Goal Date and workout recommendations

Thanks, makes sense and watching the video again that Ridgerider2 linked also explained this.

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that video was a good re watch on specificity, that answered my question. I’ll have to experiment with my rides to figure out best how to do the workouts. Still trying to get all the pieces working, am I going to use my garmin or the IOS app on my phone? I have a garmin 530, I’m going to play with that now and see what fields I can get on the screen? Necessary to upgrade? I did crack my screen a week ago but computer still working fine, wouldn’t be against an upgrade soon if Xert works better on the 1030?

I do have a question regarding my current training advisor. Focus says 19:28 but interval target says 332. 19:28 is basically endurance but 332 is above my current TP. If I were to freestyle this workout I’d keep my power below LTP mostly with some efforts around 332 to drive the Focus down to the 19:28 correct?

I’ve been focusing on just doing hours at LTP while I figure out Xert. I think I’m just about ready to switch over and start following Xert’s recommendations on XSS and focus and stop paying attention to the hours. Looks like our Norcal weather might finally be changing after the next few days, the rain has been relentless. I’ve been forced to ride according to the weather more than a planned workout, I do long rides (5-7 hours) on the rare dry day we’ve had the last 6 weeks then squeeze in other rides on trainer or outdoors during little breaks in the rain.

spent some time getting my garmin all setup, I have all the data fields (Focus, XSS, TTE, TTR, Difficulty) installed. Looks like the weather will allow me to get outside for 2-3 hours tomorrow so it will be my first time getting to do an Xert focused workout outside, looking forward to it.

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Yes. 332 watts comes from your power curve. Your 19:28 minute power is 332 watts. That is the point along the power curve to focus your training on today.
The numbers are calculated but not that exact so you could read your XATA page as –
20:00 minute focus duration point is goal for today (endurance quadrant).
Try to keep intervals around 332 watts and RIBs below LTP.
Ride until you reach about 210 XSS.
That will reduce your current deficit (459) by less than a half so you could ride longer if you want but it depends on what you plan to ride the next day to further reduce the deficit.
If you find you can’t keep up with Extreme-2 ramp rate week to week (needle consistently below Noon position on Training Pacer or dipping into red), lower IR to Extreme-1 and the numbers will recast.

With endurance rides (20:00 and higher focus) the hard part is not surging. Treat target watts as a max value. A single surge will drive focus down below 20:00 and it will be slow crawl (literally) to push the number back up.
The opposite occurs with a low number focus pt where you want to drive the number down and target watts can be treated more as a minimum value.

EBC app data fields on phone or Garmin Connect IQ data fields can be used for this purpose.

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Thanks, that’s the way I was understanding it just wanted to clarify. I’ve been fine on the extreme 2, this is the first time in 6 weeks that I’ve fallen behind just a little and that is mostly due to the weather. I decided to take a little rest for a couple of days and let this rain clear out of here. I’m finding ending this one week short of my XSS goal, I think I’ve had a surplus every other week. Now that I’ll be following Xert rather than Just riding hours at low LTP I expect to be riding less hours. I also assume Xert is predicting how many hours I’ll need in the future leading up to my goal date based on how I’ve been riding to this point?

I’ll add, I understand the not surging part and I’ve always ridden that way when doing endurance riding. It’s funny to see my riding friends who just don’t get it get all impatient on climbs when i’m sticking to a power limit and they just have to ride past me only to be caught and passed over the top then hoping to cling to my wheel on the flats. Everyone is a hero in the first hour of a 5+ hour ride also.

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Yes. You can check Projected Hours Needed under Goals or drag the ATP slider for estimated weekly hours based on how you’re doing week to week. It’s a moving target in that respect as you might be ahead of projections one week and behind a bit the next. As long as the Training Pacer needle wavers between 11am and 1pm you are “on pace” to meet your IR setting.

Yes, I can see the predicted hours for future weeks. What I was referring to is the actual hours being less because I’ll be doing more XSS when I start doing some intensity?

Was all ready to go for an outdoors focus workout today. Had all my garmin data screens setup, started the ride and all my numbers updated correctly and all was looking good. 10 seconds later the “focus” data disappears and never comes back. I stopped, turned computer off and back on and same thing happened, focus is there then goes away after 10 seconds.

Only thing I could think of is I had 4 of the Xert data fields running and I saw someone mention somewhere you can only run 3? Any other ideas? Photo attached.

To top it all off my computer shut off with 30 minutes left. I fear the rain got in through the screen I cracked a couple weeks ago. I hope not, but if so I’ll have to order a new garmin tonight.

XSS and XEP are in the bottom row in the photo, blocked by the update notification.