I’ve been using Xert to train for time trials, however since last August I’ve been battling a couple of injuries that just won’t go away properly. As a result I’ve decided to take time off from TTs , due to the injuries but also I haven’t been enjoying them as much recently.
I’ve been using the fitness I’ve built up to ride a few longer distance rides, Audaxs, and have found them to be a breath of fresh air and the more upright position isn’t causing me any issues really. I’m just curious to how other users of Xert and who ride long distance events use the system to train. My longer rides to date all come in around the 10 hour mark, are over 200km in length and about 3,000-3,500m of elevation. The focus for all three has been sprint time-triallist.
One of the challenges I’m considering is trying for the RRtY award (Randonneur Round the Year) which is a 200km ride every month for 12 consecutive calendar months. So I wouldn’t really have a peak form period, rather a fitness level that could be maintained, although I suspect the summer rides will be tougher and the winter rides flatter so a summer peak would be a good idea. How would people suggest I use Xert for something like that? Also how to deal with the fluctuation in XSS per week, as some of the rides I’ve ridden so far are coming in at 500xss, which isn’t an every week option (at least for me!) so will this affect the advice given regarding deficit/surplus? Also noticed that Xata seems to show me as fresh and recommending intensity the day after a 10hour ride, yet my legs feel like they could fall off (going down stairs is an issue!)
Anyway, was just wondering if anybody else has any insights/advice into this sort of cycling.
An interesting post. It raises lots of possibilities.
One aspect that struck me is that after a 500XSS ride it is still showing you as fresh. Clearly you can adjust the freshness slider to correct Xert’s view, but you shouldn’t have to. What is your training load on a normal week and and on a big ride week?.
It shows me as tired the day I do the long ride, but fresh the next. My training load is between late 90s normally and around 100/102 on a long ride week. On the long ride weeks I have been reducing the number of midweek sessions, when I was training for TTs I trained six days a week with the load more evenly spread. The way I’ve been managing it is on the weeks I have a big ride planned at the weekend I switch to maintenance and then for a week with a more even spread I change IR to slow, I am currently at four stars for TL and to increase that isn’t really important to me as my long rides aren’t competitive, although there are plenty of challenges/awards to go for in the Audax world that I was completely unaware of until recently.
I’ll start by saying that I have 0 (zero) experience with 10h rides, or anything longer than 4h for that matter.
But similar (ish) to you I’m building up to do a century a month (160km).
I’m on a early stage as my intension is to start the century rides in September.
At the moment my plan is to just build volume and define a nutrition strategy. And at Sundays I do longer rides at 90%LTP.
My athlete type is Rouleur, because I’m in a rolling hills area and I find longer durations boring. Again I’m betting on volume.
From this far away, I’m planning to keep the week after the century ride with the same total xss. (Edit:TBC will be a easier week)
If the plan sticks, or get me anywhere, I might change specificity of my training… but I don’t have any other goal than do a century a month as a sub product of my training.
I must admit I got intrigued with the RRtY. Will read about it and that might be the 2022 challenge.
Interesting thread, keen to see what others will add and learn from it.
I currently have my rider type as climber, I’ve read other posts which suggest that, must admit I considered Rouleur as much for a change as anything else and most of the climbs here in the UK are less than 20minutes but at grades of up to 25%.
With a good base fitness it is still showing fresh as it is only intensity that would make the system show you as tired. It’s one of the problems of not being able to calculate sub threshold fatigue due to the many factors that go into it.