I’m finding that TR advances progress to quickly, or lacks recovery as I age. I started a low volume rolling road race program and the first 6 weeks although I felt like I was pushing very hard on some workouts, most I would categorize as high moderate to hard effort. Almost made it through the 9th week, cratered on the 10th week. Now I’m facing one more week before a recovery week, and the AI adaptations seem to think that I have more in me than I do. This is the third season that I’ve experienced this. In my early 50’s, I seemed to be able to keep up with the progression (this was also pre-AI). Now, it seems that the progression gets ahead of me, and the only days that I look forward to the effort is during the recovery week. Have any of the old folks on here figured out how to use TR effectively? Obviously there are lots of variables that affect progress, but I’m pretty much ready to switch to a different tool that is better suited to what might be just the reality of age. Any suggestions are welcome.
Do you have your plan set to Masters?
I would make sure you are fueling for the rides, I have trouble doing this but it sure helps.
The masters plans make it so it’s two days a week of intensity and the rest endurance which might help but you might already be doing it.
If the adaptations are too much too soon maybe ratchet up your responses a notch, make the medium hard and the hard all out, that should slow it down I think.
Also do you have a fan, like a lasko fan? That can help a lot too.
Mike
Did you start with a base / build before the RRR ?
LV or MV plan?
At 70+ I found this eased me in when I started using TR
As mentioned above, are you on a masters plan? If not, you probably should be.
+1 on masters plan, but my first question would be how you are responding to your post workout feedback. TR should scale things down (or at least flatten the ramp) if you are saying workouts are “all out” or “very hard”. From what I can tell, that response is the main thing driving the ramp rate and you can make your future workouts harder, easier, or about the same based on your response.
The other thing that helps me (as a 55 yr old) is to do longer workouts on fewer days rather than shorter workouts on more days. When I’m training hard, pretty much all my volume happens on Tues/Thurs/Sat, so I get rest between all hard days and 2 days rest after saturday (my biggest day). Doing lots of back to back days can wear me down (I think it’s mental as much as physical, but the rest works for me regardless).
Thanks for the suggestions. I can’t find the masters setting, but I did notice when I went looking for it that there are now Masters plans, so maybe that’s a way to go.
I didn’t add extra base prior to the plan because I’ve been at this for quite a few years, so didn’t think it would be necessary. I’m still in Base 3 of the RRR.
Bumping up my response one category might help too. I try to pay attention during my last couple of efforts and use that as the gauge, but maybe I’m being too conservative.
The strange thing to me is that 2-3 months into a plan, I go from loving TR and my training to repeated failure. There is no progressive decline.
I’ve wondered about fuel, but that should manifest earlier in the plan, I would think. Decades of triathlon training probably has some habits cemented that might not be helping.
Is it possible to insert a rest week earlier when you are feeling tired? How many rest weeks did you get between weeks 1 and 10?
Ultimately, one should adjust by RPE and how your legs feel rather than being a slave to any plan.