What is the best measure of training? WKO brainiac's needed!
My ride today had a lot of stops / starts due to traffic lights stop signs etc.
My WKO file showed the average watts for the ride that seemed really low, which worried me a bit that I'm not getting the training I need.
I'm wondering if I can use the TSS to tell if I did enough work?
Which then leads me to the question could you increase the time for a ride like this to achieve the required training effect?
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If you haven't seen the math of TSS "points", they're just scaled so that if you did an hour at FTP, that is 100 TSS. Lower intensity gives fewer points per minute. TSS is about the best approximation we have of the total physiological work (as opposed to the total work in an absolute sense, which is just the number of Joules), but I think most people will also say that a 100 TSS workout done in 45 minutes feels different than one done in 2 hours. :-)
I tend not to focus so much on average watts because of that, look at your normalized watts, is closer to being on par? Is it a common ride for you? If so, then you could compare KJ, I do this a lot because I'm inside a lot, so I compare KJ of workouts too because it is basically the same ride for me (when I do identical workouts). Now, to get another step involved, I also focus a lot of attention on IF numbers too. If they are where they are supposed to be for the workout, I really don't care about my TSS numbers because rarely will I be close to 100 for an hour workout because of warmup/cooldown, but if I look at my IF number for my selected intervals and they are where they are supposed to be, I don't worry too much about anything else. For example, if I'm doing a 2X20' workout at 95-100% of FTP, I hit the interval button for the 20" portions and check afterwards if my IF was 95-100% for that part. If it was, I know I did what I wanted for the workout and really don't focus on much else.
So you can increase the amount of work you do on a ride by increasing the amount of time or the amount of intensity at which you ride.
Of course, riding harder in a shorter amount of time is more time efficient than riding longer at a lower intensity. For me, I don't have a whole lot of time so I tend to ride as hard as I can for the time I have and be done with.
That being said, not all TSS points are created equal. A really high intensity ride over a shorter amount of time (like a cyclocross race) will be more "tiring" than noodling around for 3 hours on the bike.
I'm seeing the same thing with my group rides, Robert. The bottom line is that I'm not working as hard as I want to or should. We are getting in some busrts of work but it ain't no ABP. Kitima's explanantion sums it up. It's all tied together. If your average watts are lower then your IF is lower and you will earn less TSS. That's the simple version.
Compare that to how I feel after an intense shorter workout that may only yield me a TSS that is around or less than 100 and makes me feel like I was hit by a bus. A word of caution though, even though there is often a disconnect between how I actually feel and the TSS, you can't completely disregard them. After the afforementioned long easy ride I did a much harder 2:45ish ride the next day and really could feel the fatigue from the previous day pretty early on into the ride, much to my dismay.
Going back to your original question though, I always favor harder over longer if I'm loooking to maximize training and bump TSS. I've adapted my riding habits some to accomodate this, especially with groups, I never ride at the back and make sure I always take more than my fair share of pulls. Sure, I could average the same overall pace with far less effort by riding ~4th wheel the entire time, but that is the opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish during training-- more pain, more gain (within reason).
I'm new to EN, but I would have thought that a group ride would be a better substitute for some mid week short interval ride than a real ABP ride, no? The nature of the group rides usually is noodle, noodle, race to the stop sign, noodle, race to the top of the hill, isn't it? I am just getting started, but my impression is that the purpose of the ABP ride is a real steady effort (low VI, IF 0.80-0.85, etc.). There are a few group rides here, but they're midweek, which meant I thought I might sub one of those rides now and then, but it sounds like you're hitting group rides for an ABP.
@William - Not sure if group rides really would compare to EN style intervals which are very structured with longer work efforts rather than race up the hill or to the stop sign. My gauge, in general, for any ride (group, interval, ABP) is that if it's 2.5 hours or less I want an IF of .85 or more. I'm not hitting that on my current small group rides. I'm also new to riding with these folks. I am taking more pulls and may get to a point where I'm hitting the intensity that I want. If not I may go solo more often which is fine with me.
I think ABP rides take on different meaning at different points in training. If I'm in a race build up I want to ride steady in the aerobars. Right now, I'm riding for fun so ABP currently means to ride my legs off.
That's what I'm looking for in a group ride.
On the other hand, when RobertT and I go for a ride, EN style, we hit bigger numbers. Period.
There are some extremely strog riders in this group. The power is there for sure. We're going on a 2 day ride this weekend with the larger group. 100 miles saturday and 84 on Sunday. Very hilly too. Supposed to be a sufferfest. I'll let you know what my numbers look like for that!!!
Thanks for all the points from everyone.
I suppose the hidden question was "Should I dump riding with the group and go it alone"?
I did a quick calc last night, based on yesterdays 90 min ride as prescribed in the plan and found that I should have averaged about 200 watts for the 90 min (just took the SUM ( mins @ each intesity times my watts @ that intensity) / 90) where as riding with the group on their route I averaged 160. Yet due to the bursts / hills my legs were probably more trashed than if I'd rode a constant 200 for 90 mins. Which leads back to Rich's analogy about burning matches.
I think I just managed to find what I'm really after
It's a real nice 1 page explaination of the PMC and how those numbers relate to your fitness
blog.cyclekrazy.com/2009/07/wko-per...chart-pmc/
PMC - TSB, ATL and CTL is another topic altogether and one that I'm just starting to pay more attention to. Here's another good resource.
home.trainingpeaks.com/power411.aspx
@ Matt & William
I was trying to sub my wednesday (HIM plan) ride with an MS of 10 (4) + 12 (4) + 16(4) + 10(4) + remainder @ 75-80 with the group ride.
@Trevor - thanks for the points on just getting up front more often and pulling some more, I'll try that and see if I can get the required training effect from the group rides.
If not it's time to go it alone!
@Robert - If you can ever go after 8:00 let me know.
Some group rides I felt strong and I sat up front and just pulled for what seemed like forever and I would get home and it looked very similar to an ABP ride with a ton of time at .8-.9 ... duh!
Other times with the same group, some else would also be more agressive and hammer off the front every once in a while and my file would look similar to an FTP workout like 4 x 10 (5') or something like that with a few 5-10 minute 1.0 efforts and then some recovery while I sat on someones wheel.
When everyone was tired we all ended up being slower and rides were more like noodling around at .7-.75 ... ie waste of time for training, but fun to be social and enjoy being outside with friends.
Good discussion of the pros and cons of TSS points and how tired/not you feel here.
@Matt A.
When did did you do the group rides last year, was it during the main race training period, or did you avoid them during that period?
I'm on week 1 of the 12 week HIM plan, so I'm thinking I'll limit the group rides to either 0 or 1 per week and do as you & trevor suggested and get up fromnt and pull some more.
When I got into IM training, I got away with doing part of my workouts with the group for the first 4-6 weeks and then typcially did some extra riding on my own. Once I got to 6 weeks out from my race I did all rides on my own so I could focus an do exactly what was in the plan.
At the end of the day, with the right group you will be able to get more work down in less time. If you can find that group, go for it.
Now there of course larger groups where you just simply aren't going to be able to get away with this, too many people with different goals and intentions for the ride. These rides still may have a place, for me it is worth it to sacrifice a workout from the plan on occasion to instead go on a fun or social ride to remind me that theres more to life than hammerfests and pouring over data in WKO. If you have larger groups like this, hopefully you can identify a few people who have similar goals and fitness to your own and form a splinter group to meet on the side. Sometimes that just won't work though, right now I'm very fortunate to have a lot of other local riders who are doing similar races to myself, later in this summer though I'll lose the core of this group since I'm the only one of the current riders who is doing IMWI. I know of other guys in the area who are doing the race but if I can't make something work with them then it's going to be right back to training on my own for the most part.
Ps, if your group rides in a heavily trafficked or stoplight laden area, could you also simply suggest riding somewhere else or is that just not possible at your location? Solo or in a group, I can't get quality training in dealing with too much traffic or stoppages.
@ Trevor & Matt thanks for the ideas, there are some guys in the group doing racine, which is the same weekend as door county so we should be able to work something out.
What's "enough"? E.g., for an IM race prep week?
The lowest TSS you can do while still getting as fast as possible of course ... I.e. The point of diminisioning returns :-)
This is a pretty individual topic as "enough" is going to widely vary between indivduals
I focus on slowly ramping up my tss throughout the year and race prep, not the actual numbers. To do this I find I pay much more attention to the PMC, power distribution, and mean max charts than any single ride.
for me I tried to hit 1000 TSS for 10 of the 12 weeks leading up to IMSG. Last two taper weeks I had no real goal. I think I went over 1000 three times and usually ended up closer to 900. My PMC chart was a little stronger this year, with my TSS/day slightly higher.
Tom,
If I start up a 2010 PMC review thread, would you post your charts to it? Or if you want to just email me the charts, I'll take care of posting them online and creating the image links in the thread. If you're up for it, and this part is just for me, could you post or send me three versions of the chart:
If you want to, or normally do, include any other information on your PMC (like I know Matt Ancona tracks his weight in a black line on it) that's cool.
Also, in keeping with what Patrick asked for last year, could you provide a quick timeline of key events during your training, i.e. OS was date x to date y, big bike week was date q to date r, epic weekends, vacay's, etc.
I think it would be a good thread to have around, especially if we can get a good number of people to post their information. I'd like to collect the info in one place, which would make it easier for people to refer to and if not answer, at least illuminate the questions about how much TSS people are doing, and how consistency plays into improvement and performance.
Tony
Tony - great idea. I've been using WKO for < 6 months, and am just beginning to realise there's a lot I can learn about how to use the charts to help manage my training and season. I don't even know enough to really know what questions to ask! I suppose I should break down and get the new book now that I at least am familiar with the vocabulary.
After posting the original post, I've had a chance to do some more digging on this.
The first chart in the following slide show, really explains it well.
http://www.slideshare.net/TrainingPeaks/training-peaks-performance-management-chart
Here's my current understanding of using the PMC, WSM's jump in if I make a mistake.
CTL (chronic training load) tracks your fitness, you want to increase it throughout the season peaking sometime shortly before your "A" race probably right around when your taper starts.
ATL (acute training load) tracks your fatigue and will probably peak just as you start you taper for your "A" race.
Once you start you taper ATL should start to drop rapidly, as your fatigue goes down, conversely your TSB will go up (you'll feel fresher).
Your CTL will also likely go down, but it drops much more slowly than your ATL.
So if you do it right the chart will show you not only that "The hay's in the barn", but also that your fatigue level is really low and your ready to race.
Geek stuff below
CTL is a rolling average of your most recxent workouts.
ATL is also a rolling average but covers a longer time period than the ATL moving average and does not include your most recent work outs.
IIRC, ATL in the shorter (7ish day) average and CTL is the longer (40ish day average). TSB is the fatigue. I just know the pink line is my ATL (short term) and the blue line in my CTL (long term) :-)
Keep in mind that ATL, CTL and TSB are dependant on TSS which ofcourse requires accurate FTP and Threshold pace data.
Also, many of us have learned that all TSS is not created equal. i.e. 100 TSS ride with a bunch of v02 work crushes me and I could not repeat it the next day, but barely does anything to my PMC. However a 200 TSS ride at .75 or lower does phase me and I could repeat it day in and day out and this would make a big change to the PMC.
I would be very carefull of thinking of CTL as "your fitness" ... in my opinon it is nothing more than your training load, not your fitness. In theory your training load and fitness should track together nicely, but it can be a dangerous trap of trying to always make the blue line go up.
@Matt - great points., I wasn't really thinking about the blue line (CTL) going up always.
I guess it will look more sawtooth like as rest/tapers periods are taken.
I guess I tend to get enough rest. Don't kill myself when tired. Take days off if I feel like it and then of course life just gets in the way. So no fear of burning out makes other data less relevant to me.
Tom's got the right approach. Pay attention to your body, as WKO can't really tell you you're on the edge. You can fall in, then look back, and say "oh yeah, it totally makes sense that I'm in here", but it's pretty much useless for proscriptive modeling.
Talked with Phil Skiba at one point, and he believes that the algorithm in RaceDay is better suited to predicting the ditch, but I'm not entirely convinced... Experimenting with RestWise now, verdict to come in another month or two.
Mike