Now I’ve got a dilemma. I went for a 106 mile mostly Z2 (IF .65) ride Sunday. My Garmin says I need a 4 day rest. My TrainerRoad plan calls for a productive VO2 workout today. I tried TrainNow and it recommends a productive Threshold workout. I feel like just doing an easy Z2 today and waiting until Thursday to get back to the intense structure, but maybe I’m just being a wimp and missing a chance to push myself. I would love to hear others thoughts/experience.
Thanks!
Don’t listen to what your Garmin says….it is a garbage training system, IME.
Follow whatever plan you are on and listen to your legs if you try a productive threshold session.
No one needs 4 days off the bike unless they are severely fatigued.
LOL, but my Garmin would be saying 4 days until its OPTIMAL for next hard workout. Big difference lol.
I don’t trust garmin too much either. This last Saturday after a threshold workout plus endurance I was at a training readiness of 1.
Sunday I did a 3 hour .7 if ride, still at 1
Monday training readiness was like 6, today I did a productive Vo2max workout this morning when my training readiness was at 15. According to garmin I was dead or needed 4 days off too
Nothing beats listening to your body, I usually can tell how a workout will be either after the warmup or first set of intervals. If I know it’ll suck I either don’t ride or ride easy for a little.
Don’t call yourself a wimp, maybe you have other stuff going on that is stressful.
I don’t listen to the Garmin recovery advisor, but again, it is predicting when it will be OPTIMAL to do the next hard workout. Not telling you to stay off the bike for 4 days LOL.
There is this too from Garmin, I wish we had a 
button
“ If you are using a block-based training model, then a lower training readiness score during a deliberate overload period likely echoes that work. Against that background, you should still check to see which factors are driving that lower score. Higher than normal acute training loads and longer recovery time estimates can be expected during block training. Reduced readiness caused by other factors (e.g., sleep history or high stress) might be reason to re-evaluate your approach.”
Cycling Science, Recovery Time:
one excerpt:
“A common misconception about recovery time is that it recommends complete rest until it has counted down to zero. Instead, recovery time is meant to indicate the time until you can expect to be sufficiently recovered for a hard workout. Many times, an easy ride or run is OK — even beneficial — when your recovery time still shows considerable time remaining until complete recovery.”
This is the exact opposite of what one of your support agents told me to do. They suggested I match every outdoor ride I was doing with a workout. Indeed after doing this, the adaptation increased the difficulty a bit and now the plans feels fine. Before I did this, it felt way too easy.