Im currently reaching the end of Sweet Spot Base II. I chose the low volume plan as this would allow me to add an outdoor ride or zwift ride with my cycling club to the weekly schedule. This strategy worked well for Sweet Spot Base I, which I completed without any difficulty, but I have struggled to complete many of the workouts in Sweet Spot Base II. My difficulties with SS Base II are partly due to changing my turbo trainer without doing a ramp test for a couple of weeks after, so my FTP was set at 20 watts higher than it should have been, resulting in extra physical and mental fatigue.
My question is this: After I’ve finished the SS Base II plan ( I have a week left before rest week), should I continue onto the low volume Build plan and cut out the additional activities or should I re-do SS Base I and/or SS Base II, with the aim of finishing all the workouts in good form?
For additional context, this is the first winter I have trained properly so I have no previous experiences other than SS Base I to compare my situation to.
Enjoy the final week! If you thought it was hard up to this point, you won’t be disappointed.
I think the question would be, do you have any goals or races coming up? If you go back to base, it may set you back timewise for that event. If you are just training to train, I’d say this is a personal decision. Base II and Build I are not that different IMO. Both are hard. By the time Build II comes along, you may feel better. If you are feeling fiesty, I’d say go on to build. Sounds like you’re not, so I think going back to Base II is better than going back to Base I, but I’m not saying there isn’t a time and place to do Base I.
One thing I will add, be careful just adding a group ride as additional stress. That group ride is probably harder than even the second SS weekend workout in mid-volume, so essentially you are pushing more stress than even mid-volume requires and mid-volume is pretty taxing.
If you are fatigued now, don’t be afraid to pull the plug, take more frequent rest weeks, or insert a few rest days.
It is February afterall, it wouldn’t be a horrible idea to redo SSBII at the correct FTP and then do build. As suggested above, it depends on whether you events or not.
+1 for redoing SSB2, time permitting. I kinda fell apart in the last week of SSBMV2 in December - fatigue and a mild cold - so took three weeks ‘off’ the plans over Christmas/NY, but just did some Z2 stuff and a couple of SS workouts from SSB1. Retested in Jan and then went through SSBMV2 again. I felt a lot stronger all the way through and feel much better prepared (physically and mentally) for build starting next week as a result.
another +1 for redoing SSB2. I have also struggled with it, but one idea that has helped me that came from Chad M, is splitting up the work/rest weeks differently. So my current approach is more like 2-3 weeks of hard workouts, 1 week rest, 2-3 weeks of hard workouts, 1 week rest (rather than 5 weeks of hard workouts then a rest week). And by “rest week”, I just mean lighter intensity - the TR workouts like Pettit, Beech work fine, but so do Z2/Z3 rides on Zwift (or whatever).