Getting back into structured training after years and years away from racing (have the excess kilos to show for it). I have been a sandbagging Cat3 for most of my life.
Question is wrt adding miles to SS base plans. I have avoided getting a coach to date, mainly because I tripped into the new trainer road platform and how well rounded it seems now that workouts are transportable to the out of doors. Which is / has been rad.
My timing is all off for the road season this year, but I want to work into a long base cycle into the fall. Build into early winter. Back off and sustain through the winter and then ramp up again in late feb.
Ok, all that said my question is basically about adding mileage outside to the sweet spot intervals. I have ample time to train. 4+ hours a day. And what I want to do is add low intensity volume to all of the published workouts. So should I add an hour to the front and back of these rides? Front? Back? Or not do it at all and just do the damn workouts as published?
I’ve been back on the bike for awhile now and can easily handle 250-350 mile weeks. I would just like to come out of the base work with some seriously miles in my legs as well as some FTP bumping.
There also is the high volume traditional base plan to consider. Longer term plan but seems to fit what you’re looking for since you have the time to dedicate to it.
My first TrainerRoad plan was SSB-1 high-volume in Dec 2017. Had a huge (for me) aerobic base in May for double century with CTL peaking at 90. Took the summer off before rebuilding for a November climbing gran fondo, and had ramped CTL up to 70 for that event (averaging 500 TSS/week). Then a couple unstructured weeks before starting SSB-1-HV.
Don’t think I could have handled extra outside rides, and instead I did some substitutions with higher TSS and took extra recovery days. Ended week 5 of the plan (Jan 2018) with a 2.5 hour climb and personal best for an HC climb. For context I’ve only been cycling since Jan 2016 and masters 55+ at 95kg.
Hope that helps. Everyone is different, and on the podcast they advocate starting with low-volume if you are going to do a lot of outside riding.
If you’re new the advice is to take a plan with lower volumes than you think you can handle. The reason for this is working through a plan consistently. Often you don’t feel the effects of the structured volume until week 3-4, and by then you can be pretty deep into a hole if you bite off more than you can chew. It’s far easier to add the odd workout in as well, including outdoor rides, than have to go about cutting workouts from plans.
This is good advice. It is appreciated.
I’ve been riding and racing off and on for 27 years. God i’m old. Anyhoooo
At the core of my question about this isn’t so much total strain of the block. Its more mixing of energy systems within this base period.
Personally I think that doing SS workouts after the end of 2000+kJ’s of riding is a better way to build in deeper aerobic conditioning near threshold.
I guess what I don’t know is whether or not this approach compromises the specific conditioning effects of the more focused SS workouts. Maybe this is better to do in SS Block 2.