I’ve just started a 6 week or so period when I’m not going to do any structured or interval training and just riding my bike for fun before getting back on the horse at the beginning of October.
I’ve therefore set my decay to Optimal (from " No decay TL matched"), Improvement Rate to Off Season and put my Event Date to 6 months from now.
Any advice please or whether this is the correct thing todo and if not any ideas as to what to do.
Thanks
Yeah, when allowing yourself to rest at the end of the season, its perfectly okay to leave the decay setting at Optimal. And there’s 0 reason to follow XATA or an improvement rate at this time. Personally, I recommend using the end of the season as a free ride/unstructured time of the year. Ride for the fun of it! That’s why we ride after all, right?
When you’re ready to get back into training, you may want to do some sort of BT effort to reset the signature and then switch back to No Decay if you’re going to be doing lots of base training without a lot of maximal efforts.
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Thanks Scott. I totally agree although it’s kind of hard watching 11 months of hard earned Training Load slip away. Hard but necessary I suppose.
Is is definitely harder to maintain it - I was off for only 6 days due to cataract surgery and TL slipped 20 points. Can’t imagine what 6 weeks would do 
@ManofSteele When I change it to Optimal do I have to lock the activity on the day I change it or does the new setting start at the time I change i?t I don’t particularly want it to do a recalculation to the last activity I may have locked
Thanks
I know It’s a bit depressing isn’t it. I’ve got grown up children and grandchildren at either ends of the country who we try and visit (Covid lockdowns permitting) alternately every 3 weeks when I have virtually a full week off. It takes me almost 2 weeks to get the TL back to where it was which leaves only 1 week to grow it before I’m off again!. Daren’t mention the frustration to my wife for obvious reasons!
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Just go to your most recent activity > Advanced MPA and click ‘Save’. This will lock your signature from the latest activity. Then change your Decay setting. And that’s it!
Even the professionals take up to 2-4 weeks off the bike each year. Detraining is just as important as training. Gives the body (and mind) important recovery and allows you to come back even stronger. I suspect that a look at FS data over the course of a few seasons might actually see an increase in the relationship between FS parameters (PP, HIE, TP), relative to their respective TL’s (Peak, High, Low) meaning that after a few seasons of steady training, you may be more fit at a TL of 100 than a few seasons ago. Can’t really prove that at this point, but I suspect it could be true for many athletes.
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