My PMC is it okay?
This chart always looks like Greek to me, just wondering for those who understand it, does it seem okay? My only race is in Sept., wondering if I am on the right track.... Thanks for any input, this seems to be the hardest part of my training!
Dan
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@Dan - Can you provide important dates, like when you started OS, any "big" weekends/weeks you've done so far, any you have planned, etc.
Looking at it and guessing I would say that you might have started with the Nov OS group because there's a nice steady progression there, although not quite I'm used to seeing from OS workouts, so I'm wondering if that was just you working out on your own plan then. But in Feb you hit a plateau and looks like you miss quite a few workouts. Then in late Mar you suddenly decide to ramp everything up.
That last part is what would concern me, you go from a CTL of ~20 to a CTL of ~40 in the space of ~4 weeks, and your TSB (fatigue) drops to the -35'ish range. I'd be concerned that you might be ramping up too much, too soon and leaving yourself in a big hole. Having done something similar last year I can tell you that if you're not careful doing the big jump early in the season and not recovering from it properly can basically hose your whole season. Recommend that you check out another link which shows Matt Ancona's PMC from last year and you can note how he builds slowly yet steadily throughout the entire year, his chart is a poster for the power of consistency and dedication.
Tony, good stuff, thank you! Quick history. I started to dabble in training starting in Nov and then did a trial membership here in late Nov but had to cancel. So I was on track for about 6-8 weeks on being consistent with workouts, but they were some from EN and some that I just made up. Then in Feb my third was born, so after getting a feel for what time I had available (drop in workouts as you noticed) I was able to get back on track in March where I was able to join again and get back on track with steady workouts. Also, that is the month I purchased a couple sufferfest videos that made my rollers so much more fun to ride indoors so I looked forward to punishment for 60' 3-4 times a week. In a nutshell, I started on Tuesdays with a 2X20 (2'), then a TH run on wed, then downward spiral video 2' on, 2' off 1:45', 1:45' off etc... which is an hour, then fri another video called fight club which is TT's for 4' then 2.5' of climbing after 3' recovery all X5. Saturday off or a day of watching one of the vids and just maintaining z3, sun was another TH run. I always felt well rested and able to do the workouts and still feel the same. With that being said, my FTP has gone from 190 to 222, and based on my last few workouts, I think I am getting closer to 235-240. I look forward to each session, my legs do not feel like lead, I'm not sick yet, and I've never felt this good in training before. But, I don't want to hit with something like a ton of bricks either. That is why I'd like to be able to better interpret this graph to help me with that. I have look at the posts with Matt's graph, but I want to know why I want certain lines to go a certain way to better shape the workouts if I am working too hard, or not hard enough. I've read on the PMC chart some too, but nothing jumps out at me like "you want this line to do this, that line to do that, and the other line to do that" type of thing.... as I said, these numbers and graphs are sometimes the hardest parts of my workouts!!! When you tell me that my CTL of ~20 to a CTL of ~40 concerns you, why? I seriously need to know my chronic training load of 40 is bad. Is there a number they should be going by that is more moderate, say by 5's or 10's? As said, I see lines, but when I look at margins, the numbers don't mean much!! Thanks for your time so far, I understand that it is hard to explain to someone who has massive brain damage!!
Dan
@Dan - well first of all, I hate you!
I've been freaking stuck at 190-205w forever. Can I assume that you're accurately updating WKO+ with your new FTP when it goes up? Because if that is still set at 190 but you're doing workouts and you're actually at 230 then that could be a significant impact on the charts. I'm also assuming that in addition to keeping your FTP up to date in WKO you're putting the EN zones and not taking the default Coggan zones or something, that has less impact than outdated FTP but is still important.
Your CTL of 40 isn't 'bad', it's just a big jump in one month. Granted going from 20 to 40 isn't like going from 60 to 80, at the lower end of the scale you're going to ramp up faster for sure. In your case I would watch the TSB line as this is WKO's way of tracking fatigue. Multiple days of -15 or -20 or more and you should feel like you're in a hole, if you're not feeling that way and going merrily along your way then likely something isn't configured right for you, FTP, initial values, the 'fatigue' interval period (forget the exact term.) So I wouldn't stress over hitting a certain CTL value at this point at all, I'd watch your TSB value more than anything. The PMC relies on a 6-week average too, so since you just ramped up I would wait to see how things are looking in mid-late June if you keep up your current training, because right now you've still got the effects of that lower fitness level from the winter.
There isn't a magical CTL value since so much depends on your background and life, i.e. what you can fit in realistically and still recover/adapt to the training. For instance last year Matt had a peak CTL of ~140, and it went down to ~120 prior to IM-WI. Given my background and life it's highly unlikely that I could get that amount of training stress into my life and benefit from it. Based on my best weeks in the last couple of years, and based on seeing how last year went, I think I could probably see a CTL peak of ~100-110 this year. Right now my CTL is in the low 70's however, so what I know is that I don't want to go from 70 to 110 fast, I'm aiming for a fairly conservative ramp up where I might add ~10 to that value each month through mid-August. Most of that increase will likely come in bike TSS since my run CTL is ~35 now and may only inch up with the IM run plan to 45 or so. But I've got lots of biking coming up once I actually get outside and start hitting those twice a weekend 2+ hours rides with TP on Sat and ABP on Sun, I'll go from ~250-300 TSS a week on the bike to ~500-600 bike TSS a week.
Best advice? Just follow the plan this year, until you've seen what you do by following the plan you don't really have much to compare things to. Do the training, let the chart shake out where it will and have something to compare to going into next season. Like I said earlier though I'd watch your TSB to see if it's reflecting fatigue, and if it does then you can use it as a 'predictor' but otherwise don't stress over the chart too much right now.
Also Tony, my past 2 Saturdays I've been able to get outside and hammer a bit, so instead of my usual hour workout, I was able to get in 1:40 last week, and 1:30 this weekend if that helps. Thanks again.
Dan
Okay, so track trends in my CTL for what I can handle (within weeks), if too much of a jump in the line, maybe overcooking myself.... TSB is my overall fatigue pattern within months? Good points with the ftp numbers in wko, I do update them when I know what they are, but I do it with their calculators, I do not customize it with EN's ranges, I'll do that tonight. Regardless of that, I stay within the EN zones when I ride, I fairly conscience of my numbers when I'm on the bike because I do not have time to burn. As far as my numbers shooting up, well, I trained like an idiot last year with LSD and this year has been power focused with intervals, I've lost a bunch of weight from riding harder but most importantly from changing my diet and it really has made a physical difference in me as far as energy and recovery is concerned. I'm sure it will pan out soon. Plus, I was inside all winter, and being outside has brought up my numbers a lot too, but I did do a workout yesterday on the rollers and decided to keep the numbers around what I believe my outside numbers to be and felt good, so I'll keep my fingers crossed with that, because I can't leave the house for extended periods of time yet! Thanks for the help. Do you have any resources that you go to for knowledge? I have Coggan's first book, but not a hell of a lot on PMC in it.
Dan
@Dan - TSB is your current fatigue (estimate) for that particular day, positive numbers usually reflect rested, negative numbers usually reflect tired/impacted to a degree, the higher the number the greater the impact. I don't know if it made the Wiki yet, but there was a discussion in the 3.0 forum last year at one point about what your TSB should be prior to IM, and IIRC RnP suggested something like +15-20 (someone feel free to correct me.) For me personally I've found that I can usually sustain a -15 for a while, but if my TSB drops to the -20 or so range I can't maintain that for too many days without feeling and having an impact on me. For instance this past week my TSB dove into the -20-25 range and I found myself having 'tired legs' and problems hitting paces and did a 10k race at a finish time that should have been my LRP pace. So I knew I had cooked myself for sure at that point, took Thu & Fri off to recover and then hit my numbers this weekend.
Here's my suggestions:
As far as resources go, the forums here have some good info, TrainingPeaks has some good how-to's and the like. But I was fortunate (is that the right term if you paid for something?) in that I attended a USAC power training clinic back in 2009 and they spent a lot of time on WKO and the charts, so I have lots of notes from that clinic plus the text and very importantly all the sample data they provide for the exam which provides you some virtual athletes to see how things work. Now since it's USAC it's basically cycling only focused with some tangents into triathlon, so not always directly applicable.
One thing that I've found interesting/illuminating if you want to take the time is to create a second athlete in WKO (depending on whether you can with your particular version, mine is unlimited) in my case I call this athlete "Tony-Bot" and I suck in all my historical data for this user, and then I create 'fake' workouts and assign TSS values to them based on experience. For instance, an EN style 60' 2x15 TP with remainder at 80-85% usually generates about 75 TSS points for me, so I'll put that value in. I'll do this for all the workouts, if I have values or can estimate them fairly accurately, and then see what SHOULD happen if I follow the plan. If you do this, it might answer your questions of what things would look like if you're following the plan.
Tony, Gold buddy, Gold!! Thank you. It is starting to make sense now. Now as I look at the lines with corresponding numbers in the y axis it makes more sense. Thank you, I know it took a bit of your time.
Dan
@ Tony, you're the man. Copy all that stuff and you've got chapter 1 of your first book.
@Dan, just one thing to add. There's a good and bad way of thinking about each of these numbers:
CTL is interesting, but you've got to be working out consistently for 42 days (however many workouts per week you intend to do) before it becomes all that worthwhile. Otherwise you see huge jumps that really aren't representative. In addition, CTL is not very helpful for OS-style training, and you should focus more on monitoring FTP, Vdot, and things like your 20min max power.
ATL and TSB are also interesting. The interaction between the two can give you some good info on how well tapered you are for a race (though, again, it's not very good at being prescriptive).
All of these measures rest on accurate definitions of TSS points, and though Dr. Coggan's model is probably among the best out there, it's still not perfect. I've found I can handle much higher ATL levels during race prep than I can during an OS-style VO2 block, for example.
The most important thing is to remember that it's up you you to know when you're pushing too hard. Monitor your sleep, check your HR when you wake up in the morning from time to time. Use Al T's "yell at my wife" test, or whatever. But this program won't tell you that you're in trouble. It'll be descriptive about the kind of trouble you're in after the fact.
Mike
Thanks Mike. This was one of the major topics I wanted to discuss with you last week. I wish I could sit at my computer with you guys and have some kind of "conference call" so that you could specifically point out stuff as we talked!!!! Team viewer! Anyway, I appreciate the feedback, I have printed it out so that I can go over it while staring.
Dan
Good stuff! In addition:
I don't believe I've seen this discussed before. Is it important to enter in Days Off so your PMC reflects them? Does it do it by default?
Rich, I'm messing around with Raceday Apollo too, I'll let you all know how that works as a predictor. Right now I feel spoiled having both programs, but sometimes I find that raceday is a bit more user friendly for idiots like myself.
Dan
Matt, the PMC thinks that every day you didn't enter a workout was a day off.
That's what I assumed but there is an actual Day Off workout entry. Was just wondering. Thanks Mike.
Yeah, the Day Off entry is for the folks who use WKO as their workout log and want to see everything from the calendar view.
Tony, I am struggling to get my EN zones added to the wko zones instead of the default ones, and it won't let me change the max watts on the right, only the minimum ones to the left. Is there a way to change those?
Dan
BTW, the invite to call stands, whenever works for you.
Mike
Thanks Mike, I just wanted to make sure you were fully recovered from the epic ride!!!!