How quickly can I get in race shape?

I will have to take a look at intervals.icu

I am 100% on a rest week this week. Its still funny to see my CTL at 34, most people I know this time of the year are around 100

I know how you feel, I’ve been stuck at under 60 for over a year due to recurrent knee injuries, which was initially caused by having a long break from a different injury, and then coming back too soon!

I always like the analogy of training as filling up a tank. training to increase fitness you’ve never had before, is like filling up the tank and trying to make the tank bigger, i.e lots of pressure required, pressure being training. however after a long break, the tank empties, and maybe shrinks, albeit slowly, refilling the tank it is the easy bit, and doesn’t take must pressure or training.

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Rest week hard ride. I did a hard ride with friends last night, I know its a rest week but I still wanted to do something.

Managed to do 10w more then last week on my avg power and my NP.

I cant wait to finish out this rest week and get back on the intervals.

Nice thread, good to hear regular updates. I buggered my knee in a crash c3 weeks ago, i feel like it’s another 1 or 2 before i can start ramping things up again - and then i go on holiday. Proper cycling for me will have to start again in mid-June by which time i’m hoping back to full strength

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Rest week is complete. I wanted to do my ftp test today, but it hasnt been enough days since my last test. Ill just do my wed work out and take my ftp ai test on wed when I have a hard ride.

Rested and ready to grow.

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Well yesterday didnt go as planned. So I got after it today.

My AI ftp test gave me a 5% bump. I felt like that was a low number but what do I know. So I did my 7.3 VO2 work out. The first 2 blocks of intervals were not to bad, but the last one hurt a little. I rated it as moderate. Lets see how I go tomorrow night. Looks like Ill end up with 4 hard rides this week. Building up for a race on the 2nd week of June. Hoping to add some good tss in the coming weeks and back off a little on race week.

I am still down 12-15% on where I was last year at this time.

Another wed night and another 1.1 IF event. I managed to bump my NP by 10w and my AP by 5w. This was after a vo2 work out on tuesday.

This weeks block of training brings up the question, do I train friday and come into sunday pretty depleted. Or do I say, I have nailed 2 hard days, lets just do z2 work and work on being fresh for sunday.

Week 6 is in the books.

I raced a crit yesterday, I ended up 8th out of 55 in the 123 field. I covered a ton of moves, even after going off the front with 3 to go, I was still able to come from last on the last corner to top 10 due to the bunch choosing a different line on a wide road.

I didnt really get a chance to get just z2 work this week. I ended up with 3 vo2 or max effort days. Still good for a tss of 420 for my first week back from a rest week. With a race I want to do well on in 2 weeks, I will either do 2 or 3 max effort days and only 1 max effort day the following week.

Another wed night, another new set of max numbers for the year. Avg power was 10w less then my ftp and np was 30w more then ftp for 45min.

I would say 7 weeks in and I’m able to throw down pretty decent.

I now have a 7th and a 3rd in last 2 races

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Numbers are almost back to pre injury.

I have been able to race 2 crits same day. Back to back hard days. Now I want to keep driving my fitness further. I have 4 races on the docket and one 200 mile ride coming up

Let’s get it

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Has some issues a few weeks ago, ground through a workout at way to low of a cadence and knee was not happy.

Managed to do a 650tss ride Saturday with a 50ctl.

This year is pretty much a waste. Few top 10 in cat 3 crits. Podium with some cat 1s in a 123 race.

2 races left. Hope to get after it in 2 days to be ready to race. Also have a short family trip in July and then whole month of august living in a van.