I’m just back from a great 2 week holiday. I managed to only fit in 1 good hill session of 90mins and 3 easy spin outs at around 60% FTP with my wife.
Training was going good before the holiday. While away I did eat well and was active doing other stuff such as hiking and 1 x 2 hour kayak trip.
Should I return to plan, where I left off or - as I think I should - go back a couple of weeks in the plan before my hols and pick it up from there?
I’m still 3 months from my A race.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Doug
I am curious to hear what others say on this as I have experienced the same thing twice now this year. I am pretty new to TR having started this past December. My first trip was for 3 weeks to Europe, and I was not very active over there due to quarantine and restrictions. On my return I rebuilt my training plan and started back in SSB1 MV. Interestingly it took 4 weeks to fully recover from the FTP loss due to altitude, time-zone, and detraining adaption. The recovery was quite linear which was surprising to me.
Second trip I just returned from was also to Europe, but only 2 weeks, and I was more active since restrictions were being lifted. This time I decided to push my current training plan to create the 2 week window for the vacation, and the day after I returned, hit the ramp test and moved onto build. Really not sure which makes more sense and will see how this goes.
Since I don’t race, I used plan builder to build my plan around vacations. Vacation is either an easy week or a race week depending on how active I will be. This also sets me up for an FTP test when I return.
I find that if I just try to take a vacation in the middle of a plan, the first few days I’m back I will nail the plan because I’m rested, but then will hit an overtraining wall and have to take an easy week. So, if you’re not up for retaking the test or re-building your plan, I would go back and re-do the last week or two to avoid jumping in too fast and heavy.
Having said that, I’m in my 50s, so ymmv if you recover faster than I do.
