Originally Posted by
burnthesheep
I'm cheap and ended up putting the formulas into Excel successfully for CTL/ATL/TSB. I went back as far as I could stand to fill in cells. I'm seeing upper 40's CTL, mid 50's ATL, and TSB's routinely in the -10 to +10 range.
I'm time crunched, so don't get the stress input of longer/easier rides.
I just feel like the whole thing is a bit disappointing and leading me to believe I wouldn't pay for TP because it feels like it belies my actual fitness level. They have charts for CTL/TSS for different cat racing, and I barely meet the 4/5 targets.
However, my power and repeat-ability in the last couple months means I'm dropping the racer boys that show up to the hammer ride. Not just dropping the A-groupies.
But my CTL and weekly TSS you'd think I couldn't finish a metric century or hang on the hammer ride at all.
It feels like that part of the model doesn't take well into account time spent per zone. I'd almost like to know my current CTL/ATL/TSB per each zone. Like split the TSS score by zone.
If you're too positive for too long in your power-intervals zone, might not do well in a RR or crit. Trending positive for too long in Z1/Z2 then don't expect to enjoy a hilly century ride.
Maybe I'm missing something here.
CTL is exactly that. Chronic training load. It is _not_ a measure of fitness. You can be super fit and fast with low CTL (2-3 intense, but short workouts a week) and super slow with very high CTL (countless hours at Z2/Z3 amassing huge TSS/week). And remember that TSS is a function of FTP. So it takes substantially more work (kJ) to generate the same TSS as your FTP increases.
The scale on TP is stupid. Ignore it. I sort of think it's artificially inflated to motivate you or something. You don't need to be 5W/kg to be a competitive Cat 3....
The second part of your post is supposed to be factored in. The algorithm weighs higher percentages of your FTP more so that you generate more TSS the closer you get (and beyond) your FTP. It probably doesn't weight them enough though.