Edgar, If you came into this program with a CTL of 65-70, I wouldn’t necessarily expect much increase yet. Depending on your weekly workout composition, 10-12 hours might not be sufficient to push CTL too much higher than 70CTL. Don’t worry, 65-70CTL at the start of a transition period could be a solid starting point.
Another point: we don’t always need to see an increase in CTL for it to be “good” training. Sometimes it’s good training simply adapting to a solid weekly volume.
The precise reduction in recovery week volume is very individualized, both in time and volume. The programmed recovery weeks show a reduction that would work well for a large group, but could be more individualized over time with good notes.
Regarding *feeling* beat up:
You raise a great point about your other stressors. If your sleep is impacted and compromised on a regular basis, that needs to be addressed if you want to keep ramping up your volume. If you can improve sleep quality, that would be a pretty convincing way to show that stress is being reduced.
It’s outside of the scope of the program to prescribe particular changes. One way to approach this could be to journal your daily activity to get a better overall picture. From there, you could start to identify areas to improve stress management. Some suggestions for the Covid WFH-era are identifying ways to compartmentalize work, or identifying ways to improve sleep hygiene.
If the 50k was well outside the time/vert of your typical long day, then feeling “beat up” could be due to “underrecovery”. This could be from the length of the race day, the pace, the terrain, or the eccentric loading on descents. Race days can take a toll and could require at least one deliberate recovery week or more. A recovery week post-race could have a notable reduction in volume. The body needs recovery and we have to let our CTL drop at various points in our training cycles.
If integrating strength/conditioning into your program is new, consider that 65-70CTL might not be the same as a previous 65-70CTL. This is one reason why it’s helpful to reduce training volume as you transition into a new program. 70CTL with familiar workouts feels different than 70CTL with a whole new set of weekly workouts.
