CTL 90

Picked up a Nakamura membrane “soft shell” top for under €50 so that motivated me to go out and train the past few days – when there were gaps in the rain. During the Alpine summer the mornings are most often clear with storms arriving in the late afternoons. After Halloween it’s the opposite with the bad weather in the mornings and clear spells being forced open by the afternoon sun. The temperature has risen again so the ski resorts are not getting a great deal of benefit from the precipitation and they can’t artificially produce the snow either because that needs a temperature of -5°C or below. The only thing constant is the wind and that has made workouts the last two days particularly hard.

When hunting for clothing I came across these baby mice in a shop – all huddled together in the only shelter available.

With the bad weather there has been little motivation to photograph the mountains so I thought the mice would make a change anyway.

Didn’t have the same energy levels as last week due mainly to going to sleep too late each night.  I should aim to try to maintain a CTL (Chronic Training Load) of around 90 over the winter and it’s currently at 88 so that’s fine but it doesn’t leave any margin for periods when I can’t train at all – like when working long hours every day during the winter.  It took me three months to get back up to 90 at the start of June this year – so maintaining 90 would effectively give a 3 month head start next year.

The only thing I noticed on the bike during those workouts was that I could align the body (letting the hip move backwards) to push on the pedal easier when standing up just by moving the bottom over to the opposite side. Some people ski this way – by dropping the hips into a turn. I think it’s artificial in skiing and usually over done by those advocating it – but on the bike it feels just about right.

Even with the membrane I got chilled after an hour when I had to stop for a minute and failed to warm up again. The problem is that both my base layer and shirt were completely drenched with sweat after an hour and so was the polar interior of the membrane – so the insulation had failed already. Next time I’m going to put a plastic bin liner over my upper body before dressing so that it stops the sweat from soaking the layers. I just want to see if this can prevent the insulation from breaking down and the chill setting in.