A lesson in following a plan on variable terrain and conditions.
Here’s the list of Recommendations from this morning’s Xert Adaptive Training Advisor. You can find yours on the “Training” sub-menu of your Xert Main page.
Let’s break this information down, line by line…
The first line says this:
“It’s Thursday. You usually start your rides around 8:15 am. Given all the work you’ve done this week, and your goals, you are 276 XSS points behind the weekly volume goal.”
Line two says this:
“You’re still in the BUILD phase, given that Mid-November is still a ways out.”
Line 3 is telling me that for THIS RIDE, given the mix of VOLUME and INTENSITY that I have already done, and what my goals are, I should be FOCUSING on a SLOWER RIDE, with a “FOCUS” (a term I’ll describe in another post), should be OUT (further from 00:00 intensity), to 22 minutes and 6 seconds.
Note: This is REALLY hard to do (ride aerobically enough and slow enough), outdoors on a mountain bike…
Line 4 is telling me that IF I want to attempt some intervals, which will also muck with my FOCUS, then it SUGGESTS a target of 282 watts. Again – as you’ll see on my Xert ride and Strava Links, there is just NO WAY that I was going to hold my power down to 282 watts on some of these trail segments. Still – it’s a nice measurement to have, especially if you’re a road cyclist and you’re trying to govern your efforts in a BUILD period.
Line 5, though, is the really important line. It’s telling me that today’s GOAL XSS should be around 98 points.
Now – let’s think about that. I’m 276 points in the hole for the week. If you read the paragraph below the lines, you’ll see that I need about 6 hours of training to get these 276 points. There’s NO WAY I can get there.
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
So – 98 points is the goal, and the secondary goal is a FOCUS of around 22:06.
Let’s see how I did…
Here’s the link to the ride in XERT: https://www.xertonline.com/activities/pqvdmljuh7wz91kh
98 Points was the goal? 98 Points Achieved.
Focus Duration goal was 22:06? Well, I just couldn’t pull that off, so I hit 9:24 to try and make it the right mix of XSS and Focus.
You’ll also notice that my “Specificity” was “Mixed”, and that means my watts were kind of all over the place – low, middle, high, pretty high… Just all over.
BUT – I’m still pretty happy with the ride.
NOW, let’s look and see how the Xert Adaptive Training Advisor is responding to the workout, and what it’s recommending for Tomorrow.
I’m still 276 points in the hole, I still need an endurance ride, and the recommendation is now 107 XSS with a slight change in Interval Targets at 284w.
Notice the triangle on the side of the dial.
That’s telling me that if I do what it recommends, I can expect the dial to be at THAT position at 8:15 tomorrow.
Follow the numbers, and do the work.
We’ll discuss the Rainbow in another blog post.
Thanks for reading!
