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Plan Builder: I Have Too Much Time

January 17, 2020 | Jesse Fortson | One comment

Having more time until a goal event presents an excellent opportunity to take your fitness to the next level. But how can you structure that extra time for maximum benefit? Using Plan Builder takes out the guesswork and customizes your training plan, so you get the most from the surplus time.

What Is Plan Builder?

Plan Builder is personalized training designed to make you faster. It takes into account your current training volume, experience, and the demands of your goal event to create the optimal plan for you. To optimize your extra time, Plan Builder will customize the training phases based on your specific needs.

What If I Have Too Much Time For My Goal Event?

Plan Builder accounts for your timeframe making sure you make the most of the extra time. Let’s check out some examples.

Jordan is currently training 4 hours per week, new to interval training, and has a gravel race in 8 months. Jordan started training 2 weeks ago.

Being new to interval training, Jordan will benefit most from earlier components of the Base, Build, Specialty training progression. Having already begun training, Plan Builder adjusted the plan to include the work Jordan has already done.

Chloe is training 11 hours per week and has done a lot of interval training. She has a road race in 9 months.

Because of the extra time Chloe has, and her advanced level of experience with interval training, Chloe will complete the Base > Build progression twice before entering the Specialty Phase. This will bring her to new levels as an experienced athlete.

Avery is training 5 hours per week, is somewhat experienced with interval training, and has a cross-country marathon race in 10 months.

Avery’s intermediate experience level with interval training and 10 month timeline will allow a full Base > Build > Specialty progression before entering another Build > Specialty progression. This will allow Avery’s body to reset during the Specialty Phase and gain sufficient freshness to see more gains from the final Build Phase.

Carmen is training 6 hours per week, has multiple years of experience with interval training, and has a half-distance triathlon in 11 months.

Carmen’s expert experience level with interval training and very long timeline will allow her to go through two Base > Build > Specialty progressions. This scenario will help ensure Carmen’s progression is gradual over the entire year, and is a great way to reach unprecedented performance levels.

Personalized Training Designed Around You

These examples illustrate how Plan Builder maximizes extra time and can be backdated to include the training you’ve already completed. By adding training phases to your plan, Plan Builder will help you take your fitness to a higher level for your goal event. If you have additional time before your goal event, let Plan Builder build the perfect training plan for you.

FAQ

We’ve built up a full list of frequently asked questions in this Help Center Article. If you have more questions, reach out to our Support Team at Support@TrainerRoad.com

Jesse Fortson

Jesse Fortson lost over 140 pounds with TrainerRoad's help. He uses his experience as a teacher and race mechanic to get faster for crits, gravel, and marathon XCO races.

Comments

Brian says:

January 19, 2020 at 5:35 am

I have been using Trainerroad for a long time. I really like the training plan feature of the platform and it really sets it apart from the other trainer software options. However, the training plans have far too much intensity too early in the season to be sustainable. Especially for a over-50 triathlete. I followed your mid-volume plan last year and found myself unable to complete some of the high intensity interval rides during the week because I did a long ride on Saturday that was at 0.80 IF. Most of us cannot sustainably ride like this for 20+ weeks and still run and swim on top of that. It feels like these plans are all about jacking up your FTP and not about properly preparing you for a long distance triathlon by working your energy systems in the endurance and threshold zones. Far too much Zone 3 aka “gray zone” efforts. Fortunately we are able to modify these plans. It would really nice to offer some way to provide a training that contains more polarized training in mostly Z2 with Z4/5 work sprinkled in. Save the Z3 work for the competition phase.

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