73 and 5 weeks to go.
Ups and down through the year
Ramping up the last few weeks by increasing from 1 to 2h the time available for my 2 intensity session (VO2Max and threshold), and letting AI chose accordingly
Your intervals ICU visualization is beautiful - a remarkable testament of the structure, consistency, and focus you’ve accomplished.
Been inspired and following along. How did Unbound go?
It was a good day. Ended up 3rd in age group. Threw caution out the window and was racing hard from the start for the win, but the guy who got first was too strong and put time into me all day. I cracked pretty hard about 7 hours in and one guy passed me to take 2nd, but I was really happy with the day. No flats, no wrecks.
6 Likes
I hit a CTL of 117 yesterday (rest day today), and I’m kind of surprised it’s that high as I just ride with no sort of structure. I do wonder if my FTP is set too low and as a consequence has inflated my CTL. I don’t do many max efforts for intervals.icu to trigger a new FTP, so I should likely do one to verify.
3 Likes
As I’m either following a TR workout or doing endurance, without any all out efforts the eFTP has been about 30-40w down all year.
I was at a CTL of 82, just about two weeks ago. Then I had a trip out of town, came back with covid, and I’m in the 60s and going down some more 
1 Like
Travel is an absolute CTL killer for me as a cyclist. I am constantly dropping 10 CTL because I took a week to move the kid out of her dorm, or visit parents, or go on vacation, etc. I try to walk a lot, run or hit the gym, etc., which keeps me healthy overall, but taking a week off the bike every 6 weeks or so absolutely kills CTL.
5 Likes
Yep, likely my issue. It looks like my FTP is set around 20w low, so that explains why my CTL seems high based on my weekly hours.
2 Likes
Congrats on the podium! What a great result after the training consistency. Chapeau.
3 Likes
My CTL is 107 today. Not unusual for long distance riders.
1 Like
98 yesterday and heading to a rest week. First time near 100 since september, and highest volume weeks ever for the last two blocks. Fingers crossed this pays off.
2 Likes
Could you all share your CTL versus weekly riding time?
I am at 75 and doing around 15.5h last week which I feel is a terrible relation. But don’t really know how to improve it.
Here’s a chart from Training Peaks that‘s used to guesstimate CTL. I heard Kolie Moore use something like this in a podcast the other day too.
2 Likes
If 15.5h is a typical week, that is pretty low and you might try upping the intensity a bit.
Not to oversimplify, but it’s pretty simple - more TSS every week, month, year. Time and intensity. Building/maintaining aerobic fitness is a long game. Small daily adjustments done with consistency turn into significant long term adaptations, and eventually you start to move the mountain.
This is the smoothest build chart I’ve seen while cruising around the forums. Obvious overload with a rest period before another block.
Do you mind sharing what your structure was during this shown period?
Wow, that’s great, thank you a ton!
If I substract the 25% of my riding time which is forced decending where I can’t pedal, I fall more or less in the table.
On the low side that of course means the potential to improve my relation is also limited, given I don’t wan’t to sit on the trainer instead of riding outside. But I would rather change sports.
1 Like
You might have misunderstood my question. I am perfectly aware of how to improve fitness. My concern is if I could do it with less invested time.
Didn’t mean to come off as flippant (If I did), but there aren’t any magical answers here. Pushing CTL up while balancing stress is going to make you fitter. The only way to do that is by increasing TSS (or whatever metric you prefer as your proxy for fitness). The only 2 levers you can pull to increase TSS is time and intensity.
As stated previously, your CTL is pretty low if you are consistently training at ~15 hours. I’d recommend you try upping the intensity (with the same number of hours) and see how you handle it. That would increase your TSS without adding hours, but at some point, the only way to increase TSS without overtraining (with too much intensity) is to increase the hours.
Again, it’s a super simple formula and it’s proven to be an effective way to build/manage fitness, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to implement.
2 Likes
Maybe if you ride on a trainer but not outside where you lose all kind of time while you can’t push the pedal. Of course one can play with intensity within a pretty narrow limit, but thats not my point.
I have tried things like engaging the brakes during descends to keep pedaling and push power. Trying to optimize the route between minimal pedal desengages versus traffic safety.
I’d like to hear others little tricks, dirty or otherwise.
That was in May. I’m now at 83. I wasn’t specifically targeting a specific level for CTL. At my current intensity mix, I don’t feel like I would perform well at a higher CTL. I have been targeting 1 or 2 structured sessions, plus one medium and one long-ish group ride, and often a long endurance ride.