Dropping ctl okay or not?

I’ve just signed on to training peaks and fascat and now I don’t know what to make of all this data. My CTL was very high in December /January, reaching the high 180’s. It’s been declining ever since, aside from two build phases. But my concern is looking forward. I’m 11 weeks out now from my A race. I understand ctl will drop but I’m currently in base 4 polarized for 5 more weeks and then the sweet spot marathon plan leading up to my race. Looking at my chart, does this downward trend look normal? Peaked too early? Trending down too early? I had a bump in volume the last two weeks of December because I added a bunch of z2 riding to reach my mileage goal for the year, I felt the best I’ve ever felt throughout January. Just wondering if I did something wrong here. I understand at this point I’m pretty close to my race and I prob just have to hang on for the ride and see how things play out.

Really hard to analyze from a picture @chad.davis - if you follow the plans to the ‘t’ we’ve already worked out the math and science so you don’t have to.

I will say if your CTL was approach 200 (?) that is artificially TOO high - the World Tour Pros do not even get that high of a CTL after a grand tour

2 Likes

check your TP zone settings and see what your FTP is set at. If it’s accurate you might want to reach out to some UCI pro teams to see if there are any open slots :slight_smile: :grinning:

:joy::joy: So I have not done the 20 minute field test as I plan to do that on the re-gen week as prescribed. I’m using my ftp based off of a recent ramp test. Which is prob a bit inflated. I think I ramp well due to vo2 and anaerobic power? Which may be the problem with ramp tests. I’m sure a 20 minute field tests will yield a much lower ftp. Although I will say I can complete all my workouts as prescribed at my current ftp. Here are my setting on TP. I guess per garmin my best 20 minute power is 351. So that would indicate my ftp is below that.

And my power pr’s

Will do frank, I’m really considering the $35/mo coaching subscription, just trying to figure out how to explain to my wife that I need another cycling related subscription.

I guess it’s possible that when TP synced to garmin or wherever they pulled past workouts from, there could be repeats of the same workout. I’ll have to go through and check.

my thought process was your FTP was set way too low thus your workouts were artificially raising your CTL .

to the BigCat’s point:

“Most amateur riders have a CTL of around 60-110 at the start of their race seasons. And it will remain fairly stable throughout. Pro riders’ numbers are typically much higher with a CTL of about 150 (TSS/day) when they start the Tour. By the end of the Tour it will typically be in the neighborhood of 200.”

Thanks for your help @jamesstevens! I was comparing tss between a workout on garmin connect snd the same workout on TP. FTP was set correct on garmin but when I backloaded my workouts onto training peaks, something got whacky. Now my numbers are much more depressing and realistic! Lol.
I went into training peaks and recalculated tss back to November and I think it’s all good now. My ctl as of today is 69. But it levels off until I start my race interval plan and then drops from there like it should. Thanks for your help!

The workout I compared showed a tss of 117 on garmin but show 295 on TrainingPeaks

On second thought tp is now reporting a lower tss when compared to garmin for the same workouts. :thinking:

According to a buddy who’s been training with power and using training peaks, my ctl should be over 100

Thanks for this @chad.davis I was a bit worried when I look ahead & see my ctl drop like a stone on starting interval plan.

1 Like