lanierb said:
Alex is probably right about CTL in your case. However, in my opinion (and I know others will differ on this) you should just be taking Friday off anyway. You have two good workouts in there and two not so good ones. Why wreck your Saturday ride for a not great workout? Take a day off and then up your Saturday intensity a bit. (Take a day off means either no riding or something really really light like 30 mins zone 1.)
Yes this a really good point it is up each person to decide weather or not to train on any given day, there is no reason to ride 5,6 or 7 days a week BUT most people love riding it is addictive and has other benifits like weight loss/maintainance.
It can be easyier for some to just ride rather than cut calories or train with a little less intensity but more hours, what will matter is if the person is getting the results from their efforts that they desire.
For me my results come from riding less days but WAY more intensity and my aerobic power has increased by ~ 20% in the least 11mths heres how.
I stopped riding so much and trained 3-4 days p/wk sometimes 5 but not often, l would always be fresh and motivated from being off the the bike for 1-2 days so 80-120min of L4/SST p/day in the 87-96% of FTP in blocks of 10-20-30-60min what ever works for ya with however much time between sets you need to refuel stretch, fart, piddle it does't matter, generally the longer blocks are done at the start easing into the upper end of the zone your targetting and just play along with how yer feel.
when you've had enough eat, drink, fart what ever and do some tempo miles in your farvourite little area (for me its lots of hiils/rollers with some playing around in the drops and out of sadlle riding) this will add to your CTL then l'd take 2 days off YUP 2 days off then l would be chopping at the bit to get back out and smash it again for some QUALITY work FULLY recovered and motivated to suffer.... but I love training with my tounge hanging out
it may look like i'm suffering on the outside but honest l'm smiling on the inside.
l would rack up an avg of 200-250min p/wk of mostly L4 and do this for 3-4mth blocks so l am proof you do not need to train for the sake of training BUT like i said some ride most days for other reasons or because they like it but l have the time to train when ever and however long l want and l am just lucky that l have found my sweetspot in terms of effective training. Sleep, work and other time constraints will be a big influence on peoples scheduals but if anyone can take anything from my post it is that you can sacrafic atleast one day in favour of more quality work with still the same TSS at the end of the week as you would have had.