3 hard intervals Mon Wed Fri and then Saturday endurance ride which usually is my outdoor ride of the week (MTB or gravel). For 3 weeks and 1 week deload endurance as prescribed.
I also wonder if I’m overtraining or under recovering.
I do 530ish am workouts and I don’t skip them unless I have to or move them to middle of the day. Most days I feel good enough but past 3 months I do look appreciate the 1 week deload endurance rides.
I try to get good sleep on nights before a workout (7-8 hrs), and I’ve been focusing on protein and carb intakw pretty seriously for the past year. But I’m open to changing things up.
I also mix in some minor weight training on Monday Fri that’s is 10 min or less. Nothing crazy and just a set or 2 of heavy weight focusing on compound movements (no time for anything longer really)
My end goal is to get up around 250 ftp for Leadville but not looking like I can make that in the weeks left. Maybe it’s because I’m still in the base phase but feels like I’m hitting that wall at least as far as the numbers go
Sooner or later you will hit a plateau, do you make any PRs? How do you feel your fitness? I am plateaued at the moment, but fitness is great. I am setting PRs. There is point where you will need to increase volume. 3 hard workouts per weeks is great, but if you need to get better you need more than that. I can’t increase my volume for now and I am not stressing about ftp. I wait the time when I be able to ride more and current trainings preparation for it. Sadly that’s how adult life is. Just by feel are you getting better?
In a traditional season-long training plan, you lift weights in the off season to build stronger muscles. Then in-season you harness those gains by focusing on cycling specificity (cardio, lactate shuttling, metabolic efficiency, etc.). Higher FTP comes as a combination of new strength and new founded cycling capability. With the on-the-bike training (whether or not you skipped weightlifting), you build base fitness, you overload (say, ramping your CTL or progressively harder intervals), rest, and then perform at a higher level. I think the AI is doing this latter, tried-and-true strategy, too.
On the topic of plateauing, my current issues with the AI training are:
My CTL is dropping
And my workouts are not getting progressively harder
Without considering the next month of training, I get the impression the AI is screwing up the fundamentals.
But after some reviewing the calendar, I have a stage race of sorts on the calendar in about a month. In prep for that event, I see the following new trends in the workouts:
Lower CTL week-to-week
A focus on some Threshold / vo2max / anaerobic rides I’ve never seen before that are pushing my current progression levels
Perhaps my current 0% gain in FTP is due to the upcoming training leading up to the stage race. The FTP reflects my ability to do the upcoming (honestly a bit scary looking) work?
Does any of this sound like you? Perhaps you had or have some race in there with B or A priority?
I do feel like I’m getting maybe more durable or I can realistically hold the power I’m making longer so I feel there is progress there.
I’m getting small PRs here and there but nothing out pacing what I would do at race pace yet. 1hr power and 20min power are still not better than what I was doing last year, though I haven’t done any of my bigger A and B races yet.
I guess I was getting used to the older TR style of pushing my ftp with harder workouts sooner which resulted in more regular ftp detection gains 6-8 ftp usually but now the 1-3 ftp gains feel like I’m not making much progress.
I have my A race in August and another B race in July so no need to drop the current workload, honestly I’m surprised it hasn’t pushed me to do more volume but it seems like just marking a workout as “hard” makes it back off of any new upcoming volume changes.
Maybe I’m not hitting the intervals perfectly but I feel I am generally within a few points of TSS/IF on each workout so not straying far off of what is prescribed.
The past year of TR felt like the model made much bigger jumps in difficulty (some times too much) but often doing the work created some more noticeable numeric gains though it could have been running me ragged ha. It didn’t feel like I was overtraining too often last year but I did have way more rides that I marked “Very Hard”.
I took a look at your account, and honestly things are looking good!
You started your training plan Jan 5th and since then your FTP has gone up, you’ve been rating most your workouts as Hard or Very Hard, and are super consistent in following the recommended workouts (with the exception of being sick in Feb).
From your FTP history, I see your current FTP of 237 is one of the highest you’ve achieved (239 being the highest, but we can’t necessarily compare these since it’s from the old AI FTP Detection model).
I think you’re on track for more FTP gains. The prediction right now is showing an FTP of 248 for May 14th. Plus you’ve just entered the Build Phase where we normally see the most FTP gains in training.
All in all, I think you’re doing really good! And it sounds like you are with feeling more durable or I can realistically hold the power I’m making longer so I feel there is progress there.
Higher AI FTP figure is not the only measurement for your progress in your training. Some athletes might see high FTP but decrease in endurance, others might see decline in FTP but increase in tempo/sweet spot which leads to longer sustained efforts tolerance (for example, exactly what you might need for gran fondo or long flat race lasting 3+ hours).
You should look at your performance from various perpectives, not only AI FTP figure.
