Admittedly I’m new to the training with power game, and I have set myself up with a TrainingPeaks plan in preparation for my first IMMOO this year. I do have a few questions regarding some of the training though.
Why are the bike and run workouts (especially the longer weekend rides and runs) given in time instead of mileage? It seems as though I’m several months away from racing, but I will already be covering some significant distance in my weekend workouts. The plan I chose was more skewed toward the first time 140.6 competitor, but I am curious as to the reasoning for the time vs. mileage definitiion of workouts.
Also, I’ve been looking at my performance management chart, and I think that I have a basic idea of what the ATL CTL and TSB all are referencing, but I could use some guidance in what those numbers should mean in comparison to each other, and also what my graph should look like as training is ramping up vs. tapering for races.
Any advice would be appreciated, and I know there are some threads that somewhat address the issue when searched, but many of those threads often diverged into a pissing contest about FTP when I tried to read them.
Which plan did you buy? That might help us understand why it’s time over distance based. I’m thinking it’s possibly biased toward heart rate training? I know in my own situation the goal on long rides is to keep the HR in Z1 or Z2 rather than cover a specific distance over a specific time.
I bought the Matt Fitzgerald Level 2 Ironamn training program. I think it was a little conservative of a plan based on my fitness level, but I wanted something that I could realistically reach the weekly training goals while juggling work and family and not completely aggravate my wife.
Performance manager is pretty deep science, especially when you try to apply it to triathlon. It might be best to not worry about it much for now, just watch it and think about it a bit but not try to use it.
Same plan, except level 3, should have went with 4 or 5 LOL. I borrowed the book from a friend, it explains the reasoning for time over distance. Honestly I think the Fitzgerald plan is a bit short on swimming.
The ready made plans are based on time over mileage because they are generalized and targeted at a range of individual abilities. While a coach might know you run an easy 8:00/mile and can therefore schedule your long run to be 11 miles (aka 90 minutes) when you are buying a plan it doesn’t take that into account. If it were based on distance that 11 mile run which takes you 90 minutes might take someone faster 80 minutes but it might take someone slower 2 hours which might be too much at that particular stage.
As far as PMC I’ll assume you read this? http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles/cycling/what-is-the-performance-management-chart.aspx Ideally the CTL (blue line) should trend up over time, typically 3-5 points per week but it will vary with recovery weeks and intermediate taper/races. ATL is current load and TSB is current “freshness”. You can use ATL and TSB to dial in length of taper/recovery periods as it will give you a good indication that you are fresh when TSB rises quickly and ATL does the opposite. You’ll see a slight drop in CTL when this happens as well. There are three times when CTL should drop (http://blog.trainingpeaks.com/posts/2012/8/13/3-times-you-want-to-see-your-little-blue-line-take-a-nose-di.html) but if you are training as normal but ATL and TSB are all over the place and CTL is trending flat or down it is a sign of overtraining.
Some already good resource posted on here for the PMC, but one point to note, is to ensure that your FTP is set correctly, or at least in the right ball park. An glaring in accuracy here, will mean a glaring inaccurate PMC.