Two Wheel Blogs

The state time trial is this weekend. It was to have been my A-event this season. Sorry to say it, but because of my back problems I'm not going to be able to race it this year. I had hoped to be posting about using Andy Coggan's Training Manager in preparation for the Time Trial. Instead I'm writing about how I used the Training Manager to train through injury.

Into the wayback machine.
Let's have a look at how the Training Manager applies to my season. From October to the end of December of last year, CTL had been steadily dropping through the holidays. I also took my time adjusting to the changeover from predominantly outdoor work to training indoors.

Then in the new year things got going really well. I started building CTL steadily from the beginning of January until sometime in late February or early March.

Check out the effects of the three-day business trip in early February. Just three days of zero TSS knocks quite a bit off your CTL. It also shoots TSB sky high. All this freshness makes for some amazing results. Watts come easy. No mountain is too high. No opponent too fast. The downside is the loss of CTL makes it seem like a mini-taper to your body. It took nearly 2 weeks to recoup the lost CTL from that single trip.
Somewhere in that time period my back problems started and put my season on hold.

Back off track
Around the time I recaptured the "lost" CTL from my business trip my back problems set in and I began to struggle with training. I could not make the same watts and I could not train as long. After several periods on and off the bike and a general easing up on my training schedule I found a CTL level around the 70's where I could function.

Put another way, I found a daily TSS level which would produce a CTL in the range of 70 that wouldn't hurt my back further and which would hopefully allow it to improve. Every few days or once a week I'd do a session where I'd throw down nice and hard - a trainer TT, or a hard road session, maybe a bruising trail ride - just to bump up TSS a little to see how my back was holding out.

Fast forward to early July. My back is definitely improving. Recently CTL has broken through the 80 level and it looks like I can hold it there without too much problem. I don't intend to push it too far too fast though. This season's a bust for me. I don't want to lose next season too.

But it's not a total bust. Even at this year's reduced CTL levels my watts have resumed climbing. Recent tests put me at or even slightly ahead of last year, wattage wise, despite the reduced bicycle time.

I'll never know where I would have been without my back injury, but I'm really happy to have recovered the watts I lost back in February.

Will I ever get CTL up to previous levels? Unknown. I sure hope so. As Andy points out, the more you train the more you can train. Then again there's a corollary about real life obligations - careers and family and such. Bottom line though, it's really good to know a guy my age can get bigger watts while nursing an injury and with limited time to train.