I would start with a low-volume plan and then simply replace the weekend ride with an outdoor ride. That gives you two days of intensity with plenty of rest in between hard intervals.
Given your goal, I think having two days of intensity per week is highly desirable. If you can only manage 1 hard workout per week, I’d say you definitely need to look at other aspects of your life, especially sleep, nutrition, stress and rest. And perhaps your weekend rides are too intense?
SS ratio: I run a mahoosive 38 front 18 rear for local riding including road. 38/22 for proper off road.
The problem with the polarized plans is that the vo2 workout lacks imagination. I like the extent and variety of the TR library. If I wanted to just do 4 min intervals I’d do them. Need things to be interesting and engaging.
I like my weekend rides to contain ‘too much intensity/volume’. It’s why I ride a bike. To push further and harder is fun.
I see weekdays as recovery +
The spring/summer of 2020, I did 6 centuries + (5 of them off road). Long 7-15hr rides were the default, always with a very heavy bike with too hard gearing.
I got fiercely fit that summer. Could ride well past my previous limits and amazingly when I got to cyclocross season and we had a couple of races, I was really flying.
I’m a firm believer that fitness is fitness and as someone who’s ridden for so many years, I need these extraordinary stimuli to progress.
I’ve done the whole 5 turbo sessions a week thing for a few years. Yes it makes you fast, but it’s a horrible tightrope of fatigue, illness and suffering. Bikepacking left me feeling super robust, strong and happy.
That’s how I want to feel going into the Alps.
Yes, same here. The workouts felt very robotic. I know what they were going for, a very faithful implementation of polarized training. But that made it more mentally fatiguing than usual.
But they were a good prep for SSB, though.
How about a recovery ride on Monday? Would it help or is it better to just rest?
I work outside so get plenty of exercise. Monday night I’m usually just glad to put my feet up.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I’m often very up for stuff, then Friday I’m knackered and strictly do nothing when I get home.
Good Question.
In my opinion there are circumstances when a recovery ride or session would be a good idea and times when it is better to concentrate on other, less / not active recovery methods. I’ll elaborate later if I remember and have time to reply properly.
If you do get the chance, could you incorporate whether you think an active recovery ride is meaningless in face of the fact that I would have done an 8hr day moving around loads. I’m a gardener so may walk miles each day or be digging for hours or simply crawling around weeding.
I have this theory that fast-twitchers are better off with more (complete) rest, and slow-twitchers with active recovery. Does anyone else think that might be the case?
Wait my goal? Whaaaa?
I respectfully disagree. Low volume is a plan, low volume minus the weekend ride plus some long and/or hard outdoor rides isn’t a plan anymore.
Bbt67s idea of using adaptive train now for 1-2 days of intensity depending on how the weekend fatigue is on Tuesday makes perfect sense. My goal isn’t Alps Epic…but I like me some long hard outdoor rides so I think this could work.
Joe
In response to the ‘Recovery Ride on Monday?’ question, and specifically thinking about a recovery day coming after a very high volume weekend my thoughts are…
Don’t do a recovery ride
Do a recovery ride
Some points are the same or similar in different words, but that is because I feel the point is important. Recovery rides on a Monday after a heavy weekend can be very productive but not at the expense of more ‘pure’ recovery techniques.
I’ll do a recovery ride on the Monday after a heavy weekend training, i.e 150 - 200 miles weekend on the bike and a long run ~ hour plus. The main reason being that my muscles get tight and along with foam rolling I have found that is the most productive way for me to recover. If you are someone that doesn’t get enough sleep you might be better served to get a snooze in rather than get on the bike. Listen to your body, get to know it, how it responds and do the things it needs.
The same general principles apply to most recovery days.
@grawp - Sweet bikepacking rig! I’m glad you asked this, and I have similar questions. My big goal event sounds similar to yours (CO trail race). It’s going to be probably 10% race and 90% survival challenge 
I know from years of experience the pattern that works well with my schedule and energy, and it’s similar to yours:
Mon: off.
Tues - Thurs: 1 - 3 indoor interval sessions or easy rides
Friday: Easy ride or off.
Weekend: 3-6 hour outdoor, mostly off-road rides both days, less for rest weeks, more for big build weeks.
There is plenty of room for variation within the above for Trainnerroad to suggest workouts and volume based on training phase, progression, etc. and add value, but the Plan Builder just a head-scratcher. I am not satisfied with the idea of picking low volume, guessing the rest of the week and ignoring the weekend structured interval on the plan.
I like @mcalista 's idea of trying the polarized plans, though! That might actually be the ticket to get the most out of the platform.
4 months out from the event, I plan to use Kurt Refsnider’s 3-8 day bikepacking race plan. But for now, Trainerroad for Base building and a couple normal B races in the spring.
To me it makes sense to use TR to help me push those harder workouts. It’s so easy to hold back a little when self coached in order to avoid discomfort. Following that blue line though…
I figure I’ve got the volume aspect of polarized training sorted as I love riding my bikes. Its pure pleasure putting in lots of hours and bad weather just means fewer people, darkness means you see more wildlife, early starts mean you get to enjoy the first bit of colour in the sky.
Vo2max? Well, there’s two options: go train or race cyclocross/mtb or put in some dedicated turbo sessions. I do both.
We decided that one vo2 max each week with an optional threshold session if feeling OK would tick the right boxes. There’s a great breakdown of how to do it a few posts in to this thread.
Yep - I hear ya on avoiding the discomfort part. That’s what I’m most worried about going self-coached. All fun rides and no structure and probably not enough rest would be my default.
I’ve been thinking about this. I should be in a position next year to be able to make mid-week evening races, so wondering if there’d be much wrong with an old-school training approach of race to fitness.
Could do one short crit and one TT midweek. Then maybe another 2-3 hour endurance ride, and a long 4-6 hour club ride over the weekend.
I sort of think I’d be missing more sustained work (ie sweetspot), but otherwise it would pretty much hit all training zones with a lot of endurance too.
Is this a bad plan?
That makes sense to me. I think it kind of echoes what I was saying about how you respond to certain types of training, after a ‘x’ session rest more etc. ‘y’ session doesn’t impact you as much and you can hit the harder sessions sooner. Muscle fibre type as I understand it has a significant impact on your response to training, recovery time from certain type of training sessions, so you you might, and are probably right.
Respect. Just read again, (but didn’t pickup on it first time,) that is some good going. I did 5x 100+ mile rides this summer (although on the Road, which is much easier) and many 70 - 85 mile rides, it certainly builds great resilience, which you can then hit some intensity to put the icing on the cake.
It was interesting this May when I did a 9 day bikepacking trip comprising of 8-13hr days at a very steady pace, then had two rest days before going to our cyclocross training evening. I was absolutely smoking everyone that night. It further confirmed my belief that fitness is fitness and race specificity is maybe not so important.
