AI FTP detection questionable

Wow ok. Always afraid of not doing enough but if backing off is the solution, I’ll try it.

Quick question, if I change the privacy setting on my calendar, people can view it but not change it, right?

You improve by resting and adapting, you don’t improve by hammering it as much as you can week after week.

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Correct :+1:

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Yes, that’s correct! Nobody will be able to make changes to your plan/TR Calendar but you. :slight_smile:

When I was newer to structured training, one of my fast Cat. 1 friends told me, “Training makes you slow, rest makes you fast.” He’d always joke that he was therefore fastest during the offseason. :joy:

But seriously, yes! Rest/recovery is just as important (arguably more important!) than the training you do. I think it would be well worth incorporating regular recovery weeks into your training and seeing how your legs respond.

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Even after all this time, I still think that little ‘Alternates’ button is one of the best TR features.

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Done

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I had a look at your calendar, and, hmmm, I have some thoughts:

  • You have no rhythm, i. e. every week tends to look differently.
  • Some weeks, you do a workout every day. No rest days = no bueno.
  • You do multiple hard days back-to-back-to-back. E. g. 1–3 November, you do an easy endurance ride and then have to hard days (a 2-hour Z4 ride and a 4±hour Z3 ride). I couldn’t open the individual workouts, so I can’t tell what the power distribution looks like.
  • You have lots of Z3 work.
  • You stop some easy workouts after about 1 hour. It’d be better if you opted for a 1-hour alternate instead.
  • You manage to complete PL 4+ threshold workouts. This suggests your FTP is in the right ballpark.

Here is what I think is going on:

  • You are fatigued, and I am speaking of long-term fatigue, specifically.
  • You need to learn to recover and give yourself time and opportunity to recover.
  • You need to establish a rhythm and stick to that rhythm. Decide what days should be rest days and then stick to that.
  • Avoid long Z3/Z4 rides. They will really induce a lot of fatigue and hamper your ability to nail your intervals. Instead, start with two interval sessions per week and focus on nailing them. On the other days, stay disciplined and stick to Z2 work.
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This … and if really nailing your intervals means you need to do your endurance rides at 60% of FTP instead of 70% of FTP, then do that!

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Agree 100%. For some reason, cyclists like to try to make their easy rides harder and encourage others to do the same, even though many coaches will tell you to make your easy rides REALLY easy so that you can make your hard rides hard.

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I did 3 hours on the trainer at 50% of FTP on Sunday. No idea how much or how little it did for my fitness but I felt great afterwards. :smile:

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These last six or seven comments are all so good! Tacos for everyone! :taco::taco::taco::taco:

@ZackeryWeimer @OreoCookie @Helvellyn @Pbase :clap:

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Thanks for the input. The long rides at Z3 and 4 are mostly group rides that always turn into a race lol. I am new to structured training and can see now that the group rides need to be managed properly.

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Yeah, and if you want to keep doing that (we are doing this for fun after all!), you cannot tack on a 4±hour endurance ride the next day. You need to recover :slight_smile:

If you are interested in optimizing your training, I’d propose the following:

  • Two hard interval sessions per week, capped at 1 hour.
  • One long endurance ride on the weekend. Make sure to make it progressively longer, i. e. increase ride duration from e. g. 2 hours to 5 hours. Don’t start at 4–5 hours right away! Aim for an intensity factor of 0.60–0.65, which for me is very mellow. It is ok to dip into tempo very occasionally, but avoid large spikes in power.
  • Two strength workouts (since you already do them).

That’d give you 5 days of exercise balanced with two days of rest.

If you want to keep smashing it on group rides, you can replace the long endurance ride with a group ride, but it will negatively impact your training. If you are ok with that, because smashing it is fun, then more power to you. Just know about the consequences beforehand.

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On a random note… @ZackeryWeimer & @eddiegrinwald is there a way to manually put in the rest day icon in your calendar without being on a plan and triggering adaptions? I’m thinking this might help “see” rest days prescribed and part of the training plan.

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In my case, there is a workout type that makes a glaring hole on my PL: Sweetspot.

I live in Appalachia, where we get punchy foothills and long grinds. It seems that the only way for me to train sweetspot is indoors. I also have to be well rested before taking on a sweetspot workout.

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