Ygduf

one minute bridges that anaerobic/atp/aerobic time, so it's the worst "feeling", imo. Not surprised you found it that way too.

Rather than 600/30 then 400/30, do it the other way around. 400/30 should feel easy then aim for 600/30 at the end which should stress you much more and better replicate a race situation where you're winded from the pace when someone goes and you want to get their wheel, e.g.

globecanvas

I've been kind of down the past few weeks and it's likely to continue for another couple of weeks, due to an external stress issue related to some volunteer work I do. The past couple of days it's been really hard for me to drag myself out the door to ride, though I'm always so glad I did get out and ride afterwards. For some reason it's much more mentally appealing to do strength work while in a frustrated/stressed state of mind, compared to anything aerobic.

Anyway once I finally got on the bike today, I set a 15 minute power PR, just keeping it steady on my new favorite dirt climb. I had more left to give, too.

Can't wait for this mess to clear up.

hubcyclist

90 mins of zwift z2. finished in time to get called by my son's daycare due to his fever. good times

I've been pretty lax with using HR with my power meter, but I used it for my FTP test on Sunday and today. On Sunday, I had -6.8% decoupling, and today (with adjusted FTP) had -0.4%. I know just a little about it, so I'm trying to read up, but is there anything to be interpreted from these values?

TMonk

Hope things clear up for you soon @globecanvas. If it's volunteer work, it's got to be some sort of karmic investment of sorts, which will hopefully manifest later by feeling awesome on the bike and about life in general.

TMonk

4hrs this morning, low/mid z2 between four z4/5 ~5min climbs. Bailed on the last one, not because I was cooked or tired, but just due to laziness.

"I'll be that much fresher for my 2x30min tomorrow", I told myself.

Also, I'm looking forward to this time change, spending the first 45min of my rides in the dark is no fun.

scheibo

I found it extra dark this morning as well due to waking up before my alarm and the rare occurrence of clouds. While I was climbing I was just praying for the sun to rise in time because the descent down the other side was super steep and my front light wouldn't be powerful enough to illuminate it very well. Luckily, I crested right at daybreak and got a nice view from the top.

I've been OK with the darkness so far, I'm more looking forward to the fact that the time change and light will mean its a little warmer in the mornings so I don't have to put on as many layers.

mattm

I'm looking forward to getting training going soon, and also looking forward to the time change so early morning riding will be easier. Too dark to get out (for me) lately, and sun goes down too early to do much after work.Starting a month later than last year, hopefully peak at a better time in 2016!

TheKillerPenguin

Recovery rides are magic I swear to god

gsteinb

I had a magic recovery ride yesterday. Then I got sucked into a two hour hike with work folks who came to visit me. I felt like ass last night, but managed to hit my numbers (old man doing VO2 max) today still. Tied an indoor 90 minute PR the other day. I could have broken it if I paid attention.

Ygduf

Everyone wonders how I can ride like 350 days/year. 150 of those are recovery.

TMonk

bro, do you even recovery ride?

mike868y

recovery rides >>>> days off

Ygduf

I moved my ftp back to 370 in the software. I need to find my dongle and confirm that I'm not crazy. power #s are sort of inline with other efforts on strava and whatever, but once I considered that it could be off I need to confirm.

Hermes

I know where my dongle is.

misterwaterfall

I am exactly the same way, and actually in a very similar situation with stress currently. I will completely bury myself in the squat rack, but riding hard on the bike does not sound at all appealing.

Keep your head up man

burger0014

Rest week. Took tonight completely off the bike and it feels weird. Hoping this translates to a good fitness test this weekend. How much do peoples CTL normally drop during a rest week? Mine dropped 2 (97-95) tonight. If i truly did what my plan calls for I'd lose ~10 CTL in 5 days.

TMonk

Yeah, but what's your TSB? Presumably highly negative?

You need to let that TSB come back towards zero for that CTL to mean anything. Any ordinary ******* can put in a super training camp weekend or two and walk out with a high CTL.

Surfer3287

Ugh, please don't wish it on us any sooner. As a school teacher, this means that pretty much all of my rides will now be in the dark, before or after work. Add the growing number of snowbirds arriving and this is the dangerous time of year to be on a bike for me.

TheKillerPenguin

Yurp. A rest week means you let go of some ctl for freshness. tsb rises quicker than ctl drops, so after your rest week is finished you've got a higher fitness floor you are fresh at, and you can build ctl higher from there. Also 90+ ctl seems awful high for the 4's...you'll be fine, trust the process.

burger0014

TSB yesterday was -15, today -3.4. Tomorrow it will be positive 8.7. @theKillerPenguin I think I've fallen into the ride medium hard a lot trap and need to focus my training more. I've been doing a lot of sweetspot the last few weeks, that and long rides on the weekend push my ctl up quickly though I question the training benefit of the long rides.

TheKillerPenguin

So...rest weeks are kind of a personal thing. I used to do them much easier but I found it ****ed with my hormones because I'd go from lots of training to very little and I'd get all grouchy and sluggish and it'd take me a week after getting back to work for my legs to feel right. So I upped rest week volume a bit and even added in some openers type intensity just to keep my legs remembering they're supposed to be able to pedal hard while allowing them to stay fresh and recover (coach approved). So a rest week is like anywhere from 300-450tss dependent upon how much rest I feel I need... and making sure you get enough rest is really a lot more important than worrying about ctl being a couple of points lower than it'd otherwise be.

RE: your training, didn't you post like a 60tss recovery ride a while back? If I'm remembering right I'd take that as an indicator that your training does tend toward that sort of hard all the time stuff. Like fudgy I'm going easy pretty much as often as I'm going hard. When I'm doing work I make sure it's focused and really, really hard.

I really don't know enough about sciencey stuff to say whether or not long rides will help you since your races are like 2hrs long at most. I tack on volume because the races I'm aiming for success in on are going to be 4+hrs long a lot of the time; I did the same sort of volume last winter in anticipation of getting to where I am now instead of training for the category I was in. I dunno though, I'd think for going 4 to 3 sticking to legit focused intervals and doing proper rest and recovery rides is enough and will probably be more beneficial than going out and riding a ton. It sounds like since your training is all sort of mf you may not have done much in the way of actual intervals like vo2, 1min, 30sec, etc...in which case you'd probably surprise yourself with how quickly your fitness improves.

Maltex

I dont know about dudes with ctl's of 90, but I've found a rest for about 3 to 4 days is way better than a whole week. 7 days just seems excessive and always leaves me feeling flat when I come back but I'm probably on the low end of things volume wise.

caloso

That makes a lot of sense. I am going to try that next time.

burger0014

Right now my schedule looks like this. I do indoor recovery rides, typically 30 minutes, 12-15 TSS on Monday and Friday. I do this during the season too with the odd recovery ride outside but they usually end up at 25 or more TSS. Tues, Wed, Thursday is some sort of sweetspot or tempo intervals right now with rides at 90 minutes or less. Saturday and Sunday are usually 2.5 hours each with more sweetspot or just endurance riding where I throw in some sprints. CTL is driven up mostly by those weekend rides.

I start Vo2 work in January. Most of my races are really less than an hour in length with the odd race at 90 minutes long. Lots of crits with a handful of road races but they aren't very long either. Is i worth starting vo2 work now indoors?

revchuck 

For me, a 90+ CTL implies 16-18 hours/week. I'm going from memory since it's been a couple of years since I've ridden that much. It doesn't sound like you're riding that much.