Too many recovery weeks

Training
1

Full disclosure: I am a 56 yo non-competitive cyclist using Masters MV from plan builder. I firmly believe in ample recovery. But …

As you can see from the screen shot below, my current block is only 2 weeks on with next week being recovery. I’m assuming this deviation from the usual 3 weeks on is related to the dates of some of my “events” later in the season. But … I also have a week of travel coming up at the end of the month, where I’ll only be able to do a modest amount of running. (I’m a very poor runner, but I regularly do 1-2 modest jogs each week for cross training.) And … then I come back to another recovery week. And yes, I allowed TR to rebuild the plan after I entered the travel. Even gamed the start date to see if that would change bulk aspects to no avail.

This seems a bit too much time off even for (ahem) someone of my age and ability. Thus, I’m contemplating some manual fudging of the plan and am seeking advice from others.

At a minimum, I’ll probably rebuild the plan with a different start date to make the week after I return the start of a block instead of taking recovery after travel. But I am less certain what I should do with the time before the week of travel.

One thought is to cut next week’s recovery short and start adding intensity next weekend. This would make the next block more like 2.5 weeks rather than just 2 weeks. Another thought is to (somehow) game the plan to just make the current block 5 weeks on followed by my travel week off. I don’t want to cook myself, but … the older plans had plenty of 5+1 blocks and with the masters reduction in the number of hard days … it seems achievable to me as a one-time thing. I can even use alternates to choose less challenging workouts on the hard days to limit the consequences.

Thanks in advance.

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2

I have a similar issue with my mid-volume masters plan. I have Base 1 as 4 weeks and Base 2 as 3 weeks. So I just finished a de-load week and will get 2 weeks of intensity followed by another de-load. Then it’s 8 weeks build and 8 weeks specialty. In past years, the plan usually sacrificed some specialty weeks if planned event was too close to do normal schedule. I’ve never seen it sacrifice base before. I’ve been wondering if this is a glitch myself.

3

The 2:1 work to rest week format is a characteristic of a masters plan. Your options are to switch to regular or make the 2 weeks harder.

If you know it’s too much time off, have less time off? Take half rest weeks, add more intensity or z2, etc. just use the plan as a guide.

4

Do you have a reference for that? Certainly all the TR MV masters plans are 3:1 from what I can see.

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5

My understanding of the Masters Plans is it was switching one day of intensity for an easier ride and not changing the work weeks to recovery week ratio. My build phase still follows the 3:1 ratio.

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6

Same here, 3-1. I’m glad masters doesn’t a 2-1 work to recovery week structure. I don’t need that much recovery. I’m 59 and just grudgingly switched my HV plan to masters. I’m thinking it’s going to work better with my outdoor rides, which tend to be intensive (riding with a younger bunch).

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7

Mine did that also.
I just rolled with it and did 4 workouts the final week so I can into the rest week EXHAUSTED