Maintaining CTL

[lobster1]

I have been steadily building my CTL over the winter (this is my first season using TSS scores) and currenlty its in the high 70's. I am soon to go skiing for a week and am loathed to see this drop back to the low 60's. The last few years I have been skiing, during the 8 days away I ski 6 full days and go for 4-5 1hour runs. So my question is can I attach any sort of TSS score to this? I'm thinking I already know what most of you will say to this but then again my thinking is that my cycling fitness won't drop as much over 8 days of fairly high activity as 8 days of no activity at all.

 

[daveryanwyoming]

...So my question is can I attach any sort of TSS score to this? ...

Some folks restrict TSS recording to bike rides, others include their cross training. It's up to you and probably depends on the level of your training and how closely your cross training resembles the sort of cardio and leg work you do on the bike. A beginner probably gains a lot through cross training and a very highly trained pro or Cat 1 cyclist with highly tuned fitness probably does well to hold even with cross training.

Anyway, I do record my XC ski skating and other similar workouts in my overall TSS. The easiest way is to estimate IF for your cross training square it and multiply it by 100/hour. So a 2 hour cross training session at an estimated .7 IF gives you 100 TSS. I estimate IF based on RPE and how my effort matches a steady hour long effort for that activity. Is it scientifically accurate? No way, can I use it to track my training load and estimate recovery times? I think so.

Just go to the WKO+ calender and double click a date and add a New Manual Workout with the options pulldown arrow in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Enter your estimated IF and duration in minutes and the software fills in the rest of the data including an estimate of watts and kilojoules. I wouldn't use these estimates to compare (I wouldn't compare TSS, CTL, ATL or TSB to other riders anyway) but within a system you create I think they're helpful.

 

[Steve_B]

Anyway, I do record my XC ski skating and other similar workouts in my overall TSS.
...snip...
Is it scientifically accurate? No way, can I use it to track my training load and estimate recovery times? I think so.

I do the same thing and I have the same thoughts. In fact, I went skate skiing today.

I feel that time spent cross training represents such a small percentage of my overall training time for the year (1-2% in the past few years and never more than 4% in years with exceptional amounts of skiing) and since it's a similar activity to cycling that I'm not invalidating CTL to any large degree by including it.

 

[jetnjeff]

Just go to the WKO+ calender and double click a date and add a New Manual Workout with the options pulldown arrow in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Enter your estimated IF and duration in minutes and the software fills in the rest of the data including an estimate of watts and kilojoules.

Be carefull though as the Watts you enter there are NP watts and your AP will equal them. So getting a propper TSS will show a AP and KJ that are too high.

 

[daveryanwyoming]

Be carefull though as the Watts you enter there are NP watts and your AP will equal them. So getting a propper TSS will show a AP and KJ that are too high.

Good point, but since these are estimates anyway I sure wouldn't put too much value on the exact KJ numbers anyway. One piece of advice I got from someone on these forums is to enter the manual workouts even if they're on a bike as cross training or XC skiing or one of the other options. That way you can filter some of your graphs like mean maximal and power distribution so that they only include actual PM measured bike workouts and ignore the manual entries. The manual entries are stored as a workout at your estimated NP for the entire workout duration which really skews some of the charts and graphs like the power distribution chart.

 

[jetnjeff]

One piece of advice I got from someone on these forums is to enter the manual workouts even if they're on a bike as cross training or XC skiing or one of the other options. That way you can filter some of your graphs like mean maximal and power distribution so that they only include actual PM measured bike workouts and ignore the manual entries.

Using "Other" etc. But once you filter them out your PMC chart is altered. So finding your training load compared to your peak CPs can be SKU'd.

You are right on the money about the NP. You will make files were the AP will apear to high. When I started looking at my best 1 and 2 hour APs, I was suprised to find my manual entries there.

I am not too worried about small variations in aproximate KJs. But for example I had a 198 minute ride NP = 230 AP = 153 VI= 1.5 KJ = 1756. If I made a manual entry for 198 min @ 230 Watts the KJ are 2732. Almost 50% greater.

That can mess with your diet.