Why you shouldn't chase TSS points, or CTL levels
Great (old) blog post from Phil Skiba on why setting TSS goals (especially combined sport goals) is a recipe for disaster
http://www.physfarm.com/blog/?p=59
Particularly poignent coming from the guy behind WKO's biggest competitor...
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I agree, WKO+ with CTL, TSS, ATL is primarily a retrospective tool. But looking back does have a purpose. It can teach me there are limits to what I can do going forward, which are grounded in what I have recently done in the past. In that sense, projections of near term TSS and TSB goals can be useful. Two cases in point:
On Saturday, I'd planned to do an easy 12 mile ride to the group ride meeting spot, go 30 miles with them doing 40' of FTP work and the remainder @ 80-85%, and then leisurely ride back 12 miles. The group is mainly military, and a long-time member who's recently been delployed (not in a war zone) was back, and the 30 miles turned into a 50 mile ride with some hammer time. I could have just done my planned 30 min workout, but social priorities won out. Sunday, I felt shelled, and couldn't do my planned run. I checked my WKO this morning, and saw I'd dropped my TSB from -4 to -30. I probably could have handled the ride if I'd been running the usual -18>>24 CTL I I'd been at, but I'd been away for daughter's college graduation, and ...
Which leads me to the second case, related to BB/TWs. As this topic heated up the past few weeks, I reviewed my BW experiences over the past dew years on WKO. I usually make up those weeks as I go along, depending on how I am feeling as the days progress. On reviewing my CTL and ATL leading into and during those weeks, I learned that I usually would increase my ATL by about 80-100 TSS/day. Since I was working as hard as I felt I could, and did not blow up at the end (although I would routinely need 1-4 days of recovery afterwards), I've learned a good limit on what I can be do when those weeks pop up in July and September this year.
Both of these cases demonstrate the value of WKO metrics, not as a means of hitting some arbitrary score, but as a set of reins to help control my training trajectory when I get in the mood to pump up the volume and/or intensity.
1) I think Skiba is spot on in saying that ATL/CTL/TSB is best for generally telling if you're shelled (as if you didn't know) and keeping track of generic overall rested state in tapering.
2) The primary thing that Apollo is designed to do is "personalize" your race prep (most importantly taper). The thing you have to realize about the ATL/CTL/TSB equations is that they have fixed time constants in them: 7 and 42 days for the acute and chronic, respectively. (Yes you can change them, but I bet you don't even know how in WKO! :-) ) Skiba's angle on this is that it depends much more personally on what those time constants should be, and that you can fit your data to get optimal time constants. Toward that end, you have to "test" very frequently, or it's pretty useless. And by very frequently, I mean AT LEAST weekly. Fortunately (if this idea appeals to you) his version of the bike test is only a 3 minute max power output. (He has some justification for this... but of course one of them has to be that no one is going to do all out 42 minute tests twice a week!) There are similar tests for running and swimming. Anyway, I have never committed to doing this and giving it a shot, but it does sound like a reasonable idea, even if it also seems like it would work more ideally for single-sport athletes. (Your fatigue in a bike test DOES depend on how much running you've done....) Anyway, what you end up doing is fitting the data to this kind of "pulse-response" model and it gives you time constants for [the equivalent of] your TSB traces and allows you to plan your taper optimally...at least in theory.
In my opinion, the key differences are:
WKO is better for detailed analysis of individual files or comparing two files
Apollo is better designing a taper and planning periodization/workouts. Also, Apollo has better support for swimming and will soon even more swim related features.
Both can look at what you have done in the past and if you have dug a hole too deep and both have there version of TSS/IF/NP and there are minor differences that someone like William/Mike G/Phil Skiba can explain but too me they are close to interchangeable metrics and serve the same purpose.
Basically, I think of WKO as a tool to look at what you have done and learn from it. Apollo does this as well but adds the ability to plan what you want to do going forward.
I have never looked at Apollo, I will do so now, but I have ceased using WKO and have been using Training Peaks online(premium). They now allow you to plan out workouts in the future and will project out the PMC for you. I find it to be a cool option. I doubt WKO will ever get this.
So yes it appears you can target a CTL, ATL, TSB using TP.com but is that necessarily a good thing? As Al said I believe, it most likely is something you would use over a few seasons. Using historical data coupled with race results, I assume you could really plan out a great peak and then taper using this planning function.
Now on the other hand, I watched a webinar with Gordo and Alan Couzens, yes I know he doesn't get a lot of love around here, where they showed how much TSS their Kona qualifiers were accumulating and where they CTL peaked at. I may have jumbled this a bit as it has been sometime since I watched it. Let me go look for it and edit and add a link if anyone is interested.
Here is a link to the video:
Around 23-24' is where he gets into peak CTL and his athletes and how it relates to IM performance. Yes there are lots of variables here but just showing the other side of the argument here.
I watched the relevant section, and agree with this statement. Comparing myself @ IM AZ from year to year, I had my best time when I was in the range of 130-135 max CTL. Last year, when my training in the last six weeks was hindered by plantar fasciitis, I only made it up to 105, and was 30 minutes slower. The best year, I was 45 min ahead of the competition, and last year, 4 minutes. It's probably like training for a marathon. You can do OK @ 55 mi/week, but if you really want to know how good you are, you'll need to average over 75 (maybe up to 125???) mi/week for a few years.
But to get back to the original post of this thread ... I will not set a specific TSS goal of getting to 140 CTL this, or any year. Instead, I intend to train to the limits of my fatigue and need for injury avoidance, and include an annual recuperation period of 2-3 weeks, for the next 2.5 years. Looking back at my PMC and race results at that point will be informative, and hopefully add to the discussion in a meaningful way.
Finally, looking at the data Couzens showed, and my own history, it does seem to make sense that it may take a CTL peaking near 140 7-10 days before an IM to be able to race at or near the speed one's FTP and VDOT suggest is possible. Then again, there are probably a lot of guys out there at or above 140 CTL who don't know how to execute an IM, and fail to live up to that potential. Your CTL doesn't measure how smart you are. Meaning, someone with a lower CTL can still beat someone more fit by being a better racer.
CTL, ATL, TSB, TB,..... How about a BLT with a coke, phew....My head hurts. I'm going swimming.