Cycling for 6 years, last 2 years pretty intensive (avg 10h per week) not very structured but a lot of Z2 work. and around 15.000 kilometers in the last 18 months.
44 year old male
FTP 250-260 (depending on the form of the day).
Started 2 weeks ago with TR and follow the mid-volume trainingplan.
Mo: 1,5h Hard interval
Tu: 1:15 Recovery/endurance
We: 1,5h Hard interval
Th: Rest day
Fr: 1,5h Hard interval
Sa: 2-3h Endurance
Su: Rest Day.
Last 2 weeks went pretty well, but getting a lot of adaptations (to lower intensity) and red/yellow days…
For example, last week I had a Threshold workout with over/unders at FTP level, I managed all 3 intervals (3x 10 min), but after the workout I was pretty cooked, maybe I could do another, but it would be very hard…
So i choose Hard in the survey, and boom!! Red Light and lowered intensity for the next 2 weeks!
I know I recover fast and can handle the TSS.
And the following day I was already feeling great again, but TR has other thoughts…
After reading some articles I changed the Training Approach to more Aggressive, but still got a Red/Yellow day after a hard interval workout…
How do I get the TSS and AT to match my needs?? If i follow AT etc. I don’t get the workouts that I got when the plan started.
Maybe I give the wrong answers to the survey? But i also don’t wanna lie when i feel fatigue after a hard session.
My goal is to do a couple mountain races next year like the Mallorca312 or the Marmotte, TransAlpe etc…
I can sustain the hours on the bike, but want to get stronger and set a good time…
I would say if you’ve only been at it for 2 weeks then just carry on following the process for a couple of training blocks. The whole point of adaptive training is that it adapts, and 2 weeks really isn’t much data to go off. If you’ve been doing a lot of TSS and Z2 then you may well find the fatigue that builds through a training block with a lot of structure is more cumulative than you’d realised. Or maybe you can handle a bit more than you’re currently being given and AT will pick up on that as it gets more data.
Worst case scenario, doing a little bit less training now than you’re capable of is going to have little to no impact on your fitness for events that are >6 months away. You have plenty of time to learn more about TR and gradually increase the load if that really is what’s best for you. Whereas doing too much now could absolutely wreck next season if you spend the rest of this year digging yourself into a fatigue hole and then have to dial it back to recovery at the start of next year right when you should be getting serious about starting to build for an event like the 312.
I know pretty good what i can handle or not… This year i also did an eight day Ride from southern France back to the Netherlands (1300km 21500 altitude meters), no resting days.
Training for this event started 8-9 months before… I accumulated a lot of Z2 training for endurance (most important for this even), but lacked the upper zones.
FTP increased 5-10 watts during 15-20h per week.
During the summer only did 2-3 unstructured group rides per week and maintained my fitness…
But my experience in the mountains this year was that I was not strong enough to sustain a 2h climb at 85-90% of FTP.
Also in the fast group rides this summer i was not strong enough to do my part of head work.
The coming months of training is not only for the events, but to built overall strength and endurance on higher power…
In march/april the social group rides will start again, and i want to try to get a good head start and do my work at the front…
Experience from this year the power that i need is 340-350W for 2-3 minutes, and this 6-7x per ride.
With my current FTP it is way above my VO2max, but i hope to get my FTP up to 280-300 I can sustain those efforts way better…
Be sure you have an accurate FTP in there to start with. Ideally from a very recent test that you are practiced at executing. You can choose to let the AI FTP system pick things up for your future FTP assessments, or test again if you prefer.
Two weeks data isn’t really enough for TR’s system to dial in. Nor, I say, is it enough for you to make an accurate judgment on how switching from your summer 2-3 unstructured group rides per week to a structured plan for the first time will work out for you.
That said, the plan on your calendar is more yours than it is TR’s. If you don’t think it has enough volume or intensity, you can swap out any and every workout for a different one. There are plenty to choose from and each is labelled with TSS, IF and the TR progression level. You can ride on a rest day and you can do more than one workout per day. The RL/GL is a suggestion, not an order that must be obeyed.
The only suggestions I will make to you is that you keep in mind that consistency is critical and that it is better to go only so hard today that you can complete tomorrow’s workouts properly.
I will end with this. Those March social group rides are still far enough in the future that there is no single workout that a TR plan will present to you in the next couple of months that will make any significant difference to the outcome of a full plan that is well executed over the next six months.
The amount of structured training you can handle is going to be different to the amount of mostly unstructured training you can handle though. Especially in terms of maintaining consistency over the medium to long term which is what will be key to building that fitness.
Having the ability to do 15-20 hour weeks or ride 1300km in 8 days is great and will stand you in good stead for the events you’re looking at. But what’s going to get you to March in the best shape is consistently nailing your key workouts all or most of the time, week in, week out, over the next 6 months. And that often means it starts out feeling a little too easy, but it very rarely stays that way - as you progress and AT gradually ramps things up I suspect you will pretty quickly find you’re looking forward to the recovery weeks!
I’d have to agree with what all of the others have said already. Trust the process!
We look at your training history when creating and adjusting your training plan and if you haven’t been training much above zone 2, then those hard workouts can catch up with you pretty quickly and we’re aware of that. This doesn’t mean that you aren’t a strong cyclist who’s capable of riding a lot in a week, but high intensity interval training is a different type of stimulus. You need to ramp up somewhat slowly at first and three 90-minute hard workouts a week isn’t nothing!
As you continue to progress and knock out those hard workouts, Adaptive Training will adjust its recommendations based on your more recent training history and ramp up the amount of stress it thinks you can handle. You’ll get there, so there’s no rush! Enjoy the process…
My recommendation is to follow the plan as closely as possible for a few weeks to see how your body responds and where the software starts to lead you. Those hard structured workouts are major influencers of your fitness, so it’s best to prioritize those over other rides for the time being if your #1 goal is building fitness. As others have already mentioned, pushing too hard now even if you feel you can likely won’t bring much to that table down the road. Training is all about progression…
Also, Red Light Green Light shouldn’t be giving you more than one or two red/yellow days at a time. Where did you see two weeks of red low-intensity workouts? Sometimes Adaptive training will suggest adaptations of workouts a week or two in the future, but those all have the potential to adapt again down the road depending on your performance and stress levels, so don’t worry if a few workouts adapt at once.
Those recommendations are also only our suggestions. You can always use Workout Alternates or decline the suggested adaptations, but based on how things are looking now and how you’ve felt about your last few workouts, I’d say that things are going in the right direction.
Let me know if this helps and if you have other questions about any of this. I’d be happy to chat some more!
Hang in there! It will all come together nicely soon.
I do choose to ignore it however it goes from a yellow day to a red day then a couple red days followed by more red days. Seems TR doesn’t want to see me doing CTL +50 days consecutively.
My FTP setting is close; within 5% if that. The last time I had AI tell me my FTP increase it was less than the tolerance of the pedal accuracy.
I agree, just trying to get to the point that the hard workouts do feel harder… So I am choosing alternative workouts if i think it is to easy…
Currently only had workouts up to Threshold, but I feel workouts in the range 4-5 are pretty good and I have put some real effort in to complete them. If i choose a level 1-2 workout for SweetSpot or Threshold it feels to easy…
I know i need to trust the process, but I don’t want to put 2-3 months of work to get to the point that it feels that i am reaching the correct training stress…
But TR is pushing me back by suggesting resting days or recovery trainings instead of the normal workout that was planned…
Currently declining most adaptations, and monitoring my own recovery. But for the future I really would like to have this Adaptive Training working for me.
Maybe TR will adapt more over time, i will give it 2-3 more months and see how it progresses.
And I know next season is still far away, but increasing strenght and fitness does not come overnight, it takes time, and we have now 6-7 months where I can do a lot of structured training to get better…
We’ll assign what we think is right for you. It won’t take long for you to feel challenged with what you’re given as long as you’re consistent and honest.
Using Workout Alternates is a fine way to jump into harder workouts if the ones you’re getting aren’t feeling as they’re supposed to. This can be a way to sort of fast-forward through one or two sets of adaptations, but be careful. I have seen athletes knock out really high-level workouts and tell the software that they were manageable and then struggle to continue to complete workouts at that level when they were assigned to them.
It’s best to sort of creep up on the right Workout Level which is why we do it the way that we do. Athletes sometimes get worried about fitness or impatient, but, again, it’s way better to be slightly undercooked than overcooked, and it almost always pays off down the road.
Now 4,5 weeks into the plan, and after some adjustments it starting to feel nice, training intensity seems to be spot-on from now onwards…
First trainingblock i subsituted some trainings for more difficult ones and made some slots a little longer (from 45-60 minutes to 90 minutes).
Total training time is now 7u45m and in total 5 workouts.
Last Tuesday i went on a groupride with the club, and I already noticed some difference on the higher tempo bits… Accellerating after a turn was a bit more powerfull, and stamina on higher power was also better…
So i’m confident that the plan will give me all the benefits that I need, and I will adjust the workouts when I think it is to easy or difficult.
