The Data Addiction

We are all guilty of it. You upload a ride, APIs work overtime, and within minutes you are staring at the charts. One line that constantly catches my eye is “the blue line.” In Intervals.icu, it is called Chronic Training Load (CTL). In cycling jargon: your ‘Fitness’. Strava also displays this information (only in the paid version), as does TrainingPeaks.

If that line goes up, you feel like a champion. If it drops after a recovery week, panic strikes as if all your hard-earned gains vanished in one fell swoop.