Life can’t be reduced completely to maths (despite some people believing otherwise). This means that no formulas will ever account for everyone’s physiology. It’s an assisted guess situation.
TSS ≠ TSS all the time. AFAIK, none of the (current) formulas account for variation in stress/strain over time. The load of 200 watts after 45 minutes is not the same after 3 hours. Likewise, the load of 200 watts on day 2 is not the same as on day 11.
Sure, there are ways to fiddle with this, and there are some very clever people on this forum who know the maths incredibly well and who can provide advice on how to adjust things. But the one metric that is still shown to be number one all the time is in the answer to the question, “How do you feel?” There are various questionnaires to help answer this question; the shortest ones tend to be the best, actually. Personally, I put a lot of emphasis on subjective assessment of daily Feel & Fatigue, and session Feel & RPE. I also require my athletes to write a short check-in every week as well as comment on sessions throughout the week. There’s a lot of information between the lines if one knows how to listen. Part of my job is to help people learn to tune into that more and more.
Rating of Perceived Exertion. There are two scales 1-10 (what Intervals.icu uses) and 6-20 (called the ‘Borg’ scale). I prefer 1-10 since most people have a feel of 1= super easy movement and 10= full out max (only for 1-3 races per year). The Borg scale is super easy to cheat once you know how the scale was developed.
Hola David, I think I may understand your situation. I made 3 mistakes,
I was just riding with my club and not thinking of the stress levels of the rides. Although I was only riding 3 times a week.
Was thinking my first event was a long time away, but then suddenly realising it was only a week away. Now It’s tomorrow.
Following the graph which was showing me as being fresh or optimal.
I should have thought more about how I actually felt (RPE) rather than following numbers on a website.
I have used this last week to just take a few very short very easy recovery rides in my Z2 hr/power. Seems to have helped although again, according to the graph, my “form” has dropped a little.
Suerte con tu evento.
Hey your spanish is great. Gracias! Seems we made similar mistakes. Im for sure taking z2 rides this week (short ones like 1h or 1h30) and a couple more next week on tuesday and wednesday, being the event on Saturday.
I just wonder if this week i should go for some easier intervals as well, and if so, how? I dont want to get unfit either riding 2 weeks in z2…
Im aiming for 400 Tss this week (last weeks tss was 600)
Exactly, the formulas will say that your “form” has dropped. But we know that your body is (hopefully) adapting in muscles, tendons/ligaments, neurology and your mind. Perhaps, one day, there will be AI that accounts for each person’s physiology and psychology and wearables that track all sorts of electrical and fluid metrics, and then be able to extract/predict more precisely. But 100:1 the best way to know is to get to know yourself better… and ask your partner.
Only you can answer what your body feels like. My guess is to skip the intervals this week. Do some openers at the end of a shorter, easier z1-2 and see if the body wakes up at all. If no, more rest. If yes, great, don’t push it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen and heard accounts of people having to take full rest during the week before a race because of sickness and only being able to move a bit the day prior and then they crush a PB.
I don’t think I am a good example to help. I have noticed over the years my body doesn’t react as I would wish it using training plans. (I’ve only been riding 6 years before that I was running and cross country skiing). They either over tire me or have little effect. I seem to go in 3 month cycles, but this is the first year I actually discovered that after trying several, both ready made and with a coach. What I have noticed is that following my intuition works best, pity I didn’t follow it these last few months. Perhaps if you look up “tapering for an cycling event” on the intemet you may find something that works for you, or perhaps some of the guys here can help.
First of all: a recovery ride is supposed to be a recovery ride and not an endurance ride.The purpose of a recovery ride is to help your body recover by working out at a very low intensity for a short time. A slightly elevated HR and the corresponding bloodflow remove waste products that have accumulated all over your body. A recovery ride is done below 55%FTP, easy spinning for 30-45min in a, preferably, relaxing environment. Because that also gives some rest to the mind. Most athletes respond well to recovery rides but some are better of to take a complete rest day. If you absolutely have no intensity discipline by nature, skip the recovery rides and take full rest days. The sole purpose of a recovery ride is to give body and mind a positive boost and it has absolutely no goal to maintain or improve fitness.
I don’t know what kind of tiredness you are in now. It might be normal fatigue from the recent load or functional overreaching. I sure hope it’s not overtraining.
What I would suggest is to first take a full rest day followed by a recovery day and then see how your body respond. Pay attention to what you feel after both and draw conclusions. If you feel better after those 2 days, try a low Z2 ride of about 1-1.5 hours. And I mean LOW Z2, because I’m pretty sure you were already thinking 1.5hr at 70-75% . Rather make that 1 hour at a max of 65% FTP. Take another rest or recovery day and assess how you feel.
If you start to feel better continue to alternate rest/recovery and Low Z2 endurance and during the Z2 ride, do some short sprints. 4-6 sprints with full recovery in between will make sure that you keep that “edge”. Don’t do any longer aerobic intervals because they induce too much fatigue. The sprints are anaerobic and you recover quite quickly from them while your body is sufficiently triggered to keep your high power possibilities. Don’t do Z2 rides longer then 1.5hr and keep intensity on the lower range. Don’t look at TSS these last 2weeks. It is too late to improve Fitness and trying too, will only negatively impact race-day conditions. A normal taper is 10-12 days and you still have them, so make maximum use of them to recover mentally and physically. If things turn out well, you might feel like Superman on your event day because on the condition that you’re not overtrained, super-compensation will happen. Stop torturing yourself by being anxious, have faith in all you did the last months and be confident that you can do it.
Note the key word, “discipline”. IOW, keeping the appropriate workload without busting it.
Yes and no. It doesn’t boost fitness by numbers, but it does boost our overall readiness, which, in my books, is a definition of fitness.
Another point is that tiredness can come at the end of a rest day or two or three. Some athletes think that they don’t need rest days or that rest doesn’t work for them. I’ve met 1 such person out of thousands. Usually, when someone feels ‘worse’ after a rest day it means that they need more.
100%! Note, short sprints. I call these pickups and last from 20-60 seconds. The point is perfect form for activation, nothing else.
This is where many, many athletes go wrong. IOW, they try to push. The hay is either in the barn or it’s not. Cramming doesn’t work.
IMHO, this depends on the length of the race. Taper for a 5 hour 70.3 can be 7 days, whereas it might be 14 days for a full distance triathlon, or 3-4 weeks for an Ultraman. It’s all a matter of volume and accumulated load.
Exactly. Better to be 10% “under-trained” than 2% over-trained.
Rest the mind (which hopefully has been practised in training). Go be grateful and enjoy yourself.
Based on all that you’ve shared, I’m hearing a need to check your metabolics. (And more than just a spot check.)
Intuition is huge! (But, IME, most don’t know what it is or how to listen to it. Most mistake it for the voice in their head, which it kind of is but mostly not.)
You are absolutely right about the definition but I have the impression that the OP is very much “number focussed” and that’s why I wrote it like that
There are more things not 100% correct in my post but, feeling the urgent need of the OP, I tried to explain as simple as possible. Simple is usually better accepted…
A couple more things to pay attention too next time you’re preparing for such an event:
Being race-specific in your build period doesn’t mean that you have to simulate the event in every training ride. You seem to be very much focussed on those simulations but training race-specific means that your training rides address one or more of the specific conditions needed on the event-day.
What I mean is that for this kind of event, you have to pay a lot of attention to the two main things that make or brake this event. Endurance and climbing.
You need to prepare in a way that your endurance is sufficiently developed to easily sustain the duration of the ride. Thus lots of long endurance rides, but don’t underestimate the effect of shorter endurance rides done on 2 or even 3 consecutive days. They will also help a lot.
Second, you need to improve your climbing by doing regular climbing intervals around threshold. Do progressively longer intervals with shorter rests during your hard sessions.
What I mean, is that it is not necessary to do climbing during every endurance ride. If the simulation makes you feel more at ease, do it once 3-4 weeks before the actual event.
The alternating endurance-threshold workouts will be easier to sustain because too regular threshold workouts induce too much fatigue and even make your endurance rides too hard.
I think the biggest problem we all have is not listening to that little voice that says, take a rest, don’t follow the group ride etc. Well at least, I’ve listened to mine and got myself through the fatigue so hopefully fit for fight for tomorrows Sportive. Its only 103kms so thats not a problem in itself, just want to see if I can win my age group, which I will as I’m the only one in it
Thanks. Just had to rush out and buy overshoes as its forecast rain all day tomorrow; going to be cold and wet. But hey ho, we’re cyclists a bit of rain won’t hurt
Awesome tips by everyone, i am really learning a lot from you guys, thanks again.
Ive read the word openers some times now, but i dont know what they are, i guess they are short sprints to activate, but i dont know if im guessing right.
Another question, so if i do those suggested sprints, i should do like 20 seconds or so, and do next one when my HR is completely recovered from the previous one i guess? And how many sprints?
Perhaps, one day, there will be AI that accounts for each person’s physiology and psychology and wearables that track all sorts of electrical and fluid metrics, and then be able to extract/predict more precisely. But 100:1 the best way to know is to get to know yourself better… and ask your partner. 
. Rather make that 1 hour at a max of 65% FTP. Take another rest or recovery day and assess how you feel.
