PMC and Planning

Above you will find what I commonly do as a coach with ALL my athletes that desire to get this type of detail and thought put into their training plans. This particular athlete raced an 8 day stage race in Europe last year around the end of May. He is scheduled to do a similar race in Europe but this time on August 30th. So we still have time to build his chronic training load (CTL) at a safe and manageable pace.

Last year his power to weight ratio on the bike was just outstanding. He road beyond his dreams during that stage race and was a top performer in not only his age group but overall. We collaborated quite a lot based on how he was feeling and how his training stress balance (TSB) was responding to this training stress.

The real value of a power meter used in coordination with a program like WKO+ is that we are able to look back at last year and determine what kind of training stress and CTL are required to get a desired result. This athlete does not want to invest the amount of time he did into his training as last year so we were able to come to a compromise on his CTL goal prior to his race. We came up with 63 tss/day for his goal CTL prior to his peak period. We may come in slightly above this or slightly below. However, we feel that we will approach his performances of last year with a CTL approaching 70 tss/day.

Now the hard part...I as a coach will be developing and continuously tweaking his schedule to get him there. As we roll into June and July I hope to partially re-create the type of stress you find in a 5 day stage race that includes over 30,000 feet elevation gain. See profile below:



Hopefully this year he will be able to bring his Power Tap along for a few days of this event. Last year we were concerned about the weight of the wheel and the hassle of brining it. So he decided not to bring it. If your Power Tap is not built into a high end wheel then you will usually find yourself weighing the pros and cons of bringing your Power Tap along or not. In last year's case we decided to go without. Probably a good decision since he is not riding the same course this year. However, if you are going to be riding a similar course year after year and you don't have your Power Tap built into a Zipp 404 or other high end wheel then it is a good idea to make the sacrifice and use the Power Tap wheel. The data gained during these events is invaluable as you prepare for the following years race in terms of identifying and improving your limiters and also realizing the kind of kilojoules needed to complete the event.

PMC and Planning

Above you will find what I commonly do as a coach with ALL my athletes that desire to get this type of detail and thought put into their training plans. This particular athlete raced an 8 day stage race in Europe last year around the end of May. He is scheduled to do a similar race in Europe but this time on August 30th. So we still have time to build his chronic training load (CTL) at a safe and manageable pace.

Last year his power to weight ratio on the bike was just outstanding. He road beyond his dreams during that stage race and was a top performer in not only his age group but overall. We collaborated quite a lot based on how he was feeling and how his training stress balance (TSB) was responding to this training stress.

The real value of a power meter used in coordination with a program like WKO+ is that we are able to look back at last year and determine what kind of training stress and CTL are required to get a desired result. This athlete does not want to invest the amount of time he did into his training as last year so we were able to come to a compromise on his CTL goal prior to his race. We came up with 63 tss/day for his goal CTL prior to his peak period. We may come in slightly above this or slightly below. However, we feel that we will approach his performances of last year with a CTL approaching 70 tss/day.

Now the hard part...I as a coach will be developing and continuously tweaking his schedule to get him there. As we roll into June and July I hope to partially re-create the type of stress you find in a 5 day stage race that includes over 30,000 feet elevation gain. See profile below:

Fatigued

Here is a file analysis of my workout this morning. Based on how I am feeling and also my performance and heart rate data I believe that I am a bit overly fatigued right now.
Based on this workout and the results gained I feel a few changes need to be made in my training. First off, I have been doing weights on the same day as my two hard bike rides. At the beginning of the year I feel this was extremely beneficial. This maybe because my aerobic capacity could not keep up with my muscular endurance and as a result I was not fatiguing my muscles as much as I am today. I was able to then proceed to the gym and put in a good effort. However, As I changed my training to go from 2 x 20 minutes and 5-7 x 5 minute efforts for the week to 2 x 20 min and 1.5 hours of mountain bike climbing (2,300 feet elevation gain), I am quickly beginning to realize that I can no longer maintain the weights on the same day. In addition to this I am beginning to feel that my weight training needs to change from continuous heavy and challenging sessions to more strength maintenance in nature. The primary change that precipitated everything has been the addition of the challenging mountain bike day along with the 2 x 20 min effort and the long 3-4 hour ride on the weekend. At some point I want to bring in the 5-7 minute efforts and keep all other rides. I also want to maintain 2 weight training workouts per week. Again, these weight workouts will most likely become more and more focused on maintaining my strength but also begin to include more plyometric training as I have read and noticed in my own experience that plyometric training seems to enhance and improve overall Functional Threshold Power (FTP).

Again, all this analysis would not be possible without a power meter. I would most likely have continued on with my intervals not knowing that my output (Power) was declining. I most likely would have rationalized away my lower heart rate input (162 bpm rather than my usual 170+ bpm) during a typical 2 x 20 minute effort. And, I would have begun to enter an over trained state. Based on my performance management chart, I am able to corroborate all this data along with how I am feeling and avoid the pitfalls of over training.