How do others balance intense interval workouts with recovery during a busy work week? With a full-time job and family commitments, finding the right balance between pushing hard and allowing enough recovery time can be tough. Please guide, how to structure workouts to maintain fitness without overtraining?
Hey @Berengar,
Welcome to the forum! 
You’re in the right place to get some good insights for this type of question. 
The first thing I’d tell you here is to find the specific type of plan that will work for your lifestyle long-term. This means discovering how much volume you can comfortably handle, how much intensity you can manage, and even which type of training suits you best.
For most of us, there are more important things in life than training, and it’s important to not let our time on the bike negatively impact our time with our families, at work, etc. If at any point you feel this happening, it’s time to make some adjustments to your plan.
We typically recommend that athletes new to TR start with a low-volume plan, and slowly add in volume/intensity as they adjust to the workload. Some people do well with a bit more volume but less intensity which is where our masters plans come into play. You can turn any training plan into a masters version which limits intense workouts to twice a week.
Others might need more intensity to continue to progress but aren’t able to spend as much time on the bike. Most low-volume plans have three workouts a week which are all higher intensity.
When it comes to arranging your workouts throughout your week, I’d recommend laying out your personal commitments in a calendar including all of the small details to see where the bigger chunks of free time are. From there, you can start to fill them in with workouts while positioning those harder workouts in the spots where you’ll have more time to recover the following day(s).
It’s also important to remember that Adaptive Training will make changes to your plan over time so don’t worry about missing a scheduled workout. It’s going to happen at some point! 
For a long time, I was getting my workouts in before work Tuesday - Thursday, and then getting up early to get the last two in on Saturday and Sunday. There were days when I needed the extra rest during the week and didn’t get up to do my workout, and there were also weekends where I wasn’t able to train, or didn’t want to be fatigued and skipped one or both of those hard workouts (spending all day at the ski resort with a highly ambitious 11-year-old after a 90-minute threshold workout at the end of a long week isn’t advised).
At the end of the day, our plans are highly customizable and extremely flexible, so I’m sure we can get something to work. If at any point you’d like some help looking at your schedule, just shout! I’d be happy to take a look. 
Best of luck!
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I’m sure you’ll get lots of different advice, but here is mine.
Firstly, I found using TR brilliant for a busy schedule. I used a low volume training plan, and had my structured workouts at at 45 minutes (3 of them). On top of this I have friends off and would often go out for 2-3 hours with a 4-6 weekly 8 hour ride. I know now everyone can do this, but it’s about fitting in what you can where you can.
It’s also about being kind to yourself. If you really don’t feel like it one day, don’t do it. That doesn’t mean you need to do double tomorrow. Just accept it and move on.
My weeks this year have looked like this:
Monday - 45 minutes
Tuesday - 45 minutes (often cycling home from work following structure as best I can)
Wednesday - 45-60 minute (again, cycling to work some times)
Thursday - rest day. Maybe some yoga
Friday - 2-3 hour ride. Just riding, probably mostly Z2 but thoughtless really. Enjoying it.
Weekends - mostly rest, but I did train for a 216km hilly ride this year so would be out occasionally for a longer ride but tried to avoid to spend time with family.
I know my week is a bit skewed, but for me it works with my other commitments, work and life. Also, the structured workouts are not very long so it’s not so bad for recovery.
I planned for roughly 4 hours a week. From April I ended up having mostly 6-8 hour weeks until end on June. Since then back to 4 hours, and had some lovely rest weeks of barely anything 
I know over the summer with kids I won’t get out much, do I’m not going to worry. Get out when I can and enjoy whatever I manage.
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I hear 
you. Same boat. Sadly I have not found any magical 
solution.
I’ve learnt I have to be clear on my overall priorities. In my case, I can be grumpy when pushing hard so when it’s tough with the family or tough with work I back off the training. Especially if I’m losing sleep.
Not always happy about it, but I’ve made my peace 
with it.
Forgot to add I’ve found getting enough protein (1.5g per kg of body weight) to really help with recovery.
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It’s all about routine and communication with your partner. Younger kids are more of a challenge than when they are in their teen years. Also if they are in a lot of activities that of course compounds things as well.
My wife likes to do yoga, cardio & weights after work (and before dinner). That gives me 60-90 min for a ride. Weekends, as long as I’m back mid-morning as our kids get going (they are teens and like to sleep in), it’s all good. This means all-day rides and driving to places (which counts as bike time) is a no go. Ultimately it’s about being present and letting your partner know that they, and the family, are the priority.
It wasn’t always like this. Took time to find a routine that works. Best of luck to you!
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Personally, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t do a traditional type Tuesday / Thursday interval schedule. There isn’t enough time between the sessions for recovery. I need like 2-4 days between very hard sessions. Of course that means following an 8 to 10 day microcycle.
I’ve also found that a Vo2max 5x5 session (25 minutes in zone) is just way too much at once for me even though I can complete the workout just fine. I end up needing 4-5 days of recovery.
I’m 58 years old so YMMV.
Interestingly, this jives with Seiler’s polarized ideas. He says 2 hard sessions out of 10.