Training Reset, rebuilding following burnout

[Dexvd]

Started TR and structured training in spring 2022, after ~18 months of unstructured mtbing with a ramp test FTP of 175 watts at 55.3kg or 3.16w/kg, from there with ramp tests and AI FTP detection I progressed to ~4 w/kg (between 233 AI FTP and 237 AI FTP between October 2023 and June 29 2024, also put on some weight in this period). I got frustrated, was struggling with fatigue with trying to increase my TSS and hours per week but wasn’t getting my CTL/Fitness >59.
Paid a coach for a consultation, he told me a few key points, my cadence was low, I was muscling through efforts, I was likely a glycolytic biased cyclist (he didn’t mention that at the time but from what I’ve read it means I likely have a lower VO2 Max) and that my FTP was too high, it took me several weeks to get a period where I could do a ‘test effort’ Lola and could only average an avg power for the 27 min threshold effort of 210w (target was 233). Had All Time x 151 PR (15min to 31 min power) so did feel it was a capacitive effort. Based on that we lowered my FTP from 235 to 215 on July 20th. After that I started working on my top-end with max aerobic intervals weekly and an alternating sweet spot (SS90 workouts) or threshold (over under) work, 2 easy endurance workouts and one long Z2 workout 3+ hours on weekends I didnt race. My race results seemed to continue suffer over the season, I didn’t have power data for most of them but was setting HR PRs and new threshold heart rates. My last successful intensity workout was in late August and then I began to fail even low intensity Endurance workouts, couldn’t even hit the first power interval (I think despite the lowered FTP, I was getting too much intensity with the racing and not effectively adapting my plan to allow for this as it was a one off coach session with no monitoring after to tell me I was being dumb). I then just stopped doing workouts in September, took a week off and then only was getting TSS through commuting or outside riding. When I stopped commuting by bike for the winter (dark, cold in Canada post November) I stopped riding for several weeks. Started riding again in the new year and have now progressed from a Fitness/CTL of 9 in January to 28 now and haven’t allowed the AI FTP to increase my FTP (its saying 184 now but I’ve stayed at 174) as I would rather progress my levels and CTL further first. I eventually will go back to working a coach if I can build the capacity to start doing 400 TSS weeks again and I haven’t bought a race license this year (depending where I am at may race CX in October-December).

My question is where I am rebuilding from burnout, as a small, glycolytic biased rider are there specific workouts I should emphasize? Currently I’m not doing any threshold or supra threshold work, I’m doing Z2 work (1 long, 1 short) plus 1 to 2 sweet spot workouts per week (modified Table Rock with the 87% intervals extended), hoping to ‘push’ up my FTP by building my aerobic base rather than pull up my FTP from the top with high intensity work. Sometimes I am still getting sore legs and fatigue. The only group rides I’m doing are with a beginner group rather than my ‘friends’ that are racers and would likely rip my legs off at this point. In these group rides I will occasionally rip a climb or 2 and have seen top end PRs in 1s-45s power and 48s to 1 min 25s power. Which seems really strange to me considering my fitness and FTP are very low compared to what they have been in the past and I am not training those zones and haven’t done anything higher than sweet spot since August 2024…

TLDR: 2.5 years of structured training, got stuck at ~4w/kg, had a one off session with a coach who said AI FTP was too high, dropped it, advised high intensity workouts, was unsupervised, tried to progress in these while doing a busy race reason, burnt myself out so bad I almost quit cycling, have been coming back slowly since January but likely won’t race this year. Wondering if based on the idea that I am a glycolytic rider which seems to confuse FTP detection (ramp and AI FTP) as thinking I have a higher FTP than I do. How can I rebuild myself to get back to racing and maybe hit a true 4+w/kg again?

[AJS914]

@Dexvd

In these group rides I will occasionally rip a climb or 2 and have seen top end PRs in 1s-45s power and 48s to 1 min 25s power. Which seems really strange to me considering my fitness and FTP are very low

It sounds like you are a natural sprinter trying to be a road racer? Does your power duration curve support that idea?

@Dexvd

stuck at ~4w/kg

Around 4 watts/kg seems like a place where many amateurs top out on the usual 8-10 hours per week.

Genetically, you may just have an average or even blow average vo2max with a relatively good sprint.

What is your weekly volume?

[Dexvd]

@AJS914

It sounds like you are a natural sprinter trying to be a road racer? Does your power duration curve support that idea?

I wouldn’t consider myself as ‘trained’ at this point, maybe my metabolism is that of a sprinter but I have a climber body type.

My current power duration thing is not what I would say is untrained but reflects that I haven’t done any threshold or supra threshold workouts.

@AJS914

Around 4 watts/kg seems like a place where many amateurs top out on the usual 8-10 hours per week.

Genetically, you may just have an average or even blow average vo2max with a relatively good sprint.

What is your weekly volume?

Current fitness or 42 day average TSS is 27, coming back from a low of 9 in Janurary, was running 57-59 most of summer 2024 till I burnt out.

Here is the same data from April 2024

June 2024 all time power sprint curve not shown

[AJS914]

I guess the question is why do you burn out. I’d just pay attention to all the usual suspects as you increase training load:

too much intensity
not enough full days off the bike
no recovery /deload weeks
not enough nutrition for recovery (protein and carbs)
too much life stress

(or some combination of multiple factors from the list above)

I know a successful masters racer that does a recovery week every other week and limits themself to 2 interval workouts in the “on” week. The rest of the time and during the recovery week, it’s easy endurance.

[AJS914]

Maybe you should have your coach consultant analyze last season to see if they can figure out why you burnt out.

[Stevie_Dee]

That’s sound pretty rough, the overtraining bit. Seems like you were doing pretty good there for a while. Do you have any revelations as to how you want to approach training now that you’ve gone through that experience? You’ve had to have learned a handful of lessons that you can take with you.

I’m reminded of my college years when I was overly focused on racing and the Cyclist Training Bible just came out. My first year using it I was so rigid and overly ambitious with the hours that I overtrained myself and it took about 6 months of summer to get out the of the slump. Next year was better, and my third was the best. My takeaway was to relax, loosen my grip on training, rest when I needed it, and don’t starve myself going into a build and peak. Worked like a charm.

For you, I’d say just do unstructured rides and have fun until you feel like you are in a place where your body and mind are ready to get back to basics. Once you’ve rested up and have that hunger to train physically and mentally, then just start up a TR plan again. I think the last thing you want to do is get too eager too soon. Good luck on your recovery. Oh yeah, don’t worry about watts:kg and this point, you can work on that later.

[Dexvd]

@AJS914

I guess the question is why do you burn out. I’d just pay attention to all the usual suspects as you increase training load:

too much intensity
not enough full days off the bike
no recovery /deload weeks
not enough nutrition for recovery (protein and carbs)
too much life stress

Definitely too much intensity, I tried to apply the example workouts in a get them done way without accounting for the races I was doing enough.

Also likely too much life stress.

I really doubt I wasn’t getting enough protein or carbs as I put on weight progressively since 2022 (122 pounds to 134 pounds) and was also taking in about 60g per hour with every workout (not doing that now) and getting ~1g of protein per pound of body weight per day (my wife is a body builder).

@AJS914

Maybe you should have your coach consultant analyze last season to see if they can figure out why you burnt out.

Planning to do this but with an ongoing training plan rather than a one off (as I’m apparently too dumb to not go off and hurt myself if left to my own devices) and want to be at a 6 hour weekly volume for at least 4 weeks before I feel it makes any sense to get an expert optimizing things.

[AJS914]

You have to remember that if you are going to race every week, all season that you can’t continue doing build cycle intervals. You have to do just enough race prep intervals to stay sharp and maintain fitness.

Also, plan for a mid season break - a full week off the bike.

[eddiegrinwald]

Hey @Dexvd,

Thanks for sharing your experience with us! We appreciate you sharing the lows of your training experience. I think this thread has the potential to help others who may have had similar experiences to yours in the past.

I won’t speak too much about what your coach was recommending, but dropping FTP down to target really high-level workouts isn’t a sustainable approach to training. Save that for Specialty phases! When following a TR plan, we’ll manage your FTP and Progression Levels for you to ensure you get some of that sharp specificity in at some point.

I don’t think that there is a rider type that will complicate things with TrainerRoac. We get all of our data for FTP assessments from your career and all of the other cyclists that train with us. It’s not a test that some are responders to and others aren’t, but rather a data-driven approach to fitness estimation. I wouldn’t worry about self-managing your FTP. Let TR do that for you.

The key to getting back into your groove is relatively simple, though the challenge does come mostly in the form of restraint, as well as some dedication and hard work, which we already know you have.

TrainerRoad will build a solid plan for you to follow, and we’ll have all of the guiderails in place for you to have success long term and avoid another burnout. All you need to do is be honest with yourself, your recovery, and your training, and follow the plan. Things may seem easy at first, and tough at times, but we’d recommend sticking to the plan, answering the post-workout surveys honestly, and recovering as best as possible between workouts. This includes getting enough rest each night, as well as proper nutrition both on and off the bike.

Follow your recovery weeks when they’re prescribed, and you’ll likely be back feeling good before too long. It takes time to bounce back after overtraining and time off, but if you’re consistent with your plan, it might come quicker than you think! Also, it could help to ensure that you’ve set your training approach to conservative, moderate, or balanced for the time being. I’d stay away from demanding or aggressive plans for the time being.

We’re always here to help you along the way in your journey to ensure you have success. Please reach out if you’d like to chat about anything!

[Dexvd]

@eddiegrinwald

dropping FTP down to target really high-level workouts isn’t a sustainable approach to training. Save that for Specialty phases! When following a TR plan, we’ll manage your FTP and Progression Levels for you to ensure you get some of that sharp specificity in at some point.

This was mid race season so without selecting a specific A race, this intensity work was generally surrounded with weekends of racing, which made it hard for me to even recover enough to feel I could do Lola as a capacitive test. I think going forward I do like the idea of not moving up my FTP beyond what I can hold on Lola’s 27 minute 98%-100% FTP interval, if I can do Lola, maybe I can bump my FTP, if I can’t I don’t think I should. If I can’t hold 235 or more watts for 27 minutes wouldn’t it make sense that my FTP is likely under 235 watts? If FTP is supposed to relate to 1 hour power?

The AI FTP and ramp test bumps definitely fed my ego but I think I put myself into a power where higher end Z2 workouts were actually in tempo and sweet spot work was actually in threshold and that may have been why I plateaued for ~8 months. Not saying I did better with the suggestions from my coach (from a one-off review) as I burnt myself out rather than maintaining that peak but at some point in my opinion if you don’t feel like you are progressing you should try to make some changes.

[OreoCookie]

@Dexvd

My question is where I am rebuilding from burnout, as a small, glycolytic biased rider are there specific workouts I should emphasize?

I think you are completely missing the forest for the trees: you are not overtrained, you are under recovered. You have (seemingly arbitrary) TSS targets and CTL targets that are not backed by adequate recovery. Your body tells you to slow down and you push harder instead. You did not use the word recovery, sleep or (life) stress once in your original post.

@Dexvd

How can I rebuild myself to get back to racing and maybe hit a true 4+w/kg again?

Here is what I would do:

Step 1: Get Rid of Long-Term Fatigue and Get Your Riding Mojo Back

You are not going to like it, but I recommend you get off the bike completely. Until you feel the itch to get on the bike. Don’t mistake the itch for the itch of “I should feel the itch”, no, you need to miss your bike. Then add 2–3 weeks on top of that. Don’t start riding or training before. Otherwise, it’ll set back your recovery even further.

Moreover, look for life stressors, sleep and nutrition:

• How many hours per day do you sleep? If you don’t know, start tracking that. I cannot train really well unless I have slept 8 hours per night. You can hardly overestimate the importance of good sleep.
• How is your nutrition? I am not sure whether you are male or female, but if you are male, you have rather low body weight. Perhaps you are not eating enough.
• What are stressors in your life (job, kids, marital problems, sick relatives, etc.)?

Step 2: Ride for Fun

You should associate riding with an activity that is pleasureful and fun. Don’t ride to be fast. If you are afraid that you might hunt KOMs, push yourself to get power or heart rate PRs, take off all measurement devices before you ride. Or if you want to keep track of the mileage, put your head unit in your jersey pocket.

Step 3: Dipping Your Toes into the Water

Once you are riding regularly again and you find joy being on the bike, I would add perhaps 2 days of structured training plus one day of just riding for fun. You can use Train Now. Keep it easy. Focus on the process. If you feel depleted, stop with the workouts.

Step 4: A Low-Volume Training Plan with a Focus on Recovery and Dealing with Life Stresses

When you feel like you are ready, have Plan Builder make you a 4-hour training plan: two 1-hour interval sessions and one 2-hour endurance ride. Keep in mind that long endurance rides are not easy, especially if you do them on the trainer. Do not chase TSS or CTL or whatnot.

What you should focus on is consistency and recovery. For example, I have a few rules that have served me well:

• If I have spent less than 7 hours in bed, then I am not getting on the trainer. I am aiming for 7:30–8:00 hours.
• If I get up too late, I need to shorten my workouts.
• Eat enough vegetables and protein.
• Fuel your workouts. Every single one of them. I (75 kg) take in 110–115 g/h for hard sessions and 80–85 g/h for endurance sessions. You could scale that back based on your body weight. Last weekend my wife raced a 10k, and I put 75 g in her flask. (She weighs a little less than you.)
• Take rest weeks really seriously. Rest week is when you get faster! And you do want to get faster, right
• Rather than setting yourself arbitrary goals like 400 TSS, x CTL or 4 W/kg, focus on the process. Nail each workout. Take the wins, even if they feel easy.

People often say “If you want to be faster, you need to ride more.”, but most of the time they forget about the all important qualifier at the end “… if you can recover.” In your case the clear answer is that right now, you can’t recover. Find the point where you can recover from the training stimulus, but just, and make sure you back off a bit to give you some room to maneuver. Hence, give yourself 6–8 months before considering to add more volume. 4 hours per week might seem ridiculously little, but if you allow your body to regenerate, you’ll get more from that than 400 TSS weeks. Approach the point of no recovery from below and stay there.

What to add depends on your goals. If you want to work on your MTB skills, I’d just add that as an anything-goes ride where you don’t stick to particular power targets. But I’d start with one more day at first. You should also try adding a strength session rather than a workout on the bike, too. I have replaced two cycling workouts with strength workouts.

And if you feel fatigue, back off immediately. Focus on the 3 core sessions instead and nail those.

[Dexvd]

@OreoCookie

Step 1: Get Rid of Long-Term Fatigue and Get Your Riding Mojo Back

You are not going to like it, but I recommend you get off the bike completely. Until you feel the itch to get on the bike. Don’t mistake the itch for the itch of “I should feel the itch”, no, you need to miss your bike. Then add 2–3 weeks on top of that. Don’t start riding or training before. Otherwise, it’ll set back your recovery even further.

Moreover, look for life stressors, sleep and nutrition:

• How many hours per day do you sleep? If you don’t know, start tracking that. I cannot train really well unless I have slept 8 hours per night. You can hardly overestimate the importance of good sleep.
• How is your nutrition? I am not sure whether you are male or female, but if you are male, you have rather low body weight. Perhaps you are not eating enough.
• What are stressors in your life (job, kids, marital problems, sick relatives, etc.)?

I feel like I can check off part 1 aside from bike commuting to work I stopped ‘Training’ or doing a structured workout plan for ~5 months with quite a bit of time off the bike completely once it was too dark/cold to commute.

I think my weight and nutrition is pretty good my body weight is ~134 these days (would like to see it go below 130 again) at a height of around 5’5. When I was in high school I wrestled in the 50kg weight class lol.

I sleep around 7 hours a night, have never been a great sleeper but have worked to improve on this, used to be a chronic ~5 hours a night kind of person and used to alternate between working 12 hour nights and days.

Stressors, I probably work too much but am cutting back on that a bit over the summer and may keep it that way into the fall.

@OreoCookie

Step 2: Ride for Fun

You should associate riding with an activity that is pleasureful and fun. Don’t ride to be fast. If you are afraid that you might hunt KOMs, push yourself to get power or heart rate PRs, take off all measurement devices before you ride. Or if you want to keep track of the mileage, put your head unit in your jersey pocket.

Also, likely another weakness. I have been attending a weekly beginner level ride which is mainly riding around in my zone 1 unless I see a hill or bit of single track I wanna hit hard. However, I’m a bit asocial so don’t get a ton from it. Also generally don’t enjoy riding alone or going to the gym or much of anything, I don’t want to be on an SSRI but would likely never fare well on a PHQ-9.

@OreoCookie

Step 3: Dipping Your Toes into the Water

Once you are riding regularly again and you find joy being on the bike, I would add perhaps 2 days of structured training plus one day of just riding for fun. You can use Train Now. Keep it easy. Focus on the process. If you feel depleted, stop with the workouts.

Current approach is 1 to 2 SS workouts per week, 1 60-70 min Z2 workout, 1 2-2.5 hour Z2 workout per week. Getting 4 to 6 hours.

The ‘just for fun’ thing has never been there for me, I unfortunately approach everything as a pursuit, so I doubt I will get that now. Unfortunately to address a lot of your points it would be likely more about doing therapy rather than choosing workouts that are going to address my ‘small rider with glycolytic bias’ phenotype with specific workouts.

@OreoCookie

Step 4: A Low-Volume Training Plan with a Focus on Recovery and Dealing with Life Stresses

When you feel like you are ready, have Plan Builder make you a 4-hour training plan: two 1-hour interval sessions and one 2-hour endurance ride. Keep in mind that long endurance rides are not easy, especially if you do them on the trainer. Do not chase TSS or CTL or whatnot.

I’m kind of doing something like that

I think if I would let AI FTP bump my FTP it would stop saying that I’m always in the red everytime I throw a leg over the bike but right now for those SS workouts my HR is where is should be for sweet spot (<160) as is the Z2 work (<130). So I think bumping the FTP would likely just put me at risk of digging a hole at this point.

[AJS914]

I had another thought, with commuting you are probably pedaling 7 days a week in the summer. If you have two scheduled weekdays with no training, then maybe just drive into work on those days so you have two complete days off the bike.

[Dexvd]

Yeah haven’t started this yet, its about 100 TSS per day (there and back) at my previous FTP, I expect TR would say its even higher now and currently trying to program only 250-300 a week (everytime I ride outside it blows that up though). Not sure when I will throw in the commute again but would like to get 2-3 days a week in even made some custom SS workouts to do on days I do commute when I can handle it so I can still take off days, completely off the bike.

[OreoCookie]

@Dexvd

Unfortunately to address a lot of your points it would be likely more about doing therapy rather than choosing workouts that are going to address my ‘small rider with glycolytic bias’ phenotype with specific workouts.

I think that’s a red herring. I’d just ignore the “glycolytic” bit. You are a small rider, yes, and you should

@Dexvd

I’m kind of doing something like that

With respect, you are not.

• You do not follow a fixed schedule.
• I see lots of red days due to back-to-back workouts. For example, in the last week of March, IMHO you should have skipped the Saturday workout.
• The outdoor rides on 29 March and 6 April are way, way too intense with IF = 0.97 and 0.91. (If you can sustain that for 90 minutes, that indicates to me your FTP might be set too low.)

@Dexvd

So I think bumping the FTP would likely just put me at risk of digging a hole at this point.

No, your FTP is what it is. What puts you in a hole are your training habits.

@Dexvd

I have been attending a weekly beginner level ride which is mainly riding around in my zone 1 unless I see a hill or bit of single track I wanna hit hard. However, I’m a bit asocial so don’t get a ton from it.

You don’t need to do group rides, you can enjoy trails or the roads by yourself. But the big point is that you should get something out of it.

@Dexvd

I feel like I can check off part 1 aside from bike commuting to work I stopped ‘Training’ or doing a structured workout plan for ~5 months with quite a bit of time off the bike completely once it was too dark/cold to commute.

Can you? You said nothing about substantial about your nutrition, for example. You directly went to weight, which was not my point at all.

• What does your on- and off-the-bike nutrition feel like?
• Specifically, how do you fuel your workouts?
• What is your body fat percentage? Given your weight, I’d be worried it is too low. I lived in Japan for many years, I had male team mates that were in the same weight class as you. But I might look for ways to increase your weight.

@Dexvd

Unfortunately to address a lot of your points it would be likely more about doing therapy rather than choosing workouts […]

If that’s the conclusion you have come to, then by all means, then do therapy. Training could/should be a puzzle piece to live a healthy life and not contribute to entrenching bad behavioral patterns.

[Dexvd]

@OreoCookie

With respect, you are not.

• You do not follow a fixed schedule.
• I see lots of red days due to back-to-back workouts. For example, in the last week of March, IMHO you should have skipped the Saturday workout.
• The outdoor rides on 29 March and 6 April are way, way too intense with IF = 0.97 and 0.91. (If you can sustain that for 90 minutes, that indicates to me your FTP might be set too low.)

Yeah nothing is being sustained there really its a lot of Z1 riding with me occasionally pushing harder up a climb, the thing is that TR and intervals both say eFTP of 174, (I didn’t update Intervals from the TR drop from 179 to 174). My weight isn’t up to date on Intervals, its more like 60.8kg this week. As I mentioned somewhere I was about 55.5kg in 2022 and have put on almost 5kg in the past 3 years (mostly stable since summer 2024).

As far as the schedule sometimes I don’t get home from work until 8:30 or 9:00 so move the workouts to accomodate for that or will switch a SS workout to a recovery ride or Z2 ride.

This is what I would like to shoot for but will continue to try and drop rides or switch to recovery rides when feeling fatigued, at some point I will likely switch to TR Adaptive plan but have generally found the ramp rate to be a bit high both in terms of progression of intensity through workout levels (throwing in stretch and breakthrough workouts, a lot of threshold work, which in the past I’ve always found very fatiguing) , FTP, etc for my actual ‘ability to recover’ So would like to get to around 6 hours a week and just sit there for a bit before doing that. My last AI FTP detection was 184 FTP but I rejected it, could likely do a 3 hour LV plan of this but would rather do more at lower intensity for now to help get myself fit enough to start commuting again which is about 100 minutes of volume per day, with some significant climbing both ways (will likely start at 1 day a week and then progress). I suspect a commute day would give me a red day on TR right now.

The 20th-27th will actually be off the bike as I will be traveling.

So far, I’m getting the overall impression is there isn’t any suggestion for training to target your specific phenotype of strength and weakness, which is kind of what I was looking for rather than a post-mortem on why I burnt out last year in the first place (too much intensity, too much volume, not enough recovery).

[OreoCookie]

@Dexvd

Yeah nothing is being sustained there really its a lot of Z1 riding with me occasionally pushing harder up a climb, the thing is that TR and intervals both say eFTP of 174, (I didn’t update Intervals from the TR drop from 179 to 174).

In terms of training, this is the worst kind of riding you can imagine where you get essentially zero benefits: Z1 is too low and the Z7 spikes will induce tons of fatigue, especially for your fast twitch muscle fibers. Z7 is also too high to train VO2max.

@Dexvd

So would like to get to around 6 hours a week and just sit there for a bit before doing that. My last AI FTP detection was 184 FTP but I rejected it, could likely do a 3 hour LV plan of this but would rather do more at lower intensity for now to help get myself fit enough to start commuting again which is about 100 minutes of volume per day, with some significant climbing both ways (will likely start at 1 day a week and then progress). I suspect a commute day would give me a red day on TR right now.

IMHO that’s starting from the wrong end: maybe you want to train 6 hours per week. But instead, you should shed fatigue and establish a routine. Start with 3 workouts, 4 hours per week: two interval sessions, one long Z2 ride. But Z2 really means Z2, no Z7 spikes, no climbing at sweet spot. Don’t add Z2 rides, they add fatigue, too. The plan you suggest has three hard sessions per week (because 2:30±hour endurance rides are also hard sessions!).

You should also not reject AI FTP suggestions, unless you think the estimated FTP is wrong. Not updating your FTP creates many issues, e. g. your TSS will appear too high and especially threshold workouts would be off. You should base your training off of a good estimate of your FTP.

@Dexvd

So far, I’m getting the overall impression is there isn’t any suggestion for training to target your specific phenotype of strength and weakness, which is kind of what I was looking for rather than a post-mortem on why I burnt out last year in the first place (too much intensity, too much volume, not enough recovery).

No, the reason why IMHO this isn’t important is that this is something to worry about once you have a solid handle on the basics. Put another way, adapting your training to your phenotype beyond the mechanisms is a marginal gain. Being consistent with your training is a major gain that’ll drown out any marginal gain.

[Dexvd]

@OreoCookie

IMHO that’s starting from the wrong end: maybe you want to train 6 hours per week. But instead, you should shed fatigue and establish a routine. Start with 3 workouts, 4 hours per week: two interval sessions, one long Z2 ride. But Z2 really means Z2, no Z7 spikes, no climbing at sweet spot. Don’t add Z2 rides, they add fatigue, too. The plan you suggest has three hard sessions per week (because 2:30±hour endurance rides are also hard sessions!).

Thats a good point, I wasn’t counting the long Z2 rides as a ‘hard session’ despite the high TSS.