Lets face it, it’ll be behind your number plate anyways and might make mounting it easier.
Keeping things in the mid 50s but a ways to go to get >60 and hold it there, going to be a big drop in May with a trip to Europe keeping me off the bike for 10 days. A race is June 30th… I know CTL isn’t actually fitness but hoping to be >55 at least coming into that taper.
Didn’t ride the bike much in the second half of 2023 due to what life threw my way. But, started winter 2023/2024 at a 265w FTP (4.07 w/kg) off the couch, living at about 6000 ft. of elevation. I did about 2-3 months of Polarized Base and Build to get some fitness for a cycling trip to Girona, bumping up to 276w (4.24 w/kg). After taking a few weeks (mostly) off the bike after my trip, about to get started on an oddly-timed 12-week Base season, followed by Build and Specialty.
Hoping to increase the FTP this year as I have a few climbing segment goals I’m targeting in the Fall, and I should probably create the mental space to make a race goal or two for the summer. Who knows where this CTL will go! I’m thankful (and excited) to be training and pushing myself again
I’ve read through quite a bit of this very interesting thread but did not find any obvious pointers to “how to plan your CTL increase to a specific target”?
Interval.icu is telling me that my CTL=58 today. What method, or tool, could I use to plan a steady TSS increase to a specific CTL in the future?
Yeah the intervals.icu workout creator is great after you have the syntax down it’s so easy to create workouts and move them around. Also to see the expected ramp rate etc.
But yeah those are only indicators doesn’t help if you try to reach a certain ctl while not being able to recover… also not all TSS is created equal. A 110 TSS VO2 Workout will be way harder on me the a 110 TSS sweet spot…
Currently at 63 CTL. A bit behind were I wanted to be but it’s ok still should be able to ramp up to mid 70s until the marmotte.
