I’m running a short term training plan for maybe the next 2 months. I’m time crunched, so I get 1-1.5hr per weekday with one weekend ride that can be dependably 3hrs. Sometimes I get lucky and have 4hr but can’t count on it. I also could do up to 1.5hr on the other weekend day, but nothing more. I like to take 1 day completely off to stay in my family’s good graces! I’m thinking of running something like this below. Let me know if you have any thoughts on how it is or how it could be better. Thanks!
M. 1hr easy (55-60% ftp)
T. 1hr with intervals equal to 10-20min of 30/30s (30s hard at 140-150% ftp)
W. 1hr with intervals equal to 15-30min of threshold (95-105% ftp)
Th. 1hr easy (55-60% ftp)
F. 1hr recovery ride (<50% ftp)
S. 3hr long ride with 30min SS in the middle (or other intervals)
S. off
Sunday is an off day, so my gut reaction was to switch Wednesday and Monday to make a harder 2 day Mon/Tue mini-block before all the easy work going into Saturday. after an off day.
FWIW I’d increase the easy days, for myself 55-60% is too easy. But that varies by individual.
I’d move your harder most important interval day to Monday. Early in the plan, far from event that’s likely the threshold session. Later on it would become the vo2 workouts
If you’re struggling with the second high intensity day I’d do it Thursday to spread it out. If you aren’t struggling I’d buddy it up and do it Tuesday
I think your endurance percentages are too low and would suggest you increase them fairly rapidly as you progress. At that duration I’d hope you could recover from 65% ftp. Likewise I don’t see value in a recovery tide of below 50% ftp. IMO better to take the day off entirely if you can’t handle anything more than that
I agree with WW, 1hr at 55% looks like a recovery ride to me.
Nothing wrong with that at all if that’s what your body needs, or following a hard day, but I would look to progress it up a bit.
I also think the Hard days being Tuesday and Thursday makes sense in terms of having a rest day and easy day before your hardest session. I’d do Monday and Thursday.
Thats a good thought that Ill consider. I was thinking of having back to back ‘hard days’ like T-W or whatever 2 days in a row to get some extra ‘stress’ to push up the training load / ‘fitness’. Also, Saturday is considerably harder so I was trying to freshen up for it. Your suggestion is classic tho
Switching W to M is not a bad idea, but idk how the legs would handle it after a relatively ‘big’ day on Saturday.
55-60% is probably ‘too easy’ for me to call endurance, its more like a recovery ride im not officially calling a recovery ride. If I just ride endurance and dont stare at the PM, I tend to average 65-70% ftp. I purposefully try to keep it down below 60%. My idea is that it’ll help me hit the intervals harder when it counts and/or recovery better from them. It does keep my TSS and ‘CTL’ / fitness lower than it would be otherwise tho. Not sure how much that matters for long term fitness but Id be happy to learn more it I should know
@trpnhntr@mailman You guys sort of had the same advice, also echoing the other people beforehand.
I dont struggle to recover at, say, 65% ftp, and that is my sort of ‘self-selected’ endurance pace (if I dont look at the PM and just ride along), but I purposefully keep it down around 200w because I feel like its helping me recover and get fresh. Do you think thats to my longer term detriment that Im not pushing more watts on these in-between workout days? I used to always ride around 65-70% ftp on these ‘just-endurance’ days in the past, but Ive purposefully kept it in the 55-60% range for the last maybe 2 or 3 years. Ive always been the guy to ‘train hard’ rather than ‘recover hard’ if you know what I mean. Ive got pretty high fitness for my training time, but I will admit that I havent really had any ftp bump in the past 2 years. I dont say that out of frustration, but just as a matter of fact. I think I may have tapped out what I can get from my available time that Ive got to train.
Im not too sure which interval I would call ‘most’ important because Im skipping racing CX this season for family reasons so I am just keeping the fitness up and moving the legs. I had the weekly workout sessions back to back to try to mimic the training stress I get from a big ride Saturday but during the week in a time-crunched way. Idk if its better or no different than doing to spread out with a recovery day between like @Power13 suggested. Maybe we need a math wiz with a TSS / CTL calc to chime in here! lol
I always figure the VO2 to be best first due to maximising stimulus.
You have very high fitness by memory so it feels a bit redundant me giving you advice, but my theory is you want to be able to maximise stimulus in VO2 which requires a decent level of freshness, whereas for Threshold you can achieve a very nearly the same stimulus for a few Watts under when fatigued/have a better chance of making your way through threshold work with less freshness.
I think it’s not a binary thing with changing all your rides from 55-60% to say 70%. It’s just a means of increasing stimulus without increasing overall duration.
I’m not sure I see much value in staring at the power meter trying to keep your recover numbers below your “natural” endurance pace. I would just do an easy ride on those days and see where your numbers end up. If it’s above 70%, maybe you need to focus on keeping it down, but if it’s just an hour a few times a week that comes out at 60-70%, I don’t think that would hinder your harder efforts on other days and it would make your 60min endurance/recovery rides a lot simpler, allowing your brain to take a break.