I’m going to be transitioning from going from a winter plan to a summer plan in a few weeks. Basically, I just want to spend the summer doing one less structured ride/week. So far, all my rides have been either SS, Threshold, or VO2.
My plan is to take a few months with a little less structure and spend more time enjoying myself on the bike while the days are long and the weather is nice.
Mon: off
Tue: TR
Wed: 2 hr z2
Thu: off
Fri: TR
Sat: 2 hr z2 with a few anaerobic efforts
Sun: 2 hr z2
My hunch is that my 2 TR workouts should be Threshold and VO2. Am I right that if I am going to sacrifice one of them, it should be the SS workout?
Depends how fresh you want to be for your Saturday ride. You could do high SS and get much of the same benefit for less fatigue potentially.
Initial pass my instinct was you’d want VO2 and Thresh. Seems like it’d be tough with that structure depending how hard your weekend rides are. (i.e group rides vs committed to Z2)
I only do 3 a week on the LV plan anyway but I think a SS workout would be my staple and I would rotate between a threshold and VO2max workout depending how I was feeling.
Yeah, I want to maximize growth/results on the 2 TR days and just have more days when I am enjoying the bike and not watching my power meter as closely or worrying about on-road interruptions.
Also, I know a 3rd TR day would quickly result in too much fatigue if I’m doing the volume that I want on the non-TR days. I don’t recover as quickly as I did when I was younger. I’ve been able to keep up my TR plan for the last 12 weeks but only because I am resting 4 days a week. Right now, I want more saddle time in the sun. Looking for a hybrid which is “some” really hard days but not as much as I’d get if I was still getting 4 rest days each week.
i’m doing a ‘specialty’ block (i’m doing it self designed, so take it with a grain of salt!). I just did my first week and did the following
Tues - 1.5 hrs over-unders (3x12)
Wed - 2hrs z2
Thurs - threshold (slightly over threshold)
Friday 2hrs z2
Sat - 2.5hrs with 2x30 @ 90%
Sun - 3hrs z2
Maybe something like over-unders type threshold coupled with a day of sweet spot would be good to have a bit of intensity with the over-unders, but the ability to recover more easily from SS. Personally I wouldn’t want to do a vo2 workout every week!
I’m willing to completely dedicate 2 days a week to structured TR workouts. I’m willing for them to be as hard as necessary.
I’m going to take 2 days off and do 3 free rides with whatever energy I have left.
Which 2 ride types (out of those 3) will make the biggest improvement in your fitness/speed? My assumption is that it would be threshold and vo2 but sometimes you hear “less is more” and stuff like that.
This has been my last few summers. Overall I am not sure what works best. One year I ensured one ride a week was vo2…other times it was sweet spot. Overall I found it to be more of a balancing act to keep yourself feeling fresh.
My view this year is to go back to my once a week vo2 and the other TR ride varying depending on my energy level.
I’m embarking on something similar… 2 TR indoor rides and 2 outside rides. My outside rides will be a group ride that is relatively high intensity for me and is about an hour ride. The second outside ride will be a longish Zone 2 ride of 3/4 hours. My plan is to make the two TR indoor rides Threshold and VO2 max. If I think I need to bring down the intensity one week I may either skip the group ride or swap the Threshold for a sweet spot ride. Just experimenting, but we’ll see if it helps me progress. Good luck.
2 x threshold (for example, one over-under and one steady state)
week 4:
rest, do one easy “maintenance” workout
→ repeat twice, and then swap the vo2 and threshold sessions for one 4 week cycle.
Idea here being that you’ll maintain your high-end aerobic abilities with those two vo2-workouts and focus on improving threshold power with the four remaining workouts. Vo2-sessions require you to be fresh and that’s why they are in the beginning of the cycle, after rest week. Switching the emphasis to vo2 in the third cycle prevents platoing by changing the stressor slightly.
If you feel like you don’t have enough base (or start to feel burnt out) I’d do only one high intensity session per week plus one sweetspot or tempo session until you feel ready to go again.
I was thinking about the same thing, since VO2max ( and sprints) detrain most quickly and can be hard to do on the road I’ll probably do some high intensity work either longer VO2max or sprints or an attacking workout from TrainNow
Why would you assume the OP will detract from his proposed plan? Possibly he has learnt from previous experience that not doing Z2 detracts from the plan ahead. Like you experienced.
He has said his rides will be Z2, at least offer him advice should he stick to that plan rather than go off on a tangent about yourself. Sounds like the OP is rather strict and adheres to programming seeing how the focus is now on fun.
I reread what I wrote & you’re 100% correct, my post makes assumptions based on my own habits & doesn’t answer what OP was asking, going to get rid of it.
I think it’s really easy to lose sight of this - I know I’m guilty of focusing on the process goals, metrics, and growth. And sometimes we forget that riding bikes is FUN.
I appreciate that you’ve centered your thoughts and training on this! I’ve done the same, but when I deviate from structure, I tend to get slower. So I’m also searching for a balance to put the FUN in FUNctional.
