Speaking of volume, coach has turned it up here too and it was just under 4.5 hours of pure Z2 today. 8.5 hours, 443 TSS and 6k kJ's for the weekend.

One thing I think I've learned from training all these years is that training load is trumps everything else. If load goes up, I get fitter. Intensity sort of takes care of itself on the macro level, and I think that relationship of higher load = more fit would only break down if I was too extreme in either low intensity or high.

another solid week so far, did 3:15 z2 on Tues and today was 3x30 @ 90% and felt solid. The efforts stayed mainly under 160bpm which I like to see in my sweet spot. My CTL is 86, surely it'll hit over 90 by the end of next week lol

With that said, what is a "good" CTL in the context of targeting starting the season in March? I tried the ol' Google, but couldn't come up with any definitive information. FWIW I am sitting at a CTL of 92; ATL 123; TSB -21...this is after taking two years off the bike and beginning structured training at the end of October 2021.

92 is a fine place to be

Sounds good to me. :50:

What are your racing goals?

That's a great question and thank you for asking.

The original plan was to spend most of the 2022 season on the track (mass-start events...most likely no TT/pursuit events) with the season starting in March. Other than than the one USAC day at the end of the month for our velodrome...I would probably chase crits around the state (North Carolina). As far as measurable goals are concerned...I suppose what I have going on is kind of vague. I left off as a Cat 3 with a moderate amount of upgrade points in 2016; I picked up where I left off six years ago from a fitness perspective at the end of last season. Long story short...haven't touched a race since 2016 and my fitness is questionable with regard to "race intensity."

Mayyybee getting that Cat 2 upgrade on the road/track by the end of the season (Octoberish)...the track upgrade is a more reasonable goal in my opinion.

Sounds good. Given that you are a mid-category racer and not target road races or other endurance events, I stand behind my statement that 92 is plenty. Moreover, I think it would for that to drop to the mid to high 80's as long as you have a few months of base building so you can focus on intensity.

When does racing start? I'd count back a couple a months from there and then switch to prioritizing threshold building and then VO2 max and race intensity work.

For some context, I'm a 35 year old cat 2 in SCNCA and my CTL has topped out at around 100 last few years towards the end of winter, and stayed in the 90-100 range through Spring, where it start slipping towards a minimum of 70 or so by early fall. Come March my CTL starts dropping but my power often increases due to more racing and intensity. I usually have my best numbers in mid to late Spring.

I also race criteriums and track, but also a good dose of RR and TT. I've been getting more into the TT stuff lately.

Gotcha. I'm of the same demographic (minus the Cat 2), so (FWIW) I seem to be on an appropriate trajectory. Most of the work I've been doing since October has been endurance and some threshold work with about 10-12 hours of volume/wk. TSS has been ~680/wk average during this time.

*Disclaimer - I have been/am working with a coach (who has been awesome)...my line of questioning just popped into my head this morning, so I haven't gotten a chance to discuss this with him*

It sounds like you're on the right track. Keep at it and let us know how the training and racing goes!

Mini opener ride this morning, 30 min on the TT bike for more time in position, then about 90 min outside, 40 or so with the first part of a race pace group ride. Race tomorrow.

My fitness is coming along as expected. I seem to always have great "slash and burn" type speed north of 6.0 w/kg and can get a gap and build it easily. Moreover, my endurance fitness clearly shows as I have multiple matches in the book, and I recover quite quickly after getting caught, being able to do it again and further splinter things after people are recovering after catching me. I can tell my "staying power" in the VO2 and threshold region needs to get brought up a bit, but that will come with more intervals and intensity. I've really just been riding long. For now, it's more than enough to terrorize a local group ride :).

Racing tomorrow, cat 2/3 and then P/1/2 for training. I'm stoked that there is a cat 2/3 each time as part of this series (6 in total), could be a good way to grab some points. For tomorrow, my goal is to stir the pot, attack, and see who is willing and able to get up the road. Not too worried about it as it's so early. But hey, if I can stick a break and get some points, awesome, but for now I'm feeling relaxed about it and mainly looking to test the waters. Today I was quite pleased with my recovery from going into the red.

In separate news, I finally tested my Favero pedals against my Saris H3 today with different garmins. Not sure why it took me so long. Fortunately, they were within a few watts of eachother based on my TT effort in position (z2/3). Nice. If it stays that way over a few more tests, great, I wont bother switching my Favero pedals over to the trainer and will just go off the trainer power when riding indoors.

That's good to hear. I thought that I'd heard that H3s were rather high when you got into 1000W+ range, but I may have been thinking of the H2. Or maybe even the H1.

I've heard that too. I wasn't even approaching those sorts of powers during my test this morning, and hardly ever do indoors. I do some zwift races for fun here and there as I get deeper into the season and off season, so then it might be appreciated :)

did another 3x30 sweet spot session today, this one rated level 10 for trainer road, 90-92-90% across the intervals. felt good, although funny how just a 5w increase in the middle interval resulted in a lot more forehead sweat. 3:45 z2 on the trainer tomorrow and then one more week of base.

I'm not saying that the only reason I remember it is because I filed it away for if I ever decide to drop the money on a smart trainer and decide I need a little more on my sprints to the line...;)

FTP test today with a 60-watt improvement from last measured value in October. Gotta love the exponential gains coming from poor fitness during baseline testing...

My power duration curve was getting messy, so I had a "ride how I feel day" on the schedule and decided to take care of the medium and long duration tests. I did the short test earlier in the week. The medium test was 1:21 and the long was 49:46. I warmed up and then hit the short test and crushed it. Cooled down a bit and then jumped on A. Anquetil bot on Zwift. It should have been enough but after 25' the power was too low due to drafting and downhills, so I moved in front of the bot and got out of the draft. When we hit the epic kom, I had to drop him for the climb to hit my target. I ended up about 10 watts over the target and was pretty happy with that. I let the bot catch up on the descent and then rode with him for a while longer, then finished up with 30' of easy spinning for a total of 3.5 hrs.

No idea how people sprint indoors, it feels sooooooo awkward.

I hate sprinting indoors. In the odd event that I'm in the running to win a Zwift A race (happens sometimes), I usually like to take it up from the rear at like 0.5 to go and count on a moment or two of hesitation.

I have a hard time standing up and really going for it indoors. That's especially true since coming back in September after getting hit last spring. I usually just slide forward onto the rivet and spin as fast as I can. I used to be able to actually sprint, but now my power for anything less than 1 minute is way down (like my 10s is ~200W down) from where it was a year ago before I got hit. I think some is a loss of coordination, some is a loss of fitness, and some is due to coming back and immediately trying to race right away without building up my aerobic fitness first (because racing is more fun that putting the work in and there's a race on Zwift just about whenever I want one), so I have been racing big gears/low cadence and trying to muscle my way through < 1 hour races, leaving nothing left for the sprint.

Working on getting some nice long higher-cadence Z2 rides in to get used to riding normal cadence again (for me that's only averaging ~80 rpm at the moment as I've lost my smoothness and bounce around when I go over ~90 while riding z2), but the 3 "races" I did last week I averaged 67, 64, and 64 rpm. Hopefully, I'll be able to start sprinting again once I can get the cadence up to where it needs to be.

Whole family popped by the 'vid. Took the time to go ahead and just do a whole week off to rest. Haven't had a true off week since back in summer.

Back into it sometime today. I put together a little 4 week plan after researching Zwift workouts and knowing it's going to be typical season cold for a month or so.

Decided to skip my race yesterday. After cooking dinner I was just feeling too fatigued on what is supposed to be a rest week, and with a big training day on MLK to cap off the last block, I wasn't surprised to see a fairly negative TSB. Ramp rate has been high and overall CTL is a bit low compared to normal right now (~85) since I'm getting started a month later than usual due to my injuries late summer/fall. Instead, I took the day off completely, and today too.

Not stressin' since it's so early in the season and there will be plenty more. This week, I'm looking at ~14-15 hours, but with more time in Z4 between an opener ride tomorrow, FTP test, and some TT bike work. Next week, we have team camp F/S/Su so I'm looking at another 18-20 hour week.