bmcphx

I still see a lot of guys I raced with first as a cat 5, but as I race more, they all seem to race less frequently. I assume as I cat up this discrepancy will only continue to grow.

TheKillerPenguin

Yeah, my mindset is no half measures, I've done the mostly but not entirely committed crap for too long and got tired of making excuses for myself. A few long trainer sessions are nothing compared to wondering what if for the next however many years; at least if I suck in the spring I'll suck having given it my all my attention and commitment for once, and I'd be ok with that.

Anyways, like I said, there's a lot of Sopranos to catch up on still.

tetonrider

the best thing is for people to understand what the model is saying and they decide what they do or do not want to take from it. i think we agree on that.

i've not read anything from allen or coggan talking about using a decay of >42 days--but the beauty of it is that it's a parameter one can tweak very easily in the software. (i'm no shill for WKO+; i tolerate it as it happens to be the best tool out there for me to manage multiple athletes.)

i think the point is that there is some point where longer-term fitness is not such a great predictor of what will happen tomorrow. if you think that is 210 days or 3,650 days, that's great. maybe it is 43 days. coggan and allen are very intelligent guys who have seen a TON of data, more than i have and i'm guessing more than you have, but they are not omniscient, so i agree that it is good to think about whether one agrees with what they are saying. the same stuff applies to GC (7 days/42 days but easily modifiable last i used the software).

i don't dismiss their work based on a typo on the website. they presented a model that is user-configurable and then suggested what they have seen works over many, many athletes -- cyclists, runners, triathletes, juniors, masters, newbies, and 20-year vets.

i DO find that years and years of training add up. of course everything builds upon what we have done before. i guess the counterpoint to your argument that "6 days + 1 week" matters is that there is clearly some point where it doesn't matter. i don't find last summer's training to have any material bearing on how my workout goes this afternoon.

regardless of whether one feels it is 1 week, 42 days or one year, TSB and CTL are based on data in the past. that's the main reason i don't put too much stock in it. there are some newer areas that hold some promise for being more predictive.

your ability to create a spreadsheet that replicates a PMC is beyond the ability/desire of many people out there, i'd imagine. for most, it's easier to grab WKO+, GC, trainingpeaks.com, etc. hell, i'd bet 90% or more users have no idea of what those values mean or that they can change them.



20-30% improvements per year don't last very long. if they do, you're going to be riding the TdF pretty soon. ;-)

to answer your question, i'm not sure it matters. in fact, for someone new i could argue that the last 6 weeks represent a larger overall portion of their fitness vs a life-long athlete.

not all CTL is equal, too. the way it is achieved and managed is important.

i'd propose based on what i've seen that newbies whose fitness is changing by the day tend to have inaccurate numbers (often inflated CTL) based on not getting things like accurate FTP, updated FTP in the model. this is probably not you, though it is out there.

it also becomes apparent when one has a long-term view that no individual workout matters that much, nor does a few watts here or there on a threshold test (though it's a bigger effect when there is less information on the athlete). these tools have a way of making us think that fitness and performance can be broken down to a hard set of numbers; it's easy to see why and i've fallen in that trap, too.

also, to circle back to your question--i guess i would look at the athlete as a whole and try to determine what s/he wants out of the sport, how much time they have, where their strengths and weaknesses lie, what they gravitate toward and what they run from, and more, in order to figure out whether CTL is the metric to chase.

tetonrider

don't know anything about either of you in terms of how long you've been racing, but if it has been 3+ years go look up your first few cat 5 races on USAC. our memories are not always accurate as we tend to remem her who has remained more than the guys we didn't know who dropped away.

click on the USAC IDs of the riders in those races and see how many have tapered off or stopped completely. seems like ~3 years is a big drop-off. just curious what you see.

again, lots of folks stay in the sport as a pursuit, but as we know racing is hard, training to race well can be brutal. given that most folks are average by definition and that conversation with fellow riders centers around "dude, when are you going to upgrade?" it quickly becomes about working super hard for minimal glory. that ceases to be fun for many folks.

i think that success helps fuel the desire to do those 3.5-hour january trainer sessions, and a good result here or there is a huge motivator, but when people reach the appropriate category (and then usually go one step beyond that), the successes are harder to come by.

(it's also part of the reason i advocate ensuring that success has occurred at the lower levels before moving up.)

this stuff is not universal and some people believe we're all unique snowflakes, so i'm just speaking about general trends. when i work with someone either as an athlete or a coach, i view them as an individual and want to be viewed as one.

rkwaki

You're a 5 again?

I'm going for a quadruple downgrade this year. Think I'll get approved?

rkwaki

I've found cycling a lot like bodybuilding/powerlifting and you are right 3-5 years seems to be a pretty good number. At some point the mental fatigue kicks in, you get tired of being perpetually sore/tired and you see all the sacrifice that you are making when others are enjoying down days, eating ice cream and other things that guys racing just can't/don't do.

For myself I have never ever gotten fired up for super long offseason work. I define myself as a heat rider and really get strong in July/August. Owing to that winter has been a time for me to enjoy myself. Much like Pro riders I have traditionally raced myself into fitness. Spring is a write-off and I'll DNF or get killed a lot but it doesn't bother me as it gets me to a goal that I've layed out for myself.

tetonrider

i just took my own suggestion. about 35% of the guys i first raced with had a result in the past 12 months. about 15% are actively racing; the remainder maybe have one result from a TT or a gran fondo, and while they are still "active" it is not very active.

there are also a few of those guys in the active category that have a 3+ year gap in results.

maybe i happened to pick the wrong cat 5 race to review, but it is inline with my more casual observation.

mattm

Ain't nobody winning the Giro or any spring classic by "riding themselves into fitness".

Are you saying pros don't really train over the winter?

hubcyclist

I've kind of come to view CTL not as any sort of predictor of performance, just of a measure of being able to handle and recover from more work, but I just started working with SportTracks and Golden Cheetah (and only using HR, no PM for me yet), so there's a lot I don't know yet. According to the files I've imported into these two programs, my CTL is 90-100 at the moment (TSB hovering around 0), not sure if this is accurate (I'm also using trainerroad's "virtual power" and adjusting my intensity based on those workouts and tests). My understanding is if I wanted to do something like a stage race, I'd want my CTL to be pretty high to be able to handle the back to back days. Anyhow, I wish I had this type of performance management stuff back when I was in high school, I think it would have helped me stay interested in training.

tetonrider

great point. i think as people get deeper into the sport and the sacrifices become greater (for most folks of average talent), they also start to question what it is all about. amateur glory is pretty fleeting.

has anyone else seen someone who got so deep into the training, the dieting, the sacrifices that their spouse left them, or they missed a chunk of their kids growing up? i know a national champ that happened to (full disclosure: i would LOVE to win one), and after the fact he definitely wondered if it was worth it. many people quit before it gets to that point (thankfully).

it's kind of hard to find balance in something like bike racing, which encourages obsession. some people successfully walk the line.

we've got a few guys on this board who gave up racing for 10, 20 years or more and then came back to it.

Ygduf

cafe bustello instant espresso if you want decent coffee and lots of condescension too!

Ygduf

amatuer glory is fleeting, but strava followers and kudos are forever.

tetonrider

seemed that he was saying that is how it used to be. more money = more scientific training (& doping!) = higher cost for non-performance.

there are probably less guys showing up to training camp 20+ pounds overweight, a la ullrich.

rkwaki

No not saying that but if you look at many of the Grand Tour riders they are opting out of a lot of the early season week long tours. They do put in huge hours don't get me wrong but that is a little different than amateurs as they go to places that they can get proper training in. I know plenty of guys riding in the dark/cold right now. THe risks are just not worth it to me (i.e. hitting ice etc).
Furthermore a lot of pros use the early season tours to get their fitness as the early races aren't target events. That being said the 'Classics' riders put in crazy winters so that they are ready for the classics season. So in addressing your point those are two completely different comparisons (i.e. the Classics and Tour examples).
If you read the article about Tour de San Luis the one comment by some is that they choose that tour over Down Under as Down under is simply too hard this early. What does this mean? It means they can go into San Luis not in quite the same shape as others.
THe reason I draw caution to some of this is that for me, when I was really serious about racing, the big races, target races and money races were later in the year. I was never one to develop a peak or double peak in a season but rather came on super strong as the season went on. Everyone is different. At this point in my life even after taking two years off I would be ready to go in about a month of consistent training. Why? I did years and years of huge weeks of structured training well in excess of 20 hours a week, many times 10+ hours of that were race hours.

Here is the article:
Top riders skipping Tour Down Under for Tour de San Luis - VeloNews.com

tetonrider

i think you're joking, but there's some truth.

we also know if is harder for one's ego to handle mediocre results. someone's time in a TT is printed in black & white. "that can't be right, i rode 350 watts" (i've actually heard that from a fellow rider fter a TT)....was the timing inaccurate?

stuff like strava allows some to "compete" when they feel like it, without really having skin in the game.

i'm not a strava hater at all--i have an account and it has its place.

rkwaki

Speaking from personal experience much of my drive in sport (not just cycling) caused the demise of my marriage. Yes I was offered a chance to race on a Domestic Pro team in 2011 but to be realistic those guys have a hard time paying the electric bill, if fact I was corresponding with a friend of mine a little but ago and he cleared more as an amateur than he does as a Domestic Pro (races for an established team) so I agreed to take him out for dinner this year

rkwaki

I have a Strava Account and have used it to crush the souls of local know-it-alls then I take my segment off the leaderboard. Tends to make them simma down...

Ygduf

I'm joking and I'm not. People need to do whatever they find fun, or they'll quit. Strava is still competition, and it's fun, but it's not a fair, head-to-head, measure of anything. Digging super hard on a 60s segment is fun, but it's even more fun when you have a good tailwind and set the bar at 55s.

People get mad and say it's not racing, but I honestly don't know anyone who ****s around with Strava that actually thinks it is representative of USAC racing in any measure.

Ygduf

leave it there for someone to try and beat. or are you chicken?

misterwaterfall

I asked for cat 6 but my USAC rep said 5 was better for my special needs. We can race some 30 minute cat 5 crits and go get ice cream after

rkwaki

tetonrider

really?

i know a few people that feel that way about it. one guy in particular often talks about how he can beat a local pro on various segments. he doesn't seem to get that he biked to that MTB segment, rested, then went all out, while that LocalPro<TM> was just cruising the segment in the course of a 50-mile ride. meanwhile, this guy doesn't show up at any of the local races.

i think most people have the right attitude about it, but i'm surprised you've not encountered someone that completely misses the point.

it's all just a hobby. so the notion that someone who enters a USAC race is in any way better than someone who "just" uses strava is just people fighting over crumbs.

on a related note, this rider is pretty strong but clueless about many things. for example, he'll send me 10 text messages about what type of sandwich to eat on a ride. yes, literally 10 messages. anyway, i convinced him to come out the day we had an actual hill climb (a 30-minute effort). during the first 5' he was on my wheel, talking the whole way (exact quote: "Hey...I'm thinking of going all-out today...are you going hard?" things got serious<TM> for me, and i had to tell him i wasn't going to be talking any more. . he threw up 5' from the top and 5' after he finished due to having some ridiculous huge breakfast with the climb at 8:30am. he was in the top 10% of times.

the reason this came up is i ran into him skiing the other day and we were talking about his effort. he truly believe that i did not feel any pain while doing that climb--and it was a revelation to him that bradley wiggins feels the exact same pain that we do...except that wiggins is done quicker.

furiousferret

Strava is to cycling what Micheal Jackson is to the 80's. No one claims to like it, pretends it's stupid but then you find out everyone has an account. As a kid (back then we didn't know he was a pedo, just a dude that really really likes kids...) everyone hated Micheal Jackson but you go to their house and there is always a Thriller album on the shelf. Not me of course

aaronmcd

Well, I did my 5 hill intervals today, and although I was feeling better yesterday and today (after the worst of a head cold on Monday), whatever is lingering absolutely kills my power. Intervals were 5 minutes on a hill that should have been in the low 4s (pr 3:18 on the hill). Wow. It felt like VO2, but power was sub threshold. Feel fine, so I don't think working out now is a bad idea, but it's definitely not optimal.

misterwaterfall

I'm in a similar position. Tired form low activity ect. I think I picked up a stomach bug as these are not going well in that department but I figure it won't make it much worse to keep training as it's not like a chest cold. Just need to let it pass and I'll be on my way up.