I've now fully committed to Training Peaks and my ATL (Annual Training Plan). I entered all of my historical workout data with best estimates on heart rate where it was missing. I end up with this PMC. (Performance Management Chart... for thsoe not familiar with TP).
SO what do all those numbers and lines mean? Well, ATL (Acute training Load) is a roughtly a 7 day rolling average of your TSS/Day. TSS (Training Stress Load) is calculated based on the duration and intensity of yoru workout. Intensity is measured by average or the distribution of Heart Rate or Power during a ride (Power is most accurate). Run, is using heart rate. Swim is based on average pace compared to threshold pace. Based on "feel", these seem to give a good approximation. CTL (Chronic Training Load) is a 42 day rolling average of your TSS/d and gives you a good approximation of you overall fitness at that given time. TSB, is roughtly the inverse of ATL and represents your "form" or how rested you are or conversely how fatigued you are. A negative value represents a gradient of fatigue. A positive number is generally good form (your ATL is below you CTL). The point being that you lose fitness slower than you gain it. (I think we all wish weight loss worked that way)... unless you cross into the realm of being being overtrained or a form of chronic fatigue. THE FIRST RULE OF TRAINING.... you ONLY realize fitness gains from recovery. Therefore, you training plan doesn;t revolve around key workouts, rather it revolves around fitting in adequate recovery while maintining target volume and intensity durign a training block. The way TP and Joe Freil do this, is through periodization, with a training block being 4 weeks with the 4th week being a recovery and testing week. Then you use 2-3 taper week before a key "A" race.
A good rule of thumb is that you need at least a CTL of 80 going into a Race. I'm thinking that for myself, assuming my numbers on here are good, I want a solid 100 minimum going into my races and a peak of possibly 120-130 or reaching a weekly TSS peak of 900. But I'll have to feel it out. I averaged 800 for a 3 week period. in November and you cna see the sharp rise in fitness. But the question is, can I sustain that. I've had 3 good training seasons going in, each one buildign on the previous. My annual hours are set at about 15% higher than last year, so all in all, I think I'm set for an amazing season if I can stay healthy.
My concern is that I put in a pretty large training block in Nov. and saw a nice fitness boost, but I'l thinking that I sort of skipped a full "transition" week and I'm in the preperation phase now and going into the base phase without being fully rested. I'm compensating by having a light week during the week of christmas. Hopefully that will bring my TSB back up and set me up for my base phases.
Couple other notes analyzing this chart. I did a descent job of tapering before key races in July, August and Sept. and in thoery should ahve had a breakout race at Hyvee, but my race strategy was lacking along wiht overall motivation to push myself just a little harder. The lap traffic also made focusing on a steady pace more challenging than at Geode. I'm currently sitting with a higher fitness level than I had even at Pigman, but if I break it down my discipline, Most all of my gains are in swimming and running, due to a focus on each recently, and my bike is pretty well flat despite some long rides I put in. But without those harder quality rides, improvement is pretty stagnant.
IF you can't tell, I'm pretty excited and really into this training plan. I've never had anything like this laid out in front of me before in my entire athletic career. I've followed some amount of periodization in the past, but nothign nearly this deliberate, focused and specific. The combination of drills, strength training, and a balanced mix of quality and volume, shold pay dividends. The key to sucess will be consistency along with going easy when it's an active recovery workouts and going hard and hittign my numbers on the key workouts.
I have managed a compromise with my wife, and dropped NOLA 70.3 in trade for a family vacation in Juan and a power meter. It's a real win-win for all involved and the PM will go a long ways to improving my bike fitness. Believe it or not, it's actaully my weakness overall and has been a real limiter to how well I've run off the bike and looking at Pigman, I got left in the dust on the bike leg. IF the swim was longer it too would be a weakness, but overall I hold my own.
Last weeks numbers:
Swim - 3:33, 11500y
Bike - 3:59, 78.5mi
Run - 5:13, 48.25
Strength - 1:50
TSS - 612
ATL - 99.1
CTL - 91.3
TSB - (-3.0)
Overall a solid week. The strength training is going well. It's high rep circuits that take over 15 minutes per curcuit. I've been doing 3 circuits. I might go to 4 this week if I have time, but probably not.
I think the big pucture right now is to consider my fitness at this time last year. I think it was hovering around a CTL of 30. So basically I'm averaging roughly 3X the training load of a year ago. The reality check, is that I have some limiters in terms of my overall talent, and 3X the load will only yield maybe a 4% improvement in my overall times. But hey, that's huge! and puts me right at all of my goal times.
For my weekly schedule. I've found a pretty good combination to fit in all my workouts. I have 5-6 runs, 5 bike sessions, 4 swims and 2 strength training sessions. Or about 16-17 workouts. Now 2 of the runs and the strength training get combined. Some weeks a bike and run get combined as well and later in the base phase I drop 1 swim too. So it's actually 13-14 workouts other than recovery weeks. So yes, that's a lot. It's 2 a day most days with a couple 3 workouts days. The peak week in my 3rd base phase in late March is 22 hours! Same number of workouts, but biek session become a minimum of 1-1/2-2 hours with a very long brick on the weekend. Run mileage levels off. I never do more than 55 miles in a week. Most weeks are 40-50.
I don't have many long runs planned at all. They take too much recovery and I'll risk injury with limited gains. I've foudn that weekly mileage seems to drive my endurace better than a weekly extended run.
I'll get into more detail as the weeks go on. Right now I'm looking forward to christmas with the family and enjoying a moderate training schedule while I can.
Many thanks again to my wife for being understanding and putting up with my addiction, goals and dreams. I'm getting more an more confident that my mission is attainable and possibly even conservative. Maybe I can really race for the top of my age group.
