mattm

Been going hard all week, hour easy today. Like suuuuper easy.

Racing two crits tomorrow, district RR champs on Sunday.

Olden Nats next weekend. (rr & crit)

hubcyclist

my wife is working today and then wants to go to the beach later, so it was on the trainer on a nice day. 2hrs 6x15 ~90%, felt pretty good the whole time. Basement AC is back in action for the summer lol

Ttoc6

Signed up for amonth of xert to try out their training style. We'll see if I like it. So I did this fading 5x5 set where it starts out hard then fades to just below threshold. Kinda fun.

Ttoc6

Well. My FTP was set wrong. Did a 79 mile ride with 6500feet of climbing and paced at what felt like threshold for the ~20 minute climb at the beginning. I was nearly 20W higher than what I tested at last week. So I guess I was just still sick or something.

Real fun ride. 3 big climbs and a segment in between climb 1 and 2. Just wish some of my friends would be willing to come out and ride with me on a sunday lol

hubcyclist

last sweet spot workout for this block today, 4x18. ctl is up to 98. after this coming z2 week I'll have to figure out what to do for 2 weeks before I travel,

furiousferret

On to the next hard block. Next race (not counting the weekly crit) is about 50 miles with 9k of climbing so yeah, lots of elevation on the menu.

With that fitness I'd find a race.

wktmeow

Tried to do Palomar big gear again on Sat, same pace that I was able to complete last week. Blew up 40 mins in and limped it to the top : Must not have eaten enough, felt bonked all the way back.

Sunday was just 3 hours of steady z2, but I took it as an opportunity to burn some fat so it was challenging by the end. Back down to 145ish again yay! Then spent the afternoon at the beach

mike868y

CTL has very little to do with race-specific fitness

arai_speed

Curious - for those of you with CTL in the 90's....how many hours a week are you riding and what kind of weekly TSS are you accumulating?

I feel inadequate with my CTL of 50

hubcyclist

Usually around 10 hours/week but highly structured with trainerroad, but I've had some 250tss outdoor rides sprinkled in. But I'm very crappy over threshold, hence the not doing well racing when it matters lol I'm just really mentally focused on some recreational endurance events at the moment, and then training for CX in July

furiousferret

Lets just agree to disagree.

TMonk

That's a good day right there! Where did you go? (for both)

revchuck 

About 13.5 hours/week and 750ish TSS, current CTL is 93.

TMonk

My CTL is 80-85 in season and I typically ride about 700 TSS in 11-12 hours. Less during easy weeks.

MDcatV

it's not a high score contest!

in the past i've had racing seasons that my CTLs ranged 110 - 120 (ish) and others that have been more in the 75 - 85 range. My best form that was sustainable was in the 75 - 85 range with a slightly negative (like -5 to 0) TSB. how I got there (steady consistent ramp up rate on base + build) and a focus on recovery mattered more than just obtaining CTL #s .

in my experience comparing CTLs is like comparing max heart rates, not particularly meaningful from individual to individual, and chasing CTL #s usually leads to an athlete not being adequately recovered on race day, thus, many "i'm in good shape, why don't I feel good on race day" comments.

revchuck 

My next goal event is LOTOJA, 206 miles/8700 ft on September 8. My coach has me building to a 110 CTL by the end of August to ensure I have the endurance to do it successfully. My CTL isn't going to be the same as a racer's CTL because I'll be mostly focused on threshold power and below. We might be hitting it more heavily than needed, but I'll be a sea-level flatlander riding in the Rockies and will need all the fitness I can scrounge.

mattm

CTL is no guarantee that you'll win a race, but for me at least it does seem to correlate to how "fit" I am, which in turn is an indication of how ready you are.

But that's just the foundation - I think the point you're making is even with generic "fitness" in your pocket, you need race-specific fitness, such as repeated accelerations/quick recovery for crits, or doing whatever it is people do in TTs (go hard?).

So, I think you're both right?

mike868y

yeah i mean my point is basically that while you probably need a baseline level of ctl to be fit enough to do well in races, past that there's a lot more to the equation than just that single number. FF saying that hubcyclist has a high CTL and therefore should "find a race" seems misguided considering (from what I've seen) the vast majority of hub's training is steady state work which isn't really going to help in most 4/5 races.

Ttoc6

I've been hanging out just below 90CTL this year on (avg) 10 hours per week. Usually during base period it's higher then comes down ab it once racing starts. Now that I'm prepping for lotoja, I imagine it's going to get decently high just because of an increase of volume. Word of advice though.. don't get obsessive over ctl/atl and trying to keep it somewhere. That's how you never peak and just live in a plateau for an entire season. Ask me how I know.

mattm

I agree.

Except that @hubcyclist should race, because why not? If his training has been all steady state work, it'll be a great wake-up call that steady state work is not what you need to be doing if you're trying to do well at road races & crits.

On top of that, racing is some of the best training for races (if you can survive).

TMonk

we're both right.

aaronmcd

50 CTL is 350 TSS per week, so for me that would be one big Saturday ride plus 15 minutes x 10 commutes, plus the midweek short social ride.

But if I never did any big rides, or my measly little commutes, or any social rides, I guess that could be 3 short training sessions (3x117 TSS) or even 4 very short ones (4x87 TSS).

Now I don't really do much a lot of weeks. A good week would be something like 100 TSS on Tuesday, 250 on Wednesday, and 200 each on Saturday and Sunday. Factor in the weeks where I do nothing if I'm sick or lazy or resting all week long and I'm at ~88 CTL

furiousferret

CTL is a baseline marker for aerobic fitness and this is an aerobic sport. Saying, 'very little to do with race specific fitness' sounds like CTL isn't important at all. I'll take a steady state guy with a 85 CTL over a sprinter with a 40 CTL any day.

TMonk

^
depends on the race

arai_speed

Thanks for all the replies ya'll!

I was reading an article on Joe Dombrowski and was surprised by his base CTL of 100, which then jumped to 192 at the end of the Giro. When I started seeing the CTLs being posted here I thought - WTF?!

@aaronmcd - yes, that's about right...my PMC based on Golden Cheetah since I got a PM on the new bike.