Peaking

As luck would have it, CyclingPeaks came out with its new build of WKO+ which includes the Performance Manager at the same time I am attempting to peak for my main goal ride of this year, a 137 mile single day trip across Vermont and back.

While it is going to take some time to really figure out how to best use the Performance Manager, it is obviously a great tool for looking back at past data and getting a sense for how your training is working, or not as the case may be. So with that in mind, I've taken a look at my own Performance Manager Chart and made some observations.

The first thing that jumps out at me is that the blue line, which represents my Chronic Training Load (CTL), which can be viewed as 'fitness' has steadily increased over time. While there isn't the recommended 6 months of data to go by, I think my estimate for starting TSS/day is pretty accurate, if anything maybe a bit low. At anyrate, the graph clearly shows that my fitness has been improving steadily over the last several months. No big jumps, but nice stead progression.

The jagged pink line represents my Acute Training Load(ATL), which is a short term measure of how hard you are training. Not only has this trended higher in general over time, but the peaks are higher as well. If you put a trendline in for this data, it shows a rise in ATL from ~70 to nearly 120 over the time period covered by the graph., or about a 70% increase. ATL can be considered an inverse measure of 'freshness' or a direct measure of 'fatigue', meaning the higher your ATL the more fatigued, or less fresh, you are apt to be.

The green horizontal line across the graph highlights the 0 value for Training Stress Balance (TSB). TSB is used as an indicator of form and in general is the difference between the CTL and ATL. So the goal for peaking is to have a high (relatively speaking) CTL while having a low (relatively) ATL, indicating you have good fitness but you are fresh.

I've marked the graph with some circles that represent the few periods when I've had positive TSB. The first, marked 1 on the chart, took place just after I got my PowerTap so the data probably isn't terribly accurate, but it does correspond to my first goal ride of the year. I more than achieved the goals I had set for that ride, which indicates that I was probably in good form for that ride.

The red circle marked 2 took place in mid July, but I didn't have any goal rides during that period, so it is hard to tell if I was on 'form' then. It was just after a rest week and during a period in time when I was re-organizing my training schedule. You'll also note the light blue band covering the graph in this time period. That indicates the time when my PowerTap was sent in for servicing for a bad torque sensor. The TSS scores I entered for these workouts were based on my formulas for power based on average HR, so may not be entirely accurate, but are close.

The red circles marked '3' on the graph are the most recent time when I had a positive TSB. You may have noticed there are two thin lines on the graph. The upper one, red, indicates my 10 best 1 minute power efforts. The lower black one represents my 10 best 20 minute power. Note that during the period marked with the red circles labeled '3' have 3 of my top 10 twenty minute power efforts (including my best effort of 310W), and my 2 best 1 minute efforts of 516W and 545W. This definitely shows that I had decent form even though my TSB was barely positive, around 3 or so. Makes me wonder how I would do if I had a more strongly positive value.

So now that I have looked back and seen that this TSB stuff is a decent indicator of when I was on form the trick becomes to use it to project into the future with it. How do I take this information and use it to fine tune my training plan to make sure that I'm peaking when I need to be peaking? Striking the balance between lowering your ATL so you are fresher needs to be carefully balanced so that you don't lose too much CTL/fitness. It will be interesting to see how or if it helps me over the next couple weeks as I continue to peak for my long ride.