Not going to address the “3 weeks left” question, rather I’ll agree and say that my own training is much better when I do more conditioning work than what was prescribed under the pre-AT TR LV (and MV) plans.
One basic concept from “Zone 2” (I hate that term) is that endurance riding builds conditioning. This is an old concept, so let’s dispense with z2 blah blah blah.
Listened to part of this podcast yesterday:
The beginning of this podcast lays out what I believe, based on experience. Summarizing:
- Consistently ride 5-6 days a week to establish conditioning
- Establish a rhythm of hard/moderate/easy days to build performance on top of conditioning
- Then focus on progression & periodization to optimize performance gains
My issue with riding 3 days a week - by skipping the first step (riding 5 days a week), I don’t have the conditioning needed to do the hard work and increase chances of optimizing performance. No, I don’t ride 15-30 hours/week like pros. But getting to 6-10 hours/week makes a huge difference in my training.
Jumping straight to progression might work for some on 3 days/week, but it clearly doesn’t work for me.
You can apply those fundamentals to TR.