Hey all -
I’m a few months into TrainerRoad and curious about intensity. These weeks of 2 Sweetspot workouts and an Over/Under in the base phase are doable, but I always feel far from fresh when I start these higher intensity intervals. For example I did 2x40min Sweetspot on Tuesday at 91% FTP, did a 70% Z2 ride yesterday, then finished (barely) with 3x30min Sweetspot today at 90% FTP. I think there are a lot of levers I can pull… moving to a polarized plan in Build (but add hours), reducing intensity on Z2 rides, reducing FTP, etc. and was just curious any advice you all have from your experience. My biggest concern is making training sustainable, but if the answer is you shouldn’t feel fresh for every higher intensity workout I’ll suck it up 
Here is an example of this week for reference:
Hey @jlar2107,
Those custom workouts you’re following are intense!! 
Today’s workout burned 1,600kjs and was almost 150 TSS, and Tuesday’s workout was nearly the same.
Why are you consistently pushing yourself to do such hard workouts when you’re barely getting through them? Based on your description of how you’re feeling, I’d say this isn’t sustainable.
You want your hard workouts to feel hard, and you don’t always need to feel 100% fresh at the start of each one, but if you’re carrying fatigue that’s affecting your performance significantly in your workouts, I’d say that’s not a productive or sustainable way to train. You need to be pushing yourself to a point where you can still knock out the next workout with quality, and repeat that week after week.
Moving to a Polarzied plan really isn’t necessary. Polarized is just one training approach that is highly specific to your time-in-zone, and you aren’t going to get any of those sweet spot workouts in a Polarized plan. I’d argue that it’s really not the way to go for most.
Reducing your FTP isn’t necessarily going to help either. It’s clear that your FTP is probably set pretty well and if anything might be a bit on the low side. As a matter of fact, you just got an FTP bump from knocking out that level 9.2 workout today.
I’d recommend simply following your plan rather than substituting the prescribed workouts with these mega custom workouts. We’ll progress you in a way that’s sustainable. It’s all about stacking bricks one by one over time, not trying to carry all the bricks at once. 
If anyone tells you to suck it up and push through, they probably don’t know what they’re talking about. 
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A week where every TR workout is productive, coupled with a 0.75IF ride labelled Z2 and another outdoor ride to come… that’s a chunky week.
As a rule of thumb, today’s workout should only be so hard that you can complete the next scheduled one really, really well. If you consistently and persistently break that rule, it can come back to bite you pretty hard.
At first glance, I would say your ride yesterday, the Z2 one, was a bit fierce. If you had completed that at, say, 0.6 - 0.65IF, the 3x30 sweetspot would have been a bit more manageable - as sweetspot should be.
If you do picketguard+2 on Saturday, judge it as you go. IMO it would be better for you in the long run to call it a day after 4 of the 5 intervals if the 5th is going to put you in “barely completed” it territory.
I expect others will add to @eddiegrinwald 's comments along the same lines
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+1.
Looking at those workouts and at that intensity, I am curious where you are in your training? If you are building toward a goal race that is in the near future, or in a load phase, I can see how this may have some benefit. But… if you are in your off-season with your goal race a ways off, you might be doing too much, too soon. Of course it really all depends on your plan. If you are going to do a big build up, fully recover and then go again it could be a good long term approach.
My first thought looking at that week of training was to back off the intensity. Are they doable… yes. Are they sustainable long term? Maybe?
You are going to be tired, that’s a part of training. But as @eddiegrinwald mentioned, it should also be sustainable. I wasn’t always like this but now that I am older I prefer to push the bar up than overshoot it and drag it behind you. Train hard but “go to the well” sparingly. 
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Very helpful thanks Eddie! I was following the plan and felt really good about SS through workouts such as Hoyt, but then got served up Malkhet Hills and some other really tough ones that had like 70+ mins at 93-94% and felt like I was really putting myself in the red. That’s why I dropped to the custom SS workouts that were all at 90%. I might just use this PL reset to give it another shot with the prescribed plan.
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Very helpful thank you! I’ve done Picketguard +3 a few times so the reduction in the over intensity of the +2 should be a good, but achievable workout.
In fairness I was <0.7IF for the Z2 ride and decided to sprint at a short Zwift KOM right at the end I was shocked it brought my IF so much from only like 30 seconds of intensity.
I’m in offseason just trying to build fitness! I only started cycling in May so I suspect I’m pushing myself too hard, too early.
I was getting up to these prescribed Sweetspot workouts that were like 70mins of 93-94% FTP so that is why I dropped down to these longer, but lower intensity sweetspot intervals. I am going to try to dial it back a bit now that I have my PL reset from an FTP increase.
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That training plan is ridiculous. For less than 8 hours, that’s almost all slogging away. I would expect to burn out or just always feel tired.
If you insist on your hard workouts, make the inbetween day 55-60% ftp for 1 hour. The whole point should be to spin lightly and freshen up. Eliminate the workout on Saturday and do easy endurance both days. Better yet, have only one workout on Wednesday, easy then next two days, then keep the weekend intact
I wouldn’t do 3 workouts like that in a week. I would do 2 hard workouts and one (as shown) of those I would do at 80-85% ftp (tempo). At least that’s what has worked for me in the past.
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