Hi Guys,
I was planning my season for 2023 so I use the plan “16 weeks of Sweetspot” and then a intervals plan (Climbing Intervals).
The question is when I look to the performance manager chart, I have a peak in CTL after the 16 weeks but during the next 6 weeks (Intervals) my CTL drop 10 points.
Shouldn’t the CTL be rising more (or keeping the same) in these 6 weeks prior the race??
Regards,
Rui
How have you set up the taper for race day? When I load both plans I don’t see quite that big a drop in CTL.
Hi Christian,
The CTL drops 8 points. I attach an image with my PMC so you have a look:
My taper week is like this:
Thanks,
Rui
Apologies if I’m counting wrong, but it seems like you have 7 weeks between the end of your 16 Weeks of SS plan and the end of the 6 week plan. What are you doing in that in-between week?
You right Christian, the 16 weeks end at 5/March (last week is a regeneration week) and I end it with a CTL of 80. So, CTL drops only 2 points…
What you think if I push a little more during the 6 weeks (like more 100 TSS in the weekend group rides) so I ended with a little more CTL before the taper?
A CTL drop of 2 points isn’t much (in fact, I’d argue it’s really nothing at all since it’s not as if CTL is that precise).
I would follow the program as-is: the greater weekend volume could compromise your ability to nail the super hard climbing-centric workouts of the program. You may be overestimating the importance of CTL.
On the other hand, your taper looks like too little volume to me. Unless you know from the past you need your TSB to be that high to perform well, I’d add a bit of volume to that week, come into the race with a TSB more in the 5-10 range, and therefore preserve a bit more CTL.
Thank you so much Christian.
I will add more volume to the taper week.
Regards,
Rui
CTL is not correlated to real world fitness, it is more of measure of training load. It is easy to cheat the system and boost CTL by riding a lot of base. For example, my current CTL is 40 POINTS(!) below my pre-cyclocross peak of 109 and I am very much more prepared for the specific demands of ‘cross racing. And I am fresh and recovering quickly.
Ok, but why riding a lot of base is cheating the system? We are riding it right?
CTL of 40? For how long did you stop?