Hi Coaches! Time for an initial look at my Training Peaks data. I have several group rides, solo rides, and racing efforts in there now to analyze to see if any adjustments need to be made or if there are any suggestions you may have based on what you see. The goal is to perform well at BWR this year. I look forward to hearing what you find!
Thanks,
Kip
Hey Kip!
Happy Monday! It’s power review Monday for everyone! I’ll be happy to look at your data over the last couple of weeks. Just give me some time to get at and look over everything. I just wanted to respond to let you know I see your message and I am on it!
Take your time Coach Jake!
Hey Kip!
I’ve been taking a look at your TrainingPeaks and here are my thoughts!
First of all you have been doing a great job of #FtFP. You’ve been hitting the workouts and mostly green! I really took a look from offseason, through the resistance phase till now and you have been doing good.
First thing I looked at was your Performance Manager Chart from the last 365 days.
What I took a look at was your Peak CTL which was 72 and then your peak power numbers for 20 min, 60min and 3 hours which would be beneficial to BWR. So with looking at your peak CTL we can see how much workload you handled last year and what your peak was. You will want to do slightly more if you can, more on that later, but not so much more where you are not use to handling the higher workload.
The reason I look at he peak power numbers is to see if there is a trend. What was your CTL during these peak numbers. Did you perform better at a higher CTL, or slightly lower CTL. What was your TSB? This way when you put together a plan you can line up your peak to match CTL and TSB trends of when you’ve been at your best.
Last year the workout on June 22nd, attack style group ride is one that stuck out. Really had some of your best numbers. This was a couple of weeks into when you first crossed that 70 CTL threshold. So not later on when you hit your actual peak, but when you really came off a true build of CTL. This is sometimes typical as athletes feel there best after a true build but not quite at peak while they maintain.
So you did good this offseason taking a break and letting your CTL drop while you rested and started the resistance phase. That is exactly what you want! You don’t need to hold a higher CTL or what you were doing all summer and fall.
So then I looked at your Performance manager chart which models out the next 180 days.
Your CTL right now is a 66 and that is a good place to be. You will be around this point for a bit with a slight drop. Though that is because your races and events coming up don’t have a planned TSS, so that does effect this a bit.
But what you should see is over the next two months you will have a really nice build that should bring you right up to a CTL of around 79. So that is higher than last year but not too much.
From here you will do your gravel plan which will actually help you ramp up a touch more as you will be doing long simulations rides, big TSS weekends! You will just want to make sure that your planned TSB will be well into the positive before BWR. And of course as we get closer I will be happy to take a look at that as well and we can discuss more.
I then took a look at some of your weekend sweet spot rides. These have been good! You have been getting in over an hour of zone 3/4 time. This is good!
Your ride on Saturday January 18th you had a 1hr 18 mins of Zone 3/4 time which was a quarter of your ride. You also did 243 TSS which was 58 TSS per hour which is a good range to be. 50 TSS an hour is a hard zone 2 ride, so you want to be over that and you were. Making the most of your time.
Then I also looked at your ride on January 11th. Again you did great with getting in over an hour of zone 3/4 work. Most of this came in the first 2 hours of the ride. You had two big climbs where you held a 92 and 94 intensity factor for 46 and 18 minutes. This is very beneficial to BWR as that will have some longer climbs. The one thing I would recommend is mixing it up a bit and seeing if you can do some of your sweet spot efforts in the middle of the ride or later. You actually had a good climb in the middle of the January 18th ride just did more at a low tempo pace, but that was good as well as it was in the middle.
The other thing I looked at was your cadence. I know cadence is more of preference thing. But one thing we can gleam from it is fatigue. So early on and most of the time you are comfortable around a 89 - 90 rpm. You were on this ride during the climbs and other sweet spot workouts. At the end of this ride you were averaging in the high 70s. You are just trying to muscle a bit more to get through the ride. Not a big deal as you have to do what you have to do, but just be aware that you are dropping your cadence. If you can keep up you will save your leg muscles and this is important over a longer event. Also this is just something you can look at later on your own to see how you are doing.
Then I took a look at your last sweet spot workout on January 28th. What I wanted to look at was how your power and heart rate looked from the second effort to the last effort. Again a good way to see how fit you are getting. The first set will also be lower as you are just warming up. But what you like to see is your second and following efforts to be similar. You were not too far off. You averaged 258 watts @ 147 bpm on the second effort compared to 263 watts @ 152 bpm. So it did come up but so did your power. So it wasn’t too bad. And looking at your cadence you kept the same rpm for your efforts which is great! So nice work.
All and all you are doing great and keep up the good work! Continue with the sweet spot efforts and climbing! That is going to be super beneficial to you for BWR. Also start working on putting some power out later on in the endurance rides. If you can train your body to work hard after 2000kj’s or more that will be beneficial going into a 4 - 5 hours of a 6 - 8 hour race. Though you may only being zone 2 at that point come race day since its much harder but you this is a great way to simulate that as much as possible.
If you have any other questions just let me know! Continue to #FtFP!
Coach Jake,
Let me first say, THANK YOU! So many nuggets of great info and insight.
Let me chew on it a bit and get back with you on specific comments and questions.
Kip
