I’ve got a fairly long and nuanced question(s) here. After watching the latest video with Jonathan doing a great job walking through a user’s training plan, I jumped over to review my plan that is set for the Oregon Gravel Grinder event scheduled for the end of June. It is a 5-day stage race (gravel) with about 350 total miles and about 35K of elevation. Currently, I am doing a low volume plan 3 days a week structured with a long endurance ride outdoors (4 to 7 hours) in addition to the structured plan. In looking at my current plan this morning, I inadvertently updated the plan (which I’ve been working on since December). Before the change, I was in the Build Phase plan. After the change this morning, the plan has dropped my back to the Base Phase and now has me scheduled for 4 days a week. So here are my questions:
- Why did it the changes drop me back to the Build Phase? It’s almost as if I’m starting all over again without any consideration to the fact that I’ve already been working through a plan for the same event.
- The event that I’m training for includes 5 days of 80 to 100 miles per day. I appreciate the point made by Jonathan in the video to not overextend your TSS and trust the system to get you to where you need to be, and that sometimes you need to drop back in your weekly stress to be in a position to move forward in one’s conditioning. What I’m trying to think through is, under the new plan that has been assigned to me that includes 4 days a week in structured rides, what should I do with my long endurance rides outside the plan? I almost always end up in red after these additional rides. Don’t I need to include those when I’m working toward a multi-day event where I’ll be doing 8ish hours a day? Should I trust that 4 rides/week ranging between 1 to 1.5 hours per ride get me to where I need to be? It doesn’t seem enough to me?
What are you doing with your long endurance ride. Does it cycle through progressive overload and recovery weeks like the rest of your plan?
Today I did a 6 hour 25 min ride
Next weekend I’ll do about 3.5 hour long ride
Weekend after 4 hours
Weekend after 5 hours
Weekend after 12 hours (a C event)
Weekend after 3 hours
I ride ultra endurance, but I still don’t put the longest ride possible (with my availability) in every weekend.
Hey there, I was just checking out your TR Calendar to get an idea of what might be going on.
From what I can see, it looks like your Build Phase is still coming up as your next block of training. Does this seem to be the case on your end? It looks like you’ll go through a brief Build block before going back into Base and then shifting to Specialty before your event.
If it’s about confusion about the order of Base/Build/Specialty blocks, rest assured that Plan Builder isn’t trying anything funny on you. It may seem a bit unorthodox to go Base > Build > Base > Specialty if you are only building to 1 goal event, but that doesn’t mean the principles behind each phase’s effectiveness have changed. Here’s what such an order does well:
- Allows athletes to achieve all they need from a Build Phase without excess fatigue
- It gives athletes the necessary time they need in Base while introducing novel stimuli at the right points to avoid plateaus
- Allows athletes to enter the Specialty Phase with less fatigue than they would have otherwise, potentially maximizing event-specific gains potential
As for the longer rides you’re adding in, it still sounds like they would be worth doing to me! We’d recommend considering how those rides will slot into the rest of your week and how they may impact any upcoming sessions.
If those long rides trigger red/yellow days on your TR Calendar, then it would make sense to try to schedule a rest day the day after, as an example.
If you start to pile on too many red/yellow days, don’t be afraid to back off the volume. Long rides can certainly help, but if they are to the detriment of your overall plan, it’s generally better to cut back a bit so you can really nail your interval days (which is where the bulk of your gains will be made 
).
This TR article has some more info that might be useful as you prep for the OR Gravel Grinder:
Hope that info helps you out – feel free to let us know if you have any additional questions!
Thank you GoLongThenGoHome! Adjusting the long rides with my build cycles is a great idea.
Thank you Zackery. Your response and the link answer a lot of questions that I’ve been wondering about.
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