caloso

60 min of z2 on Zwift this morning. Managed to drop the AppleTv remote on the concrete in the garage. Cracked like hell. Blergh.

gsteinb

Michael Jacksons?

burnthesheep

I made this kind of idea a primary thing I'm tracking on my Trainingpeaks.

I'm nowhere near a lot of you all's commitment level. I'm targeting 4MJ a week. I'm at about 4.3 the last couple weeks with a 5.5MJ week stuck in there.

I feel without a target event right now for me, that the weekly energy expenditure is important.

A pet project once spring pops will be a 50mi TT attempt at under 2 hours. I'm working up to doing the SST "long" on Zwift which should get me 1:40 of work in a session. I'm at SST "med" right now which is only an hour and a couple minutes. If I can do the SST "long" at the "med" power level, I'll be able to break 2 hours.

TMonk

Isn't tracking (or planning) TSS more objective than Joules? Like, that's gonna be easier for a bigger rider.

TMonk

Another Thursday morning, with another 3 hrs on Zwift before work. Same 90 min "C" pace group ride as the past few weeks on Watopia's Waistband, then I head over to AdZ for some climbing to hit my hours. The difference this week is that it's my longest for the week and I'm not piling on a bunch of training stress (joules???) surrounding it as it's a rest week.

I had some plans in the first half of next week to do an FTP test and then some TT work on Fiesta, but it looks like it's going to be a wet one next week. There may be more Zwift in my future.

This weekend we are (car) camping at Vail Lake KOA in Temecula. There is an XC race course there so I'll bring my bike and get an hour long ride or two in.

burnthesheep

KJ's relate to what I feed my pie hole more than TSS. Tossing a little low end Z2 at the end of a workout to hit a KJ target seems to work better than trying to work backwards from TSS.

That's all.

I don't ignore the TSS/TSB/CTL stuff.

TMonk

What exactly is the point of a KJ target? Is it to lose weight?

caloso

That's what I thought too.

burnthesheep

I've had a tendency for a year or so to take it a little too easy on "intensity" weeks once the hard intervals are over. You can still spin some easy stuff on the off days, or extend the end of a workout after the tough work is over.

Often, that stuff doesn't add up to much TSS. But, it can be a meaningful chunk of KJ's burned.

I went a bit wild on some pastries, Indian takeout, red wine, and snacks in November for about a month. I'm an honest 5-6lbs up and that's all fat.

So, the KJ's are playing into getting that into check.

burnthesheep

Today was an old favorite workout I roll out once in a while. There's a 7% hill of about 1:15 right out my front door almost. This time instead of cheating the momentum around the corner at the bottom I took the other street with an honest flat u-turn. One hour, pace it however you think you can make the most vert.

I think last time I did this and "cheated" by using the gravity/curve at the bottom I made less elevation.

25 ascents at about 100 feet a piece. 2500ft in the hour, time counted spent going back down.

I need a longer street. Too much time wasted turning around. My math if I had a longer ascent I could hit at least 150ft more in an hour.

rubiksoval

TSS is wholly dependent on NP. KJ is wholly dependent on energy expenditure.

As an example. I did a 1:34 ride a couple of years ago at an IF of 1.04 and got 171 TSS. Consisted of, I kid you not, 8 x 33 second efforts. 194 average, 343 NP. Less than 5 minutes of hard riding with well over an hour of Z1/Z2. 1,071 KJ.

Or, another ride: 1:16, 0.92 IF, 110 TSS, but 1,370 KJ. That was an hour of riding at sweetspot/threshold.

Depending on power output (which can be related to size), KJ could be easier. But specific to you it could be a good target.

I'm just tired of TSS. It's never, in 8 years for tracking it, been consistently predictive for me. I've crushed workouts and races at -25, and I've totally sucked at -25. I've done the same at +25, and both won races feeling great and totally sucked. There are a lot of factors at play.

Of course, at this point, I don't need TSS or another metric to indicate my form as I can pretty much figure that out based on the previous week's rides, but for a training prescription, I think KJ may be better for me.

What I like is that it's indicating not just time, but how I'm utilizing that time. If I'm going out for 10-12 hours a week staying solidly in high z2 and low z3, then I'm putting in lots of solid work and burning lots of KJs. It's not a recipe for race success, but it does seem to make me very strong according to past data. And as long as I sprinkle in some efforts every week or 10 days, I don't seem to lose much top end and can tune that pretty easily with a couple of weeks of race specific workouts.

In any case, this is another COVID experiment since there's nothing else to do.

rubiksoval

It's to perform more work.

There's a great article about Will Barta, and one of the "predictors" of racing success in Europe that his coach talked about was 20 minute performance after burning 2.5MJ.

Stuff like that. It's how much work you can do and still perform. And in training, how much work you can handle, recover, and then build off of that with appropriate intensity.

My thinking is by focusing on that work rather than TSS (which, again, can be gamed and skewed by extremely hard, short duration efforts from workouts or races), the more reflective it is of the general fitness you're getting from training. It wouldn't be of much use in comparing from rider to rider as a training trend, but it could be for each specific person in comparison of what they've done in the past for success.

burnthesheep

Also, the whole concept of people trying to erroneously link CTL to their "possible" ftp. CTL doesn't mean your ftp is going to go up or down. It just means how much capacity you have to do work, not the level of work you can do.

We have some "club" riders that must have weekly CTL's of 100 if you were to track it. Just tons of hours and miles per week. But, other than the spring thru fall Tues night hammer ride..........they NEVER do any intensity. So, they've got a CTL of 100 but even the one dude that's like 85kg's probably couldn't hold 280 to 300w for 20min. No way.

I carry about 50 to 60 CTL. Not a lot at all. I'm not Rubik fast whatsoever. I'm just an avg cat 4/5 level rider. But I can smoke those clubbies that are at 100 CTL but don't do intensity. 5min power especially. It's nothing to brag about smoking the clubbies, it's not their thing to race. So, one handed clap on that one. But simply demonstrates that CTL ain't everything.

And what drives CTL? TSS.

I do pay attention to it to keep myself honest and have a good idea of what workout to pick for a day during Covid times. I know TSB can be wonky and not always indicate best performances.........but I try not to pick a tough workout if I've got a lot of ATL built up.

TMonk

rubiksoval gotcha, that makes sense. I do think that work is entirely related to size, which is why it makes sense that my KJ target (at 65 kg/145 lbs) would be entirely lower than yours is. I wonder if there is some sort of J/kg metrics that can make something like that more objective over riders of varying size. I mean, there is obviously w/kg, but that describes one's momentary work rate and not a total work target over a ride or a week. Like if a coach wanted to prescribe those ethos to a rider (especially during base), he could have a convenient metric.

burnthesheep for me, doing long rides do improve my threshold power. But you're right, it's mainly about work capacity. I find that it expands my "matchbook" to use that analogy. Like I can have more searing attacks and efforts to expend over a 90 minute crit. If you combine that with over/under work that stresses anaerobic recovery and focused, hard fixed duration intervals, it's a recipe for success. For road racing it's absolutely critical. It feels really good to be 4 or 5 hours into a big KJ ride and still be able to smash a VO2 duration interval with high power.

burnthesheep

Right now, and until my kids are out of HS, I won't be able to ever with any frequency put in 10+ hour weeks. So, my matches might burn bright, but I don't have many.

rubiksoval

Yeah, a convenient metric would be interesting for prescriptions. I would think it'd have to be dependent on FTP, though, as a 145 lb world tour rider may be very comfortable in Z2 averaging 275-280 watts an hour and be burning 1 MJ an hour 4-5 hours at a time on endurance days.

Conversely, a 200 lb Cat 5 may struggle to do 210 watts an hour and only burn whatever that equates to... 600-700 KJ/hour maybe?

TMonk

Yeah I was thinking about it on my ride, and it certainly does vary with fitness in addition to kg. So it gets complicated trying to normalize it by mass. But, having a work target for a specific rider during a large phase of their season does make sense.

I just finished up a bit over 90 min on the TT bike, one 25' SST effort and one harder effort of 10' that I did closer to (road) threshold on feel. I ended up at 102% for the 10', and although my HR rose quickly, it never got within a few BPM from LTHR. At the end I was feeling it for sure, but could have kept going a while longer and had enthusiasm. Nice.

My wife and I took the day off work and will be headed soon to do some socially distant camping at Temecula Vail Lake KOA with some friends. I'm looking to get another hour or so on the MTB there later, and maybe some more tomorrow if it's not too rainy. There is a pro XC course there so I'm looking fwd to checking it out.

Back on the horse next week with the first block of build. It may be a bit wet down here in San Diego until the following weekend, so it will likely be a lot of zwifting.

burnthesheep

Yup. Today was just time spent outdoors in the warmth with no aim or reason other than to ride for a while and enjoy it. 80TSS and 725KJ/hr at right at 200w AP. I'm 72kg. So, nowhere near 200lbs. But, still only 200w.

For humans having sedentary jobs overall, just a couple hundred KJ's a week difference could mean holding even on weight or gaining over a year. I don't make big enough Z2 power to really kill it like a pro would and not even flinch while burning up fuel. Like, they're probably at 1000KJ/hr for an easy easy ride. My 725KJ/hr is for a really solid 3-hr Z2 pace if I keep it really smooth.

Hermes

Last day of skiing - 55k of vertical feet over 6 days. SpO2 this AM was 96%. Gym / recovery / travel day tomorrow and then on Monday an easy spin on the trainer. San Diego’s weather is looking pretty gnarly. It will take Fiesta Island a couple of days to dry out.

hubcyclist

Tomorrow is last z2 workout to wrap up recovery week, although I've been doing the workouts 3% harder just to get an idea if my threshold might be higher. I don't really think it is, I've been knocking out z2 stuff at 230w, but my HR has been a bit more in the tempo zone than I'd like to see, although RPE isn't too bad, so we'll see.

I'll be starting TrainerRoad's sustained power build HV this week. The plan itself roughly goes:
T-short VO2 type power
W-endurance
Thr-suprathreshold
Fri-endurance
Sat-over-unders
Sun-sweet spot
I've been seeing recently suggestions to not really do more than 2 intense days a week. Although I'm not generally one to chase all the fashionable trends, I think I may try this out and cut out the Tuesday short VO2 workout for another endurance session (I don't consider sweet spot hard enough to count it as a high intensity day). We'll see what that yields. I've ordered maltodextrine to mix with Gatorade for some homemade high carb stuff, I'm gonna need all that help I can get lol

caloso

3x16’ over/unders (Carpathian Peak+2 for you TR people). Beautiful day, we’re in a rain window, so everyone in Sac was on the bike trail. Including a bunch of people on electric fat bikes, and another group on Elliptigo “bikes”. It was a circus.

rubiksoval

10,069 kJ this week in 11:39. Consisted of 48 mins of Z1, 5:15 Z2, 3:33 Z3, 1:35 of Z4, and 24 min of Z5+.

And this week they put a couple of races on the calendar, one at the end of Feb. Might just have a proper race season after all.

Yep

Did another 3 hour Zwift ride today to finish up a base week. Not exactly sure what I’m training for at this point. Maybe it’ll be Tuesday Nights Worlds in summer, KOMs, or Zwift races.

I haven’t raced Zwift during base because the effort hasn’t fit, but to some extent I think load is load, regardless of intensity, and I may be building for nothing anyway.

burnthesheep

165 TSS Zwift ride, 5700ft.

I crushed my old 90min and 120min power on Zwift today. 240w for 90min and 235w for 120min. Rode Quatch Quest. Good route to warmup, do a solid 20ish min effort. Cruise. Then do just under an hour of sweetspot.

I lost a bit of avg power in that metric because the idiot trainer wanted to not give resistance after stopping to reach down to move a cable around before climbing the Alpe. So spun around at like 50w for a minute or two trying to figure that crap out.

505 TSS last week, 442 this week. Yessssir.

Tuesday this week looks warm in afternoon. Hopefully the morning rain dries enough for even some random TT bike action outdoors. That would be nice.

TheKillerPenguin

Honestly, from strava stalking most of the "z2" rides I see pros do are really mellow. It has changed how I approach most of my z2 days. If you can get 90-95% of the benefits with next to no fatigue, why not noodle and burn some easy kj? It certainly hasn't made me any slower. Also lets me go really hard when it is time to go really hard.