Recovery with L4?

Watoni said:

I am doing relatively low CTL rides due to little daylight but with good SST content:

Example:

Day 1: 20 minute interval at IF 1.03, 45 minutes total.

Day 2: 70 minute interval at IF 0.923, 2.5 hours total

Day 3: 30 minute interval at IF 0.992, 18 minute interval at IF 1.03, 1.5 hours total

Day 4: 30 minute interval at IF 0.995, 50 minutes total

I am hoping for another 1.5 hours of SST/L4 tomorrow (total ride time roughly 2.5 hours) since I will be traveling and will be off the bike for 2-3 days, but can get some trail running or even skiing in. My TSB is -21 though, and with a CTL of under 50 the fatigue is building a bit.

Am I a wuss since only one of these rides is 150+ TSS?

No, you're not a wuss. You're just doing the best with the time you've got... Unless you're purposely avoiding an indoor trainer, then yes, you're a big wuss. 😄

Was there a question about recovery in there somewhere?
Bottom line, if the ATL curve is consistently far above the CTL curve, you're building considerable fatigue and it will catch up with you. If the ATL curve is just a little above CTL, it is said that you can sustain that training load for quite a while (2-4 months) without too much of a break. If your ATL curve is consistently below the CTL curve, you're recovering and will eventually lose fitness.

At least that's how it works in theory. I recently had to take a short recovery week after having neutral TSB for a month and still feeling like I was digging a hole. YMMV, I guess.

Piotr said:

No, you're not a wuss. You're just doing the best with the time you've got... Unless you're purposely avoiding an indoor trainer, then yes, you're a big wuss. 😄

Was there a question about recovery in there somewhere?
Bottom line, if the ATL curve is consistently far above the CTL curve, you're building considerable fatigue and it will catch up with you. If the ATL curve is just a little above CTL, it is said that you can sustain that training load for quite a while (2-4 months) without too much of a break. If your ATL curve is consistently below the CTL curve, you're recovering and will eventually lose fitness.

At least that's how it works in theory. I recently had to take a short recovery week after having neutral TSB for a month and still feeling like I was digging a hole. YMMV, I guess.

Thanks!

Yes, I was a bit tired and did not flesh out the question, which was based on reading Hunter/Andy's book and seeing that sub 150 TSS rides are "light" and that recovery should generally be complete by the next day, which I took to mean you should be able to do 150 TSS practically every day.

With my current CTL of roughly 50 and an ATL of 80, it makes sense to me that fatigue would be setting in.

If I were getting 150 TSS through longer endurance rides I would think recovery by the next day would be easier than with SST/L4, though, or is that irrelevant? Today's 2.25 hours with 24 minutes at 100% FTP and 45 minutes at 93% FTP was much harder than the SST/L4 work I did on Sunday even though both rides had roughly the same TSS ...

I guess we are all different in terms of recovery ...