Off-season is the time for detachment, of letting go:
That’s the plan.
I didnt get much racing in this summer so I’ve been using the PMC to give rough structure to my riding and CTL and TSB as guardrails while I ride just for fun.
Not being sure of specific racing goals next season and as someone who enjoys racing on Zwift and is forced to train indoors a fair bit year round, my winter won’t be a “traditional” off season and Im not training in an annually periodized manner. I tend to train in loosely structured 4-8 week blocks addressing whatever area of my PDC could use a little boost. If I have a target event, I’ll work on specific efforts and taper accordingly.
Playing with PMC, I’m guessing I’ll actually be down around 75-80 CTL which is a 30+% drop. I’ll have 4-7 days off for Thanksgiving since it’s the one holiday we actually travel for and just confirmed someone to watch the farm for us Four kids and animals means family has to come to us if the want to visit.
Being back on the bike for a full year now and knowing my body and how it manages stress much better, I’m feeling pretty good with this approach. Also helps that I’m looking forward to the winter. Mental fatigue can be worse than physical, and I have no issue with pulling the plug on a workout or dialing back a week to regroup if need be. Last year I was hell bent on hitting numbers and doing intervals. Wasn’t sustainable.
Trying to maintain CTL in isolation is a useless endeavor I would argue.
For starters there is a significant difference between indoor and outdoor TSS given the structured nature of indoor training. It is relatively easy to pile on unstructured TSS, and as has been discussed numerous times, “not all TSS is created equal”.
CTL (and therefore TSS) also fails to account HOW that TSS is being created. Is it through targeted interval training where you are specifying zones for specific periods of time, or are you simply riding around ad-hoc with no purpose to intensity or duration.
CTL can be used as a good measurement tool when used in conjunction with structured training and proper planning to monitor the effects of overreaching. Building TSS week over week in conjunction with structure to coupled with adequate recovery/rest to promote overreach and adaption.
Agreed, the statement was too much of a blanket comment. I find even doing structured outdoor work, there’s just more “riding around” due to transit times getting to areas where intervals can be done, rather than hopping on the trainer, immediately beginning a structured warm up and going into intervals.
It means that my fitness supposedly is about 34% higher than one year ago. Which would be somewhat accurate if I’m going by feel.
For those with 100+ CTL, how many hours are you doing and do you fit that in?
I’ve never averaged more than 6 hours per week across the year or had a CTL above 66. (FTP 300+ w/kg 4.6).
Increasing my CTL to 80-85 would likely give me the bump in performance I’m after this winter. Probably impossible for me though.
Finished last winter (SSB 1 & 2 mid vol) right around CTL 80 with some short runs as a bonus. After two weeks training camp in Mallorca and a recovery week I was above CTL 100+ (and balance around 0). During summer I was around 120 CTL riding mostly 6 days a week, two bigger rides on the weekend (hard Sa, long Su). Now I see my CTL dropping like a stone in the water. There is raining outside and I’ve got cold hence doing only short and easy trainer rides. Not too worried though, I’ll still probably manage to start the base training at a higher CTL level, will do some training camp in November or December and will also try to do one more ride in mid volume SSB.
Where do find your CTL?
Thank you
I topped out in the mid 120s on 12-17hr weeks with 8-9hr recovery weeks this summer.
Right now I’m in the 110’s riding 10hrs/wk. I’m riding a lot of intensity but really just having fun enjoying my fitness, and with the drop in volume I’m feeling fine and not watching TSS at all. Typically race 3-4 zwift races over three days during the week adding tempo intervals after a couple and riding a long and short outdoor ride on Sat/Sun.
I’ll be dialing it back to hit reset and start an aerobic block soon so my CTL should drop a fair bit.
Can I ask how a typical week looks when you’re doing 12+ hours?
Do you not feel like the Strava chart is complete nonsense though?
I’m definitely a lot fitter than I was in the beginning of August, but my fitness according to Strava is near the same.
Mine used to look something like this, before I started training properly:
Monday: ride to work 2.5h, ride from work 2.5h
Tuesday: off/crosstrain
Wednesday: ride to work 2.5h, get train back
Thursday: crosstrain
Friday: ride to and from work again, 5h total.
Saturday off
Sunday: long club ride, 6h
I’d change the bike commute days up, depending on the weather.
That kind of proves my point and would be the only way for me to add the volume I need. Commuting!
It’s 42 miles round trip but if I did this one day per week, it would be about 3 hours easy riding and would likely give me that extra day I need without impacting responsibilities at home or affecting my structured training.
Mine is 37 miles one way. Yours sounds much more reasonable. I need to get back to it, just being home late isn’t great for me now.
The problem is that base is usually in winter, when long commutes in the dark, wet and cold aren’t much fun.
The plan for me now is that I’ll use TR to make it through the winter (this only starts in February for me as I’m actually in cx race season now) and then go back to those commuter rides. Hopefully that’ll set me up ok for more fun in the summer.
Your middle paragraph is likely to be my limiter too.
M: Off
Tu: 1-2hrs Short ride/race on Zwift +Z2/3
W: 2hrs Hard race on Zwift +Z2/3
Th: 2-3hrs Short race(s) on Zwift +Z2/3
F: 0-2hrs Easy ride with a few efforts or OFF
Sa: 4-6hrs outside Z2 with hard efforts or Z3
Su: 2hr easy social ride outside
My work schedule dictates weekdays (125mi one way commute so I go in 2 days typically but they change) but I always workout mornings and indoors during the week. This was pretty much my schedule most of the summer. Life got in the way of racing so I haven’t had a lot of structure but have made very good gains just riding for fun with a general plan of what I want to focus on for short blocks.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/33518660/training/log
It’s not like I take it 100% seriously but it aligns pretty well with Intervals.icu as well. I have no problems at all holding a much higher wattage now even during summer. And my FTP hasn’t risen that much but being able to hold it for longer durations has improved dramatically. So fitness might not have improved exactly 34% but I’m pretty sure it’s up there somewhere.
Ha! Driving not riding. I live on a farm in the Catskills in the middle of nowhere and my office is in NYC. I try to schedule office days and meetings with customers to keep my commutes to 3x max. Makes for 5hrs in the car on a good day, but completely worth it.
