I’m sure i’m not alone here, but i travel to another city for work, every 2nd week (if I’m lucky). I have struggled to maintain any consistency even on a low volume plan and its majorly depressing. When i’m on the road, i have access to a bike specific gym where i can do one of the workouts they provide (power based, not bad but hard to replicate a specific workout in TR) which i can usually get 1-2 in the week, or i can find a local standard gym.
I don’t know how to structure a training plan around these ‘outages’ in routine, (that goes for nutrition, sleep and stress too). All i’m looking for is low volume consistency to rebuild the fitness i used to have.
Ivy posted a thing on doing RPE based workouts. You can use the app on your phone and load the workout. I forget how she said it works but I am sure you can find it. Not the ideal situation but better than letting perfect be the obstacle to progress. I am going to try it next week when I travel.
The place i go to has set workouts on computrainers, though i’m thinking i could ask them to set it just to resistance mode and let me do the workout with a phone/TR playing.
Earlier in the podcast, years ago @Nate_Pearson talks about doing this and traveling with power pedals, I’ve done the same and it definitely can work and you can do the tr workouts with a phone or iPad quite well. The gym bikes aren’t as good as a trainer but you can make it work for sure
My approach for this has changed recently. Previously when doing Sweetspot plans I would try to hit the prescribed workout precisely. Having access to a bike wasn’t the main issue however, it was cooling… Now in the relative off season for me (although I’m considering a Q2 2024 Ironman), I’ve switched to a kind of polarised plan. I’m using LV Traditional Base to do my “easy” volume during the week (including an aerobic ride by RPE on a gym bike at the office) with my harder interval ride, or group ride at the weekend.
I’ll probably change the approach and make sure I have access to a proper bike next year to train outside with power during the week but for now I’m having success with the above.
I would have thought if you have access to a bike with power then cooling will become the main issue as mentioned above.
I am always in different hotels and the bikes/gyms are wildly variable. I tend to do more running when away for work as it’s a bit more portable, and with any luck means I might get to see some of the place I’m visiting (or the inside of a gym if it’s not in a good place to run outside…). Treadmills are usually a bit more reliable than hotel gym bikes in any case.
How long are you away for in the weeks you’re away? For shorter trips I tend to stack the rides around when I am at home and the runs while I am away. For your case if you can hit the key workouts at home then any additional Z2 you can get in while you’re away could be a win…
@Jamie_Kelly, I think setting the Computrainer to Resistance Mode and following the TR Workout on your phone may be the easiest workaround when you travel. However, there won’t be any power data recorded on your phone, which means when you finish the workout, you won’t receive any changes to your Progression Levels.
Since you are following a training plan, a way to work around the Progression Levels not updating because there is no power is to not save the workout once you are done, and instead change it to Outside/RPE-Based and then mark it as complete on your Calendar.
This way, your Progression Levels will update accordingly so you can progress through your training.
Note: If you did not follow the TR Workout instructions, we do not recommend you mark it as complete since you’ll be giving the system bad data, and it will progress you on PL levels you did not complete or are ready for. This is a pretty edge-case scenario, so anyone reading this, please consider the circumstances.
Thank you guys! I’m typically away 5 days at a time. I tried using gym bike last night and RPE to do an endurance version of TR ride (I’m trying polarised plan). Tonight I’m going to try a threshold interval one, cooling might make it hard though. I figured as long as I get some quality intervals done with what I feel is hard but not killer 4 minute efforts I can hit close to threshold. Good to know if you mark it as outside ride it still counts towards progression.
