Discombobulated
I have been discombobulated by my recent riding schedule. Now here I am just a couple of days away from the second race in the POA Cycling Summer Series. Am I ready? I don’t know.
After Mitchell I was off the bike for a number of days. Partially because I didn’t want to get on the bike, but more than that I simply did not get the chance. Saturday morning I was able to get in a 50+ mile ride, and then yesterday I got a quick 17 miles in the saddle.
Discombobulated is a great word. It describes how I feel right now. In my mind I sense that I’m not ready for Thursday night’s race. My body doesn’t know what to tell me. WKO+ says I should be.
After yesterday’s ride I took a moment to check out my numbers in the training software. Perhaps you remember my post about my Power Profile displayed in the software. Things have changed a bit.
My latest Power Profile
My 5 second peak time has improved dramatically. In yesterday’s sprint session I was putting out over 1200 watts – which compared to myself is pretty good. My 1 minutes graph has also improved with the 20 and 60 minute peak bars remaining pretty much the same.
Now take a look at the Performance Management Chart. According to what I understand the middle blue number is the main one to keep an eye on. The idea behind this chart is to show you when you are coming into form for a particular event.
Performance Management Chart
You can click on the image to see a larger chart. TSB stands for Training Stress Balance, ATL stands for Acute Training Load, and CTL represents your Chronic Training Load. To put it another way, TSB shows your form, CTL gives you your fitness, ATL gives some insight into how you got there.
As you can see, my CTL was pretty much flat line from April to mid-May. According to this chart, I should be at my best fitness level of the year right now. However, the idea of a taper before an event is thrown out the window as you can see my ATL is a like a mountain compared to my past.
The thing that scares me most is the TSB. If you believe this chart, it appears to me that I am at one of the worse points of the year for my form. Of course, it is too late now! No way can I change things in three days.
If I was seriously training, I would use this chart by picking an event and then building a forward looking training program based on past training exercises. This would forecast for me what my graph would look like approaching the event. The idea would be to build up and then taper (ease up and recover) before event so you will be at your best TSB and CTL.
Any help out there? If you know about this kind of stuff, what would you say this chart is saying about how I am going about my riding? Any pointers?
I’m very close to considering getting a coach for next year. It would be interesting to see how some structure and motivation would compare to this year. At least I’m building a base of data to work from!
Tags: POA Cycling, Power Profile, Summer Series, WKO+
Jim Cunningham is the best coach I know – I’d recommend having him look at these charts and give you some advice. http://www.jimcunninghamcoaching.com
You have to look at a broader picture of the PMC. Change the chart to say “custom date through today” and then have the start date be back in November. Change the starting ATL and CTL values to 30 for each. Then post the picture and it’ll tell a lot more about your season and your builds.
Hey Jonathan-very interesting post. Don’t get TOO involved with all these numbers. I might be either “old school” or “obsolete” in my training methods, but am finding that after 25 years of training, 135,000+ miles and 300+ races, it seems that sometimes the less data I have the better I do. I’ve never used a power meter, only occasionally use a heart rate monitor, and often purposely leave my computer off the bike. If you use your body as your “computer”, your brain won’t be able to slow you down by telling you that you’re over your “limit”. I do think that power is the future in terms of hard data and is a great tool, but it can hinder race performance if you let it control your output too much. Just my 2 cents worth!