Matt's Training Update

Awhile back, well late April actually, I posted a short summary of my training year so far. Of note was the vast scarcity of miles and consistency. It wasn't that impressive, but it was motivating!

Since then I've been more focused, yet more relaxed as well. This goes to my embrace of consistency over haphazardness. I started to look at my training in the long view - eg where I want to be when Cyclocross season hits. I know that I want my Chronic Training Load (CTL) to be at or above 100 points/day. I also know that getting there in 12-16 weeks is a much more responsible approach than doing it in 8 weeks (recall that my starting point was a CTL of about 30). This realization brought with it a certain tranquility. I've repeatedly stressed a gradual build in fitness to my athletes and now here I am living my own advice. There is a certain comfort that comes from knowing I need to do about 500-600 TSS points per week in May and early June. Frankly, it's pretty easy - I can do that volume on about 8 or 9 hours a week of mostly structured training. Those totals step up a bit for the next 6 weeks to between 600-700 points, and therefore a few more hours, but it's still a very stable, steady, and do-able progression. Here is the CTL Progression:



and the Performance Manager Chart since December: