The previous 12 months i have had 2 groin injuries and a new baby so my training and CTL has suffered quite a bit. Currently my FTP is set at 250 (although it has been a bit since i tested and now in my CX season it is hard to find a good time to do so) and my CTL hovers around 50 and probably will for the remainder of the CX season due to decreased volume.
Having said that i can get in about 7 hours per week and average about 385 TSS.
My question stems from looking at my race performances over the past 2 weeks. This takes into account how i feel and also looking at my watt data.
I have done 1 race (Harlow Platts) and 2 training races (Back to Basics in Golden).
In my 40+ Open race I can sprint off the line with the best of them and often times in the front 5-10 at the first corner. I can maintain that position and wattage for a few minuets then i begin the slow process of drifting back and back and back. Often not finishing on the lead lap or getting passed by 20+ riders.
I am 3 weeks into the 6 weeks to CX plan and doing a ton of :15s and :30s efforts. Yet, i feel like my strength is already that short stuff and my weakness is either my LOW FTP or inability to ride above FTP for sustained periods of time (one in the same).
Should i FTFP with short efforts as prescribed in the 6 weeks to CX plan or should i do longer, say 1-3 min efforts @ or above FTP. Frank once said that 1 min efforts are money for CX and i am wondering if i should focus on those longer time frames so as to prevent throwing out the anchor 3 minutes into the race and just trying to finish the race.
Hi @trome11 - I looked at your trainingpeaks training calendar AND PMC and yea CTL is what you are missing the most. Especially given that you can hold your own at the start.
Thus what you need to do is sweet spot. Iâd recommend, our summer cx sweet spot plan and then edit it per your racing.
Once you get your CTL up into the mid 60âs youâll notice significant improvement. In the 70âs even more.
As a general rule of thumb is you race Saturdays (here in COL) sweet spot train on Sundays to build your base, raise your CTL. Then in a few weeks you should see that your endurance/speed improves beyond the first lap.
Mid-week FtFP and you should skip the B2B races in order to sweet spot train.
Thanks Frank, all that makes sense. Should i find time to re-test my FTP? I feel like this would be tough with a race/recover kind of mode right now, but perhaps i can re-test Tuesday after this Saturdayâs race; or should go by what feels about right for the SS intervals. I have done this long enough to know my body and what i can hold 3x10âŚ
Right on, yea, I wouldnât waste your precious training days with a field test because right now every day counts. You can sweet spot by your old zones and by feel and also heart rate.
I will recommend a day in TP for you to test too - standby and Iâll put it in there
Per Frankâs suggestion, i started trading out SS for VO2 Max work on my interval days. With an 11 month old and a marriage i would like to keep intact, and having only about 7-9 hours per week the chances of me sustaining 450+ TSS per week to get to 65-75 CTL DURING season and still being able to race (without being wrecked on race day) is very marginal. So why should i be doing SS work to lift my TSS instead of doing VO2 work (race specific to CX) to lift my TSS, assuming i can hit around 100 TSS on either a SS or VO2 day? If the answer is VO2 is probably too taxing and canât be sustained while racing then that makes sense. Yet, i question my ability to have any freshness on race day if i am also very fatigued from doing SS. Perhaps i am just in a re-building season considering i have had almost 2 seasons of inconsistent training. If it comes down to priorities, i guess i would lean towards being fresh on race day and maybe taking the ârace myself into shape mentality.â I can FTFP but i am more of a âwhy am i doing this athlete.â And with few days and time to train all of them need to be meaningful.
I have not yet heard back from anyone on my post from 5 days ago (i understand coaches were at a conference) so i thought i would add to my previous post with some data from my past race. I did the 40+ at Valmont and felt super fatigued and my AVG HR was 5 beats below what my normal AVG is; which as we know also signals fatigue. So instead of doing a bunch of TSS on Sunday to try to build my CTL fitness i opted for a shorter recovery ride. Hopefully this gives a bit of insight as to where i am at and may help to inform a response? Thanks in advance.
Based on reading your last two posts, you are prime for a custom solution as it seems the training plans are good but not quite optimal and you want optimal.
With coaching we can help you understand the âwhy am I doing thisâ but with plans, we simply ask you to #FtFP.
Wow. Iâll have to pass on that precipitous cost jump to the monthly paid coaching level. My pocket book just doesnât have room for that currently. I can see where your response in soliciting me to do so would be a natural reaction to me asking about the âwhy.â I guess i should have just asked for a more general response to my situation. This is what i as under the impression that the $40 membership included:
Daily Coaching Support in the [Memberâs Private Forum]
Our 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Perhaps you can just construct an answer based on Daily Coaching Support instead of the âwhyâ that i referred to earlier. And if i am wrong on assuming that my question for guidance would not fall under this, then let me know!
Thatâs my fault then. I am confused as to why i am NOT in the members area on this thread/post considering that the question that i posted above received an answer from you stating that âI looked at your trainingpeaks training calendar AND PMC and yea CTL.â You looking at my TP and PMC would imply that i am in the members area right? Either way if i am in the wrong spot please advise how to log into just the members area. Apologize for the confusion.
