(Apologies if this has been asked already, couldn’t seem to find anything through search that answered this)
Hi there, I’m brand new to Trainerroad, having just used Zwift before. I’m aiming to ride Chase The Sun South next year and have setup a plan to get there as my A event next year and it is split up between now and then in distinct phases. I sort of fell out of love with cycling over the last few years, spending more time running so have a decent level of general fitness just not cycling specific yet.
I’ve started off with a low volume plan to ease myself in (also was the recommended level) but noticed that all my endurance rides are no more than 1 hour all the way through the different phases to my event as I think this low volume option continues all the way through and so won’t be suitable over time as the event is likely to take me 14+ hours so will need to be getting in some long rides ahead of that.
Whilst I have seen you can increase plan volume manually, will Trainerroad increase these durations automatically as I go through the different phases of the plan and increase fitness/endurance and/or will it recommend another volume level based on progress made or is that side of things all up to me to amend/monitor as time goes by?
I too am curious about this, but for the high volume plan. With no set end date on my plan the back to back plans keep the same durations and tss for 2 full plans. Also, how easy is it to update a plan mid-stream to have more duration for specific rides. For example If I want all my endurance rides to be 15 minutes longer, can I edit the week and have it apply going forward. Similar to how when you build the plan you can set the durations.
What I gather for the manual update is you click on the plan title say base in my case and it gives you the options for which days to do what type of workout and their durations so you would adjust the long ride by 15 minutes and I think this should then adjust for the whole of that phase. I’m just not clear what the AI adaptive training will change specifically, if it’s just intensity rather than durations.
no, if you’re in low volume, you’re going to be served low volume training. that may have changed now that you can specify availability, but I can’t speak to that since I don’t have TR, but under the prior iterations if you pick a volume you’re locked into that and would have to add manually
If it were me, I’d keep my Zwift subscription. Do your intervals on TR (running Zwift in the background as well if you like so you can have the scenery and earn XP) and then do RoboPacer rides or group rides in Zwift to add in as many Endurance Miles as you want and/or can comfortably recover from.
Your plan’s volume won’t dynamically change as you progress at this time. Adaptations will occur through increased Workout Levels.
As you already mentioned yourself, you can manually change your plan’s volume if you’d like. You can also use Workout Alternates to sub in workouts with more or less time for a given day as needed.
While your goal event next season sounds like it’ll be a long race, don’t feel like you need to pile on too much volume – following a training plan consistently will give you the preparation you need while ideally avoiding excess fatigue from overdoing it. The following article might be of interest to you:
Thanks everyone and yes that last response does answer my question. I hadn’t planned to pile on too much volume, I just know that for a 200+ mile sportive, I’ll need to be doing more than an hour for my long rides at some point during the build up. (The ride aims to set off from one side of the UK at sunrise and beat the sunset at the other side of the country so you have 17 hours or so to complete it so it’s more of a steady zone 2 ride rather than a race)
You could increase the preferred duration of your rides or at least your long endurance ride. If you select the block on your calendar (base 1 in this image) it will give you the chance to change ride durations.
In this view you can select ride duration for any of your weekly workouts and in changing it, you will change it for future instances within this single block.
Does it ramp up the time for those long rides or just the intensity? My prior experience was that it just ramped up intensity, even for Z2 rides. That may have changed with the new plans, but Zack’s reply makes it sound like it doesn’t. So, if you pick “5 hours” in plan builder, will it give you 2 hours the first Saturday, then 2.5 the next Saturday, then 3…etc.?
I haven’t tried, but on the podcast that’s how they framed it. If you put 5 hours 5 days a week it would supposedly not jump you straight to 25h a week. I don’t know the ins and outs of when it would increase total duration versus finding a harder 2h ride
