Okay, I’m done with the first week of riding out here. I got in right around 560 miles, which took close to 35 hours. I’m still feeling pretty good, which is nice.
Yesterday I got to hook with a Kansas City native, KC Borden. I’ve never ridden with him before and it was a really nice having him to ride with for 5 hours. He’s out here for a conference and brought his bike along. He’s is in really great shape considering he’s riding 3 X a week inside on a trainer.
I’m going to take it a little bit easier today I think. I’ve been riding a ton and eventually something has to give I’d think.
There is a fitness calculator on Strava and it is amazing how slowly it rises. Last year, the day I broke my hip, my form and fitness level was 115. Now it is in the 40’s. I’m not sure what they use to calculate that. I’m sure it has something to do with riding time and power numbers. Whatever they do, it is going to take a while to get back up there. At least my January numbers this year are higher than the January numbers last year. Though, I only rode 18 hours total in January last year.
I’ve been messing with this new van a little everyday. There are a ton a little things on used cars that always need fixing. I guess the average Joe doesn’t have the time, or incentive to do that on their own. Easy fixes that are rewarding.
I’m going to head back to Kansas by mid-week. Of course the weather there has been stellar. It’s been in the upper 50’s and 60’s for a while. And it is staying there. I always like it to be horrible at home when I’m somewhere warm. I’m not sure why that is. It is supposed to be nearly 80 today here.
Okay, that is about it today. Hope you have a chance to get out on your bike and get some miles in.
KC waving to the UCSC runners at the top of Torrey Pines.
We saw this truck on La Costa dump over a load of bottles. It happened in slow motion.
This was the end result.
They were doing a coffee tasting in the basement of the Pannikin yesterday.
This is my Strava Fitness level for the last year.
The weather in Topeka is pretty good right now for January.
Pretty great sunset a couple days ago here.
Guess you’re driving back to KS?
If you want to catch the nice weather, you’d better head back tonight – by the end of the week, the midwinter warmup will be over, rain and snow are forecast for next weekend:
“Thursday Mostly sunny, with a high near 47.
Thursday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 24.
Friday Mostly sunny, with a high near 47.
Friday Night A slight chance of rain and snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 27. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Saturday A slight chance of rain and snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 39. Chance of precipitation is 20%.” http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?MapType=3&site=TOP&CiTemplate=1&map.x=265&map.y=138
Guess I’ll have to get outta Steve’s house by Thursday. Oh, and you’re out of butter. Just sayin.
That Strava chart is basically a copy of the Performance Management Chart in WKO+, which uses formulas from Dr. Andy Coggan.
Basically, what Strava calls “fitness” is your Chronic Training Load (CTL). Fatigue is Acute Training load (ATL). Form is your training stress balance (TSB). In order for those to be accurate, you have to have a semi-accurate functional threshold power (FTP) loaded into Strava.
ATL and CTL are figured by your TSS (training stress score). If you go all out (ride at your FTP) for one hour, your TSS score would be 100. Obviously, a shorter ride at that intensity would be a lower number. A longer ride at a slightly lower intensity should be higher.
ATL (fatigue) is a rolling weighted average of your TSS scores for the last 6 or so days. It also averages in what your fatigue was going into that first day, so it’s a little confusing. At any rate, if you do 100 TSS points of work every day for 12 days, technically your fatigue should be 100.
CTL (fitness) is a rolling weighted average over the past 6 weeks. It also takes into account your current CTL at the beginning of those 6 weeks, so you can see why this rises so slowly. It really takes about 12 weeks of data or more to get an accurate CTL, and takes weeks or months to get the line up. They say that raising it by more than 8 points per week could cause overtraining.
Here’s a more in depth (and accurate) description: http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/what-is-the-performance-management-chart
Steve… 71 degrees today at the end of our ride in Boulder today! Swing by on your way back to KC!