The Year in Review - Looking ahead to 2016

Before looking ahead, very often it pays to look back.  In my role as a coach this is very often the first thing I do with new clients when I start to create a training plan for them. Before I decided to do actually analysis, I tried to remember how I felt about the races I did to see if my perception actually matched reality.  So here is a brief description of my recollection of the 2015 race season.

Race 1 - Hagerstown sprint duathlon: I remember I was not feeling well going into this race.  I got sick a week or so prior to the race.  I thought I did OK all things considered, but I definitely was not pleased with my time.

Race 2 - Cascade Lake sprint duathlon: I went into this race feeling pretty good and rested.  I came in second in my age group in a sprint to the line.

Race 3 - Meals on Wheels Sprint triathlon - I had no real goals for this race, I was "training through" this race. I felt that my run let me down a bit however.

Race 4:  MD Olympic duathlon: This was my A race.  I trained hard and did really well.  I was very pleased with the results.

Race 5: Fort Ritchie Olympic duathlon:  This was a "filler race", thrown in for "fun".  No fun was had, as the course was brutal and I was fighting a bit of a cold.  Despite this, I managed to win my age group.

Race 6: Parks 1/2 marathon: I got hurt 2 weeks before the race, but I am too cheap to give up my entry fee.  I struggled the last 2 miles but still managed a new PR.

Race 7:  Hagerstown sprint duathlon: I was ready to pack it in for the season and recover from my various niggling injuries, but since it was a sprint I decided to have a go at it.  I managed to win my age group, but just barely.


Last year I began paying attention to my training stress balance or TSB.  Training stress balance helps you predict when you are in peak racing form.  Of course there is an element of trial and error when you first start looking at your TSB to know what TSB will produce the best results.  According to Allen and Coggan in their book Racing and Training with a Power Meter, "The majority of personal bests occurred with TSBs between -5 and +15." Based on this statement and using my perception of my training fatigue and perception of the quality of my training I decided to try and hit TSBs that were slightly positive going into my races.  Let's see if my TSBs were at all predictive of my results.

Race 1 TSB: +11

As noted I was not feeling well going into this race so I took the last week before the race off.  Hence my TSB shot up to 11.  Coupled with my less than perfect health I had only a mediocre race.

Race 2 TSB: -2

I had a great race!  Read the full race report here. I ran and cycled to my training potential in this race and it showed with a very competitive second place in my age group just missing out on first in the sprint to the line.

Race 3 TSB: +5

Despite the fact I had no real goals for this race, I felt I underperformed.  When I looked back on my training leading up to the race, I saw I took the 4 days leading up to the race as either totally rest or very easy.  In hindsight, I should have continued training normally right up to the race with perhaps only 1 day rest day.  Since I am racing this race again this year, I will modify the run up to the race accordingly and see if my results are better.

Race 4 TSB: -2

This was my "A" race for the year.  Check out the full race report here.  My goal was to PR the course and I did, so I was very happy with my performance.  Scoring a top 10 didn't hurt either.  I had my best and most consistent training of the year when I look back on my training leading up to the race.  Three weeks prior to the race I hit my highest FTP of the year during my quarterly FTP test. This is probably a good 8 week period to emulate in the run up to future import races.

Race 5 TSB: +2

I added this race late in the season to have something to do.  It was fun and very challenging. Unfortunately I got sick and missed some key workouts so I went in undertrained.  Given that there was a 4 mile climb on the course, this obviously had an effect.  I still managed to take first place in my age group, but I chalk that up more to luck than preparation.

Race 6 TSB: +17

I upped my run mileage significantly going into my longest run of the year and the result?  Hamstring tendonitis.   I had to cut back on my training significantly to even be able to run the race.  Hence the super high TSB.  Luckily I had built up enough stamina to run a decent race and I collected a PR in the process.  Despite that I feel I have a better race in my legs since I was unable to really run fast on the downhills.

Race 7 TSB: -1

Not my best race, but not my worst either.  I was nearing full recovery going into the race but not with the volume of training I normally would have had going into a sprint.  I managed to grab first place with a strong second run, overtaking the leader with about 1.5 miles to go.  In addition, I had a good ride in some very bad crosswinds.

So what conclusions did I reach after all looking back?  My best performances came when TSB was 1 or less.  In addition, in all cases my TSB was increasing, i.e. coming from a lower TSB to my race day TSB.  The races I was most unhappy with were a result of injury or illness which caused me to miss sufficient training and which ultimately sabotaged my results.  It will be interesting to see how low my TSB can be before it affects race performance.  I should note that I always taper a bit before a race, even sprint races, so my TSB is always rising going into a race.  I may experiment with training right through some of my less important races this year.  I should also not that on many occasions my TSB was very negative during training, as low as -40 at one point!  Evidently rest (too much rest anyway) seemed to doom my results so I will up my volume this year assuming I can stay healthy and injury free, which is tough with a 5 year old son running around!

I hope the above analysis proves useful for you own training.

Peace and good training!

Coach Rob