I’ve been using TR for a couple of years, just sporadically. I started at 90 FTP or something, now I’m at 150 FTP, I know numbers are very low, my weight is about 56kg and age 33.
Now I’m on a Low Volume plan, 3 days per week and I usually add one extra day during the week using the TrainNow feature.
The thing is that I want to start training a bit outdoor during the weekend, maybe not very long rides 2-3h max. But I’m a bit lost on that. I’ve been reading some threads and I see the common recomendation for the outdoor rides is to stick at Endurance zone, is this correct? Any tips or recommendations?
Endurance is the general recommendation, however you can go out riding to just have fun. Just remember that if you do anything harder than endurance (or go longer than your legs are prepared for) that may negatively impact upcoming workouts, especially in the next day.
Thanks!! Place where I live is completely flat and huge city so pretty hard to “have fun”, but instead I have fun tryint to follow the training plan with the Garmin during the ride.
So, to be sure my understanding is correct. In order to do this endurance workout, the right way is going to Workouts > filter by Zone “Endurance” and the workout length that I more or less want to do, scheduling for “Outside” and then sync my Garmin and load it, is this correct?
One of the challenges with structured outdoor training is what to focus on, hitting and maintaining the target numbers on your head unit….or the road, the traffic, junctions and keeping yourself safe. I will only ride short sharp intervals - say 1 min VO2 max - out on the road at 5am, when there is no one about and I am pretty sure I’ll be ok. I give longer, hard intervals a miss as I can’t focus on the numbers, and my own preservation. Also longer intervals in an urban environment are broken up by junctions, stop signs and roundabouts, so just are not consistent enough.
I find the endurance target too low on the road - ok, I can hit it, but the ride becomes too slow and too boring!
Tempo is easier - in my case I’ll have a target is approx 20w to 230w - which I can average around (weighted average power), accepting the in ride peaks and troughs, but also feel like I’m actually out, riding my bike.
You can do that or you can figure out what range of watts, what zone, or what rpe to ride and then just ride. Later, your activity will sync to calendar. Or you can push your endurance ride to outside.
You do not need a workout to ride endurance outside. Just ensure you keep the power mostly in zone 2. The endurance workouts in TR include some variations in the intensity to make them more interesting when riding indoors, but this variation you will automatically get due to wind, terrain, intersections, traffic etc when riding outdoors.
Being on a Low Volume plan is excellent for adding one or two unstructured outdoor rides at your discretion @yast
Like @buirechain mentioned, be mindful of how these extra rides affect your subsequent structured workouts.
Adding too much training stress to a training plan can be counterproductive and lead to overtraining. So, listening to your body and ensuring you’re getting enough rest every week is essential.
