I could use a bit of help thinking about whether/ how to seed my ctl. Here's the situation:
I've been using a power meter for several years now. I got a late start training this year: began only Jan 1. more or less. A couple of months no training before that.
With no seeding of CTL after 4 weeks training my current CTL is ~40 and my TSB is ~ -60 (which doesn't correspond to how I feel (based on past experience): more like -30 at the worst.). I'm currently doing around 450-500 TSS pts/wk and tolerating it pretty well. Tired but not shattered.
It could be that I underestimated FTP a bit, which would skew the other values, but I doubt I'm off by much more than 10 watts, though. (I'll do a FTP test at the end of this recovery week.)
On the one hand, because I wasn't training before Jan 1, I feel there is no reason to seed a CTL value higher than 0. On the other hand, starting from 0, ATL, CTL, TSB and rate of CTL increase are looking a little unusual and don't seem to correspond to how I feel (e.g. -60 TSB).
Mostly what I'm interested in is rate of CTL increase. Because of my late start I want to push that as much as prudent. Starting from 0 CTL, the rate of increase looks a bit high but not outrageous: ~ 7-8 pts/week. Normally that's a lot, but I thought I could start out a bit hot as long as I felt okay and dial it down as necessary. If I seed the CTL value (according to average hours or average TSS), it looks practically flat, and would seem to suggest I need to train more, but I don't feel as though I can tolerate enough more TSS to get it up to a reasonable rate of increase.
One of my questions is: what are the long term statistical consequences of seeding or not seeding? Will either one skew the data significantly for a significant period of time such that it makes the values unreliable?
Should I stick with the 0 CTL or would it be wiser to pick a CTL value that generates a TSB which corresponds to perceived fatigue? Does any of this matter that much or will it even out in a couple of months?
Are there considerations I've missed?
Thanks for checking my thinking,
-marco
I've been using a power meter for several years now. I got a late start training this year: began only Jan 1. more or less. A couple of months no training before that.
With no seeding of CTL after 4 weeks training my current CTL is ~40 and my TSB is ~ -60 (which doesn't correspond to how I feel (based on past experience): more like -30 at the worst.). I'm currently doing around 450-500 TSS pts/wk and tolerating it pretty well. Tired but not shattered.
It could be that I underestimated FTP a bit, which would skew the other values, but I doubt I'm off by much more than 10 watts, though. (I'll do a FTP test at the end of this recovery week.)
On the one hand, because I wasn't training before Jan 1, I feel there is no reason to seed a CTL value higher than 0. On the other hand, starting from 0, ATL, CTL, TSB and rate of CTL increase are looking a little unusual and don't seem to correspond to how I feel (e.g. -60 TSB).
Mostly what I'm interested in is rate of CTL increase. Because of my late start I want to push that as much as prudent. Starting from 0 CTL, the rate of increase looks a bit high but not outrageous: ~ 7-8 pts/week. Normally that's a lot, but I thought I could start out a bit hot as long as I felt okay and dial it down as necessary. If I seed the CTL value (according to average hours or average TSS), it looks practically flat, and would seem to suggest I need to train more, but I don't feel as though I can tolerate enough more TSS to get it up to a reasonable rate of increase.
One of my questions is: what are the long term statistical consequences of seeding or not seeding? Will either one skew the data significantly for a significant period of time such that it makes the values unreliable?
Should I stick with the 0 CTL or would it be wiser to pick a CTL value that generates a TSB which corresponds to perceived fatigue? Does any of this matter that much or will it even out in a couple of months?
Are there considerations I've missed?
Thanks for checking my thinking,
-marco