Training for a hill climb in October

VamP

I don't tend to do my FTP tests after a big rest, often the legs are poor then. Usually I do them when I am relatively fresh, -10 to 0 TSB, if you do the performance manager stuff.

Certainly a 6 minute HC isn't going to put you into any great fatigue, so assuming you're quite fresh going into the HC, I reckon you'd be fine testing the following day. I wouldn't do too much tapering either, for a short effort like this you'll just trade fitness for no real gain. Keep your ride the day before short with 3 or 4 intense efforts around a minute duration, otherwise just train as normal in the week running up.

bobmcstuff

Which plan are you doing on TR? If it's a specialty phase then the final week is designed as a race week, if it's a build then the last week is a rest week rather than a taper (i.e., it's all soft pedal workouts), so might want to change.

daniel_b

bobmcstuff wrote:

Which plan are you doing on TR? If it's a specialty phase then the final week is designed as a race week, if it's a build then the last week is a rest week rather than a taper (i.e., it's all soft pedal workouts), so might want to change.

Thanks both for your replies - it's the climbing road race plan.

I am not familiar with TSB sadly :oops:

VamP

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/appl ... s-balance/

daniel_b

VamP wrote:

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/applying-the-numbers-part-3-training-stress-balance/

Ta muchly

Tom Dean

VamP wrote:

I wouldn't do too much tapering either, for a short effort like this you'll just trade fitness for no real gain
...
otherwise just train as normal in the week running up.

This is questionable IMO, freshness is more valuable the shorter the race, and you won't lose fitness by taking it easy for a few days. I would probably aim for TSB between +10 and +15

Do your FTP test when you're as fresh as you usually are when you do it.

daniel_b

Tom Dean wrote:

VamP wrote:

I wouldn't do too much tapering either, for a short effort like this you'll just trade fitness for no real gain
...
otherwise just train as normal in the week running up.

This is questionable IMO, freshness is more valuable the shorter the race, and you won't lose fitness by taking it easy for a few days. I would probably aim for TSB between +10 and +15

Do your FTP test when you're as fresh as you usually are when you do it.

Thanks for your reply Tom, much appreciated.

Currently investigating Golden Cheetah to see if I can export all of my TrainerRoad rides for this year to give me an idea of the TSB - assuming that will be a pretty manual process to get it all up together.
Nearly 150 rides to export :shock:

VamP

Tom Dean wrote:

VamP wrote:

I wouldn't do too much tapering either, for a short effort like this you'll just trade fitness for no real gain
...
otherwise just train as normal in the week running up.

This is questionable IMO, freshness is more valuable the shorter the race, and you won't lose fitness by taking it easy for a few days. I would probably aim for TSB between +10 and +15

Do your FTP test when you're as fresh as you usually are when you do it.

There is a lot of individual variation as to what works best, which is why I described what works for me. My experience is that even when relatively fatigued (say -20 to -30) I can still produce one very good VO2max effort. Repeating the effort would be a different matter

Something like a cross race I need to be fresh for - maybe not as fresh as you suggest, but not really below 0.

Agree about doing FTP test in as similar a state of fatigue as usual whenever possible. I always do mine same time of day, same road, same pre-ride nutrition as well.

bobmcstuff

Daniel B wrote:

Tom Dean wrote:

VamP wrote:

I wouldn't do too much tapering either, for a short effort like this you'll just trade fitness for no real gain
...
otherwise just train as normal in the week running up.

This is questionable IMO, freshness is more valuable the shorter the race, and you won't lose fitness by taking it easy for a few days. I would probably aim for TSB between +10 and +15

Do your FTP test when you're as fresh as you usually are when you do it.

Thanks for your reply Tom, much appreciated.

Currently investigating Golden Cheetah to see if I can export all of my TrainerRoad rides for this year to give me an idea of the TSB - assuming that will be a pretty manual process to get it all up together.
Nearly 150 rides to export :shock:

I think TR will do it with one or two button clicks. Certainly does to Training Peaks, not so sure about Golden Cheetah.

Alternatively you can enter it into a spreadsheet, the formulas aren't complicated (although entering all of the numbers will be very manual).

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Daniel B wrote:

Tom Dean wrote:

VamP wrote:

I wouldn't do too much tapering either, for a short effort like this you'll just trade fitness for no real gain
...
otherwise just train as normal in the week running up.

This is questionable IMO, freshness is more valuable the shorter the race, and you won't lose fitness by taking it easy for a few days. I would probably aim for TSB between +10 and +15

Do your FTP test when you're as fresh as you usually are when you do it.

Thanks for your reply Tom, much appreciated.

Currently investigating Golden Cheetah to see if I can export all of my TrainerRoad rides for this year to give me an idea of the TSB - assuming that will be a pretty manual process to get it all up together.
Nearly 150 rides to export :shock:

Just a reminder that the free Stravistix plugin for Chrome has a fitness/fatigue/form gadget, the scale is very different from Strava Premium's version (I'm 100.2 in Stravistix, 57 in Strava).

http://chrome.google.com/webstore/detai ... pckn?hl=en

neeb

VamP wrote:

neeb wrote:

VamP wrote:

Can't see the image :-(

Edited the post and switched the image to Flikr.. any better?

Yes, can see it now.

I am not familiar with the Strava F&F algorithm but assuming it's similar to Coggan's. If not then much of what follows is wrong.

You don't say what your objectives are beyond the hill climb, but assuming you just want to hang on to your fitness gains, and then build on that next year, you could perhaps reduce threshold work to one session a week, and replace one of your threshold sessions with a z5 workout, and another with a more volume focused session - z2 or z3.

That's assuming you have three threshold focused sessions a week now. Maybe you have less? I'd keep at least one threshold session through the winter, can be Zwift or whatever.

Your Fitness line has been relatively flat over the year, only a bit of increase in the last month, so if you can find the time you could definitely up things a bit.

If you're looking to race, then you need more volume AND intensity. Most people will have Fitness (TSB) around 80 - 100 and will often dig deeper fatigue holes - 30-40 followed by recovery.

Thanks. Not sure that Strava's "fitness" is the same as TSB. Sounds like TSB might be what Strava call "form", which is fitness minus fatigue. Here's the graph with both fatigue and form on it.



Not sure how meaningful the actual numbers are or how they relate to Coggan's. But it's true I could increase volume (if I had the time, which I don't really.. ;-)). Not so sure about intensity - I only manage about 7 hours p.w. although it's spread out and I don't really do any riding below tempo. I could probably train smarter - I tend to train in a much more structured way during the winter because it provides motivation if I'm indoors. Not aiming to do mass-start racing (although I've dabbled before), did a couple of TTs this year, aiming at hill climbs right now, largely just enjoy being fit and beating my PBs. 63kg, 50yo, FTP spot-on 4w/kg, 5 minutes about 5w/kg. Always looking for competitive events that don't involve a high risk of crashing as I don't bounce as well as I used to.. Seem to be most competitive on hills.

bobmcstuff

/\ that's exactly right - fitness is CTL (chronic training load), fatigues is ATL (acute training load) and form (TSB) is the difference between the two.

The formulas are the same but Strava calculates non-power rides from Suffer Score (which is just a heart rate based TSS).

bobmcstuff

Also I personally find the numbers are very good for fatigue and planning training with respect to fatigue but the correlation with FTP is a bit less good. I.e just because the numbers are the same my FTP isn't necessarily the same.

Finally there's other things apart from time on the bike which can affect fatigue so just because the numbers say you aren't fatigued you might still feel rubbish on the bike (say if you've had a week of crap sleep or stress at work or whatever).

VamP

bobmcstuff wrote:

/\ that's exactly right - fitness is CTL (chronic training load), fatigues is ATL (acute training load) and form (TSB) is the difference between the two.

The formulas are the same but Strava calculates non-power rides from Suffer Score (which is just a heart rate based TSS).

Thanks, had meant CTL in my post above, but TSB crept in. Might be TLA dyslexic

I suspect Strava formulas might be different, as I would be surprised at CTL of around 40 on 7 hours a week.

bobmcstuff

VamP wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

/\ that's exactly right - fitness is CTL (chronic training load), fatigues is ATL (acute training load) and form (TSB) is the difference between the two.

The formulas are the same but Strava calculates non-power rides from Suffer Score (which is just a heart rate based TSS).

Thanks, had meant CTL in my post above, but TSB crept in. Might be TLA dyslexic

I suspect Strava formulas might be different, as I would be surprised at CTL of around 40 on 7 hours a week.

The formulas are the same (I.e. exponentially weighted 6 week moving average for CTL), but the numbers it is calculating off (suffer score) are different as it's not just using a power based TSS (unless you do all your rides with a PM and set it to use PM only).

The manner in which it calculates suffer score uses exactly the same principle as power TSS as well but obviously the zones are completely different, so it results in totally different numbers. They do correlate fairly well - I did an assessment when I started using Trainerroad and I found a pretty good correlation between suffer score and power TSS (R squared of 0.8 which means they are pretty closely linked, as you'd expect).


TL;DR: the basic principles are the same but the way they calculate the workout TSS equivalents are different so you can't mix and match.

daniel_b

Wowsas chaps, I'm currently a bit lost, but am hanging on in there, as I have a strong feeling the above could prove very useful to me long term!

Just need to find some dedicated time I can spend to properly learn what all these TLAs mean, and then how I can see these figures, and then critically how they can be of use to me.

So I have Golden cheetah installed, and it sound like that should be a free option, but I will need to export and upload each of my TR rides and any outdoor Garmin rides for it to interpret them, and spit me out a graph.
And continue in this manner with all future rides.

But it seems there may also be this Stravistix plugin, but only if using the Chrome browser (Which I currently do not, but could easily do just for this) and then again I would need to upload all of my TR rides to Strava - I'm pretty sure this is an automatic alteration I can make though, so all future rides automatically upload, and I think it might be a fairly simple few clicks to get older rides over as well - simpler than the more manual exporting, and uploading required with Golden Cheetah.

Am I pretty much on the nose with the above?

I'm hoping as I have a solid 8 months of data, that should give me a good start to said graph\s?
The datageek within me is already getting excited

Would anyone suggest one option is better than another, for a newbie to interpret perhaps?

If it makes any difference, my turbo is direct drive, with accurate power recording, and more often than not, when out on the road I will also be riding with a power meter.
If I were to complet an outdoor ride without a power meter, but had heart rate stats, should I manually estimate the power output for the ride, and input that, or would I be best to omit it altogether, or just to let it use the HR?

I included the above because of:

bobmcstuff wrote:

The formulas are the same but Strava calculates non-power rides from Suffer Score (which is just a heart rate based TSS).

So if I am correct there, and that if you are using power, they are as accurate as each other, then I think I will go the Strava\Chrome\Stravistix route, as long term it will take no manual intervention, which with a young family has a lot of appeal!

VamP

Don't have any experience with Stravistix, but Golden Cheetah is excellent. It takes a while to learn your way around though. It's free though!

The important thing to understand with performance manager is that there is a strong individual variance in ''hitting form'' and the value of it as a tool really lies in using it long term and keeping a record of what works for you. And GIGO applies so any inaccuracies in your FTP can really skew your data.

It's a useful tool but know it's limitations and don't become a slave to it.

Edited to add: I just manually estimate the TSS for any non PM rides. It's fairly easy to do with a bit of experience, as 1 hour at FTP is 100 TSS, so an hour at sweetspot is 80 TSS etc.

Edited 2nd time to add: When I was discussing Strava Suffer Score with a club mate who uses both Strava Premium and Training Peaks, he said that the Suffer Score numbers proportionally correlated with TSS, but were not the same numbers. That leads me to think that comparing performance manager data populated with Strava calculations will require additional interpretation if you want to compare directly with Coggan metrics.

daniel_b

Thanks VamP - appreciate your input muchly.

I realise this will not help me with regards to the hill climb specifically, but can see it has long term merit, and into next year and beyond, IF I can get a proper handle on it, AND learn how to use it and interpret it.

Totally get what you say about one rule not working for all, a bit of hit and miss to start with, to see what kind of figures are going to put me in the best place for an event etc.

If I didn't have a young family I would be looking to dedicate time to this, and analyse the data in detail, but as I am not in that position I need to try and find the maximum bang, for the minimum buck, both in terms of monetary and time outlay - both are precious!
This is one reason I am a TrainerRoad addict. When I had time a plenty, I would use the Time crunched book, and make workouts to use on my Garmin (Which tbf are pretty much the same as the TR ones), but they take time and all have to be re-jigged each time you have a new FTP) - TR just makes my life so comparitively easy, and less to think about in a busy schedule, means I am a lot more likely to complete it.

In light of that, if the general concensus is that Stravistix might give me what I need, I may well go for that, and then look to GC if it doesn't deliver in the long run.

bobmcstuff

Daniel B wrote:

Wowsas chaps, I'm currently a bit lost, but am hanging on in there, as I have a strong feeling the above could prove very useful to me long term!

Just need to find some dedicated time I can spend to properly learn what all these TLAs mean, and then how I can see these figures, and then critically how they can be of use to me.

So I have Golden cheetah installed, and it sound like that should be a free option, but I will need to export and upload each of my TR rides and any outdoor Garmin rides for it to interpret them, and spit me out a graph.
And continue in this manner with all future rides.

But it seems there may also be this Stravistix plugin, but only if using the Chrome browser (Which I currently do not, but could easily do just for this) and then again I would need to upload all of my TR rides to Strava - I'm pretty sure this is an automatic alteration I can make though, so all future rides automatically upload, and I think it might be a fairly simple few clicks to get older rides over as well - simpler than the more manual exporting, and uploading required with Golden Cheetah.

Am I pretty much on the nose with the above?

I'm hoping as I have a solid 8 months of data, that should give me a good start to said graph\s?
The datageek within me is already getting excited

Would anyone suggest one option is better than another, for a newbie to interpret perhaps?

If it makes any difference, my turbo is direct drive, with accurate power recording, and more often than not, when out on the road I will also be riding with a power meter.
If I were to complet an outdoor ride without a power meter, but had heart rate stats, should I manually estimate the power output for the ride, and input that, or would I be best to omit it altogether, or just to let it use the HR?

I included the above because of:

bobmcstuff wrote:

The formulas are the same but Strava calculates non-power rides from Suffer Score (which is just a heart rate based TSS).

So if I am correct there, and that if you are using power, they are as accurate as each other, then I think I will go the Strava\Chrome\Stravistix route, as long term it will take no manual intervention, which with a young family has a lot of appeal!

I think my main feedback is that you can't be comparing values between the systems and expecting them to match up all the time.

I haven't used Golden Cheetah but I believe it may be a bit more fit for purpose than Strava's tool. Stravistix has more bells and whistles than the Strava tool but Golden Cheetah is a proper training tool.

I'm not sure how Stravistix accounts for changes in FTP, ideally it needs to only apply it from the test onwards, Strava used to rebase all your rides at the new FTP which is obviously stupid. Don't think it does that now though.

Re: your point about rides with HR but no power, Strava and Stravistix will incorporate those, I don't believe that 's possible in GC. Estimating TSS will be a bit difficult so I wouldn't get too hung up on it (for info, my TSS is generally between 1.4 and 1.7x my Strava Suffer Score, so any TSS estimate you make using HR data will be pretty variable).

bobmcstuff

Also, yes uploading from TR to Strava is very easy. You may then be able to link Strava to GC, but you don't seem to be able to directly link TR to GC.

VamP

bobmcstuff wrote:

Estimating TSS will be a bit difficult so I wouldn't get too hung up on it (for info, my TSS is generally between 1.4 and 1.7x my Strava Suffer Score, so any TSS estimate you make using HR data will be pretty variable).

I am confident that my estimates of TSS are as accurate if not more so than the Strava HR estimate. Importantly, any errors will be standard distribution so they will resolve in the long run. I'd say +/- 10%.

But GC supports a number of performance manager models, including running and HR based ones. I think there's a swimming one in the latest release, not that I use it.

bobmcstuff

VamP wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

Estimating TSS will be a bit difficult so I wouldn't get too hung up on it (for info, my TSS is generally between 1.4 and 1.7x my Strava Suffer Score, so any TSS estimate you make using HR data will be pretty variable).

I am confident that my estimates of TSS are as accurate if not more so than the Strava HR estimate. Importantly, any errors will be standard distribution so they will resolve in the long run. I'd say +/- 10%.

But GC supports a number of performance manager models, including running and HR based ones. I think there's a swimming one in the latest release, not that I use it.

I agree that a HR based estimate of power based TSS will not be very accurate, as above the R squared value for my data was about 0.8 which shows they do not correlate perfectly (an R squared of 1 would indicate that the relationship between the two was complete and there were no other factors affecting it). This isn't very surprising as there are lots of things which can elevate or depress heart rate.

If GC can do a HR-based TSS estimate I can't see how it will be much different to the Strava one in terms of "accuracy" (I assume by accuracy you mean how close they would be to those calculated with power) - the way workout TSS is calculated is not very complicated, it's just time in each zone (i.e., http://spinloose.co.uk/wp/workout-tss-calculator/).

I just said I wouldn't get too hung up on it - as you say it probably will average out in the long run anyway.

As per your other post:

VamP wrote:

Edited 2nd time to add: When I was discussing Strava Suffer Score with a club mate who uses both Strava Premium and Training Peaks, he said that the Suffer Score numbers proportionally correlated with TSS, but were not the same numbers. That leads me to think that comparing performance manager data populated with Strava calculations will require additional interpretation if you want to compare directly with Coggan metrics.

This is true for me as well, Suffer Score numbers proportionally correlate with TSS from TrainerRoad but the numbers are not the same.

Very roughly I could multiply my suffer scores by 1.6 to get my TSS, but the actual value varies between about 1.4 and 1.7 or 1.8 in the data I looked at.

VamP

bobmcstuff wrote:

If GC can do a HR-based TSS estimate I can't see how it will be much different to the Strava one in terms of "accuracy"

I wasn't clear. What I meant was that my own finger in the air TSS estimates (not PM or HR based) are sufficiently accurate. Based on PE and experience.

I agree that the HR based TSS estimates will be as equally inaccurate regardless of system used. I don't use them.

daniel_b

Here's an idea - opinions please.

I am considering finishing my plan a bit earlier that originally intended, but still on target as it were and within the 8 weeks, and then carrying out an FTP (Twin 8) test perhaps 4 or 5 days before the hill climb.

Thinking that I am as prepped as I can be really, this should give me a physchological boost in terms of hopefully (!) an improved FTP, and it will also give me some useful stats that I can use to help me on the day, namely what I was able to hold for 8 minutes flat out, maximal effort, so then I can apply a 1XX% multiplication, and try that on the day.


I would then take a couple of days off, and carry out some low intensity spinning sessions, or just a couple of workouts that I cimpleted just before the FTP test.

Good idea, or bad idea?

N0bodyOfTheGoat

But are you as prepped as you can be?

How many sessions in the last few weeks have included the race hill, or something comparable?

Have you tried different strategies of when to really push hard or just keep a steady pace; sit and spin the whole climb or pick bits out to get out of the saddle etc.?

It's only going to be a sub 8 minute "race," so unless your normal training involves pushing your distance PBs with improved average speed/power, I wouldn't have thought you need to taper off much before the event. If time allowed, in your shoes I would be trying to do ~60mins hill related training every other day until the week beforehand, maybe even until ~3 days before.

daniel_b

It's a valid point - I can only go on gut feeling really, but with the required, or desired, marginal reduction in training (According to TR) I can't be far off the maximal I wouldn't have thought, but as you say, that could easily not be the case - I don't know enough about it to be able to use informed judgement.

This is a workout I have carried out twice in the last two weeks, and aim to do so again at least once:


It's a climbing road race plan, so is targeted on hill climbing to a fair degree.

The idea is to stand for each of the ramps, from memory they are 60 seconds long, and then 3 * 30 seconds - the last one is pretty brutal.

VamP

There's not much you can do to improve your performance in the last week, and only two things that you can do that will impact it negatively; getting too fatigued, and conversely getting too fresh.

As I'd said before, I would just train as normal, you can test if you want, but keep in mind the principle of keeping your testing circumstances as non-variable for each test as possible. If you are worried about fatigue, train as normal till Thursday, rest Friday, leg loosener (shortish ride with some sharp efforts) on Saturday, and you should be in fine fettle for Sunday. Feel free to knock out a couple more reps of the hill after the race

My go to workout for a six minute hill climb would be a 5x5 or 5x6, where you're at 120 - 130% FTP for the whole 5 or 6 minutes. And another session of 3x10 at 105 - 110%

In the workout above, you're only above FTP for the last minute by the looks of it?

daniel_b

I'll play it by ear I think, and see how I feel closer to the time - or make a decision at the weekend.
Once I make a decision, I tend to stick to it, for better or worse.

The blocks above are 6 minutes in length, so time above FTP is 2.5 minutes per block - I tended to do most of them, with the exception of out of the saddle stuff, on the tops, so as to mimic hill climbing as best I can.

The 5X5 or 5X6 sounds like a pretty sound idea, I know you can create your own workouts in TR, just not looked into how to do it yet - might try and do so if I get any spare time.

Hoping to get onto the Turbo at 4pm today for an hour of this:


Feeling fairly fatigued, after not the best nights sleep, and having completed this yesterday at 8pm:



That's 3 X 14 minute blocks, with 9 minutes above FTP in each block - that was hard work.

Was pleased to complete it, as i tried it's slightly bigger brother last Friday, after a poor nights sleep, and crashed and burned spectacularly - first workout I have ever not managed to complete, though for whatever reason I went into it thinking I wasn't going to be able to do it.

jgsi

Before you sink into a mire of 'magic' intervals.... why not have a think about some proper coaching?
https://www.facebook.com/dave.lloyd.39545?fref=ts

He knows a bit about going uphill quick.

Tom Dean

VamP wrote:

My go to workout for a six minute hill climb would be a 5x5 or 5x6, where you're at 120 - 130% FTP for the whole 5 or 6 minutes.

Blimey. I'm guessing you have good VO2 max power vs ftp! Or you're underestimating ft.Not many people could do that. OP aim for 110% to begin with