Training review after Charm City, and the plan to Ostrava
- Athlete: Sidney McGill
- Prepared: 2026-10-13 by Coach Luca
- Period reviewed: October 5-13, from the Monday after Charm City to today's starts and 30/30s.
- Evidence:
- The second-by-second files for all seven rides.
- The runs, core sessions, recovery spin and gym session she entered by hand.
- TrainingPeaks fitness (CTL, ATL, TSB) since August, her power bests since June, and last season's numbers for the same weeks.
- Her summer rides on the same home roads around Severn, as the heart-rate baseline.
- The daily logs for October 5-13 and the Kings forecast for Mason, OH.
- Every race and key session in the calendar to Ostrava.
- Status: approved by the operator and applied on 2026-10-15, together with the Kings-trip logistics and 30 extra easy minutes on endurance days after Kings. See "Applied on October 15" at the end, and the publish report for every ID.
Bottom line
- She did the work.
- Every planned ride from Tuesday on is done.
- She's running again: three runs are logged.
- She followed the recovery days exactly, with Tuesday and Wednesday at an average heart rate of 119.
- Her engine is in good shape.
- Threshold is close to her summer level: 271 W for 10 minutes in Friday's first set (with surges), against 275-289 W in August.
- Top end: her best 30 seconds (446 W) and best minute (369 W) today were the highest since the race block started.
- Aerobic durability is excellent: on Saturday's 2:30 ride, her power-to-heart-rate ratio drifted only 0.4% from the first half to the second.
- The limiter shows in training exactly as it does in races. She hits the target early, then fades.
- Friday: set 1 was on target at 249 W between surges. Sets 2 and 3 were at 213-222 W, and she cut set 3 to 8 minutes, exactly as the session's rule says when set 2 drops under 235 W.
- Today: strong starts, but every 45-second follow-through was 6-19% short, and the second set of 30/30s was about 10% short.
- Since September 24, none of her five key sessions has been completed fully on target. This week, at least, the first set was on target both times.
- She's tired, but not run down.
- Her heart rate at steady power is normal for her home roads in cool weather (131-137).
- Her maximum heart rate in intervals (172-174) matches the summer.
- None of this looks like the suppressed week after Roanoke.
- Three things probably made the fade worse this week:
- An unplanned leg session at the gym ("Peak": squats, Bulgarian split squats, jumps) on Thursday evening, the night before the threshold session.
- More fatigue than TrainingPeaks shows. Her runs and Monday's spin were entered by hand without files, so they carry no load. Counting them, tomorrow's TSB is about -18, not -11.
- No feedback. There's nothing from Sidney in the daily logs since Charm City and no sleep or fuelling information, and the morning plans haven't reached her since October 5.
- Fitness is flat and lower than the original plan.
- CTL is 67.5. It has been level since late August, and it was 66.4 on this date last year.
- On the current plan it reaches about 70 at Ostrava. That's below last season's 75 at the Tábor World Cup, and well below the 79 in the September plan.
- Racing and travelling every weekend has set that ceiling. The fitness gain has to come from the December block, so a top-10 is still most likely in the late-December and January rounds, as the September review said.
- What I recommend changing:
- Kings: realistic targets (lap 1 no more than 235 W, laps 2-4 at 225 W or more), a rule for Manon's surges, and a cool-weather staging routine.
- This week: a shorter, easier ride on Wednesday, and no leg gym before Kings.
- Key sessions: reachable targets for start follow-throughs and VO2 reps, with a stop rule and a fuelling rule in each one.
- Race targets to Boulder: reset to what she can race now.
- After PanAm and after Boulder: an easy Tuesday and one key session on Wednesday, instead of two hard days in a row before travel.
The last nine days
- Training load: 482 TSS for October 5-11 in TrainingPeaks, plus two runs and a gym session it doesn't count. 12.8 hours on the bike from October 6 to 13.
- Hand-entered items:
- All three runs, the three core sessions and Monday's spin were entered together this morning, without files.
- The core sessions show 1 hour each, against a 15-20 minute routine.
- TrainingPeaks gives none of them any load, and we can't check how the runs went.
- The gym session: Sidney added it to Thursday evening herself: "Squats, Bulgarian squats, jumps, rows, core, etc." It's the only lower-body strength work in TrainingPeaks since the summer gym block ended on September 1.
Quality of the key sessions
Friday: threshold with surges, 3 x 12 min
Target: 247-260 W between 10-second surges at 468-520 W, every 90 seconds.
- Set 1 was a high-quality threshold set: 13 minutes at 267 W average with eight surges, at a heart rate well under threshold. That's her summer engine.
- Even in set 1, the surges were 9-18% under target. 428 W for 10 seconds is roughly what she can repeat right now, not 468-520 W.
- From set 2 on, her power fell and her heart rate fell with it.
- That points to her legs (muscle fatigue), not her heart and lungs.
- The most likely extra cause is the leg session at the gym about 18 hours earlier.
Today: starts and 30/30s
- The recoveries weren't the problem. She rode them at about 40 W, close to coasting, so the fade didn't come from riding the recoveries too hard.
- The follow-through is the Charm City problem in miniature: a strong first 15-20 seconds, then a big drop.
- The target was a maximal effort every time. A full start plus a follow-through at 325 W adds up to about 365-380 W for the minute. That equals her best minute of the season, and the session asked for it six times.
Sunday: no sweet spot
- She didn't attempt the 3 x 10 min at 229-244 W: no 10-minute stretch of the ride was above 190 W.
- The ride itself (2:52 with several stops) still gave the aerobic work.
- I don't know whether she skipped the sweet spot because of her legs, the route or the company.
The pattern since September 24
- Short sessions go well. Her openers on pre-ride days are on or near target (October 2 and 8).
- Long, multi-set sessions don't. Racing and travel every weekend leave room for one short, sharp session a week, not long multi-set ones.
- The plan has to work with that, not against it. Sidney's worry about overcooking herself in this block was well founded.
Where she is now
Readiness: tired, not suppressed
Heart rate in 60-second windows at a steady 165-195 W:
- Slightly below her summer norm, which the cold weather explains.
- Her maximum heart rate in this week's interval sessions (172-174) matches her summer interval sessions (172-179).
- Interval days read 136-140.
- Thursday's readiness check was set up wrongly.
- The rule in TrainingPeaks treated her race-trip pre-ride range (145-155) as normal.
- On her home roads in cool weather, normal is about 130-145. So Thursday's 132, with openers above target, was a pass, and going ahead on Friday was right.
- Future checks will use the baseline for where she is.
Power: the engine is there, the repeatability isn't yet
The columns aren't like for like:
- The summer bests include dedicated tests: 20 minutes at 270 W on August 19, and a short-power test on August 20.
- The race-block values come mostly from races, where the format limits long power.
What the numbers say:
- Threshold: close to her summer level when she's fresh. FTP 260 W still fits, and the November 11 test will confirm it.
- Short power: coming back, but still 15-20% under the August test.
- Repeatability: this is the gap. She can produce the numbers once, but not again a few minutes later.
Load and fitness
- CTL has been flat at 64-68 since late August. On this date last year it was 66.4.
- Last season from here:
- A two-week overload took CTL to 93.5 by October 26 (TSB -79).
- It then fell to 75.5 at the Tábor World Cup (November 23) and 71.7 a week later.
- The January World Cups, at 241-254 W NP, produced placings around 24th.
- This season's plan has come down in steps:
- The September 23 plan had CTL 79 at Ostrava.
- The Roanoke revision, with lighter race weeks at Sidney's request, brought it to about 71.
- The Charm City recovery week took it to 70.8.
- On the current plan it's now about 70. With the changes below it would be about 68, with TSB +5.
- The plain reading:
- She'll reach Ostrava about as fit as she is now, and fresher and sharper, but not fitter than last year.
- That's the price of racing every UCI weekend with travel, which is the right call for start-row points.
- The fitness gain has to come from the December 1-12 block, and that's where the top-10 chance is built.
- The one cheap lever, if you want more fitness at Ostrava:
- 30 extra minutes of easy riding on the endurance days, worth about 2-3 CTL points by Ostrava.
- I'd only add it once her heart rate and session quality show she's absorbing the current load, and not before Kings.
What's getting in the way
- Unplanned leg strength work.
- The race-block plan has light core only.
- A leg session the evening before a threshold day is the worst possible place for strength work.
- Load that doesn't show.
- Her runs, Monday's spin and the gym session carry no TSS, and the core sessions show 1 hour each.
- So TrainingPeaks understates her fatigue, on top of already understating what racing and travel cost her.
- No coaching loop.
- The morning plans have been saved but not sent every day since October 5.
- The automated TrainingPeaks lookups failed with an authentication error on October 12 and 13.
- Only Friday's session has an RPE.
- Until this is fixed, the TrainingPeaks descriptions are the only coaching that reaches her. That's why every rule below goes into the descriptions.
- Fuelling is unknown.
- The late-session fade fits muscle fatigue more than low carbohydrate.
- But with Hashimoto's and a GF/DF diet, under-fuelling on key days is a real risk, and there's been no nutrition log since June.
- Travel.
- Mason to Indianapolis is two hours.
- If she drives home to Severn between Kings and Major Taylor, that's about 20 hours of driving in four days.
- A mid-week base near Indianapolis would save more fatigue than any change to the sessions.
Kings, October 17-18
Forecast for Mason, OH:
- Thursday: showers, 23°C.
- Friday: drizzle and gusty wind (about 30 km/h), 20°C. Expect a wet pre-ride.
- Saturday: dry and overcast. 8°C in the morning, 12-14°C in the afternoon, light wind.
- Sunday: sunny, 16-18°C in the afternoon.
The course should dry through the weekend, so Sunday should be fast. No heat protocol is needed.
Proposed changes:
Why lower targets:
- Her race NP this season is 208-224 W.
- Only two of her race laps went above 235 W:
- Roanoke C1, lap 1 (245 W). She faded afterwards.
- Charm City C2, laps 1-2 (241 and 239 W), with four minutes of dead legs in between.
- When she held lap 1 to about 222 W, on Charm City C1, she raced evenly and finished strongly.
- The targets should keep her in the race, not license an early blow-up.
Effect: Kings C1 morning TSB of about -2 instead of -3 in TrainingPeaks terms, or about -6 instead of -8 counting her runs. A small gain, at almost no cost to fitness.
The plan to Ostrava: what to change
Key sessions: reachable targets, a stop rule and a fuelling rule
The aim is the same stimulus at a level she can repeat. A set ridden 15% under target isn't building repeatability; it's building fatigue.
Race targets to Boulder
- The surge rule goes into every race, Hardwood included.
- Nationals and PanAm get slightly higher numbers because she'll be freshest for them.
- I'll re-check the targets after every race weekend, as now.
After PanAm: November 9-11
Why:
- On the Tuesday after Roanoke she was exhausted, and the sweet spot failed.
- The Tuesday after PanAm, DCCX and a nine-hour drive will be similar.
- A tired FTP test would set her European targets too low, three days before a C1 at altitude.
After Boulder: November 16-20
Why:
- The current plan puts two hard days straight after an altitude race weekend, then a flight to Europe at TSB -14.
- With one key session on Wednesday, she rides it fresh (TSB about -2 instead of -10) and flies at about -10.
- The 30/30s drop out. The two Boulder races and the race-pace session in Ostrava week cover that energy system.
What it costs
TrainingPeaks values, assuming her runs are recorded from now on.
- Cost: about 2 CTL points at Ostrava.
- Gain:
- She rides the two key sessions before Europe fresh, and she flies about 5 points fresher.
- Her deepest fatigue before Ostrava goes from -15 to about -10.
- Why I'd take that trade: fatigue has cost Sidney more than TSS shows every time: Roanoke, Charm City and this week.
Strength work
- What she asked for: her own requirement for this block was a light core routine, and the plan has had nothing heavier since September 24.
- Recommendation: no lower-body gym work until the December block, and none before Kings. Light core continues.
- If she wants strength during the race block anyway, it has to be regular and small, not occasional and heavy. The first session after a break causes the most soreness, which is exactly what Friday ran into.
- Once a week, after the key bike session.
- At least 72 hours before a race.
- 2 sets of 4-6 reps, with no jumps to failure and no new exercises.
- Either way, strength gets a proper place in the December block.
To review later
- Ostrava targets: after the November 11 test and PanAm.
- The extra-volume lever (30 more minutes on endurance days): after Kings, based on her heart rate and session quality.
- Nationals week:
- Hardwood is close to her Severn base, so she can sleep at home and may be able to ride the venue's trails before the course is taped.
- I'll write the Nationals plan after Major Taylor.
- The December 1-12 block: the main fitness block of the season. I'll plan it after PanAm.
Questions for Sidney
- Peak: what is it (a class, a coach, her own program), and how often does she plan to go? Did the core sessions logged as 1 hour include leg work?
- Sunday: why was the sweet spot skipped: her legs, the route or the company?
- Today: was the run before or after the bike session?
- How is she? Sleep, legs and motivation this week. Until messages work, a one-line comment plus the feeling and RPE fields in TrainingPeaks after each session would do.
- Logistics: where will she stay from October 19 to 22? And what are the Kings start times?
- Recording: please record runs and spins with her watch, so they count and can be checked.
Process fixes
- Morning-plan delivery and the automated TrainingPeaks lookups need fixing. The plans have been saved but not sent since October 5, and the lookups hit authentication errors on October 12-13.
- Pit-bike power meter, and trainer power for warm-ups. Still open since Charm City.
- Run threshold pace in TrainingPeaks is still 6:13/km, so the run targets read too slow. It needs her current value.
- Readiness checks will use the baseline for where she is:
- Home roads in cool weather: normal is about 130-145, and under about 125 means suppressed.
- Race-trip pre-rides: normal is about 145-155.
Approval
With your approval I'll update the calendar files and the matching TrainingPeaks items by ID, in three blocks. Block A is time-sensitive, because Wednesday's ride is tomorrow.
A. Kings week
- Wednesday October 14 endurance (3968330124).
- Thursday October 15 run note (3968330129).
- Friday October 16 pre-ride note (3968330132).
- Kings C1 and C2 events (40520362, 40520363).
B. Targets and key sessions
- October 21 session targets (3968330154).
- October 27 swap rule (3968330178).
- The stop and fuelling rules in the key sessions on October 21, October 27, November 4 and November 23 (3968330154, 3968330178, 3968330202, 3968330292).
- Race targets and the surge rule:
- Major Taylor (40520364, 40520365).
- Nationals (40520367).
- PanAm (40520369).
- DCCX (40520370).
- Boulder (40520371, 40520372).
- The surge rule alone for Hardwood (40520368).
C. The weeks after PanAm and Boulder
- November 10 endurance (3968330227).
- November 11 option day: the FTP test (3968330232) plus a new option B.
- November 17-19 restructure (3968330267, 3968330277, 3968330280, 3968330270, 3968330283).
Applied on October 15
The operator approved the review and added three things:
- More fitness for Ostrava: 30 extra easy minutes on endurance days after Kings.
- Logistics:
- Sidney drives to Ohio on October 15 and arrives late.
- After Sunday's Kings race she drives to a friend's place in Illinois, and stays there until she drives to Major Taylor on Friday morning.
- On the Monday after Major Taylor she drives home to Ontario.
- A possible further increase in load after Kings.
What changed beyond the proposals above:
- Today, October 15:
- The leg-opener is 20 min on the trainer if she arrives before about 9 pm. Otherwise she skips it; Friday's pre-ride has the openers.
- The run is skipped.
- Monday October 19: a recovery day in Illinois with no travel.
- Tuesday October 20: "Endurance 1:45" (was 1:15).
- Thursday October 22: "Endurance 1:15 with openers" (was a 45 min leg-opener), because there's no travel that day.
- Friday October 23: the drive to Indianapolis moved to Friday morning.
- Monday October 26: riding is optional on the 10-11 hour drive home.
- October 27-28: the VO2 session moved to Wednesday, so it isn't ridden the day after the drive.
- November 10 and 17: easy 2:00 rides instead of the 1:30 proposed.
- November 19: 2:00 with 6 starts, instead of 1:30.
- The cut-back rule: every extra 30 minutes has one at the top of its description. She rides the full time only if her legs feel normal after 20 min and her heart rate comes up to about 125 or more at a steady 170-190 W.
- Strength: the Peak questions are still open, and no TrainingPeaks item was changed for them.
Projected load (TrainingPeaks values, with October 14-15 as ridden or estimated):
- The extra easy minutes are worth about 2 CTL points at Ostrava (69 with them, 67 if she cuts them all).
- That brings Ostrava back to the same CTL as before the review. The difference is that the hard sessions before Europe are now ridden much fresher.
- Kings starts fresh. She rode Wednesday's 1:30 very easy (NP 141 W), and Thursday is a travel day.
- The next steps up, if Kings and the October 21 session show she's absorbing the load, together about 1-1.5 more CTL points:
- 30 more minutes on the Tuesday of Nationals week.
- 30-minute endurance tails after the October 21 and November 18 key sessions.
- A longer Sunday ride in Europe.