I am new to TR plans. My A event is five hours long, my TR calendar is preparing me for the event with nothing longer than two hours??
Can anyone tell me why? This is hard to trust, when traditionally I’d build up and do some long endurance workouts in the weeks before.
Welcome to the forums!
This question gets asked pretty frequently, so I’d suggest searching the forum for similar topics, but here’s one answer from TR that might help you understand how TR approaches this
The short answer is: TR plans are, generally, geared toward people with limited time to train, so it (intelligently) replaces volume with intensity.
That being said, I would also guess that you may not have edited your plan, if you actually have more time to train each week (or would just like to train more because you love riding your).
For me, the key pieces of data used to build the training program are: type of event, length of event, intensity of event, how ‘aggressive’ you want the training plan to be, and how many hours (each day) you have available to train. Once you set these up to your liking you should be good to go, though you still have to trust the app.
This might be a good place to start: https://support.trainerroad.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037923191-Plan-Builder-Overview
Step 5 is probably what you want. (Just keep in mind that if you, for example, put in that you have 3 hours available to train every day that you likely won’t actually be scheduled for 3 hours of training every day, though TR might eventually build you to that, if you are actually handling the load reasonably. So, put times for each day that are truly reasonable for your schedule.)
I’d also recommend that you run the ‘Check Volume’ utility occasionally to see what it recommends (you always have the option to say ‘no thanks’).
Personally, when I started with TR (which was only a few months ago), I felt much the same as you. As TR has gathered more of my training, though, my volume, which started at 7 hours of training over 5 days of the week, has changed to 11 hours a week over 6 days. And, honestly, I feel like my cycling fitness has improved quite a bit. (And, as a side ‘benefit’, I’ve learned that I can handle Sweet Spot workouts pretty well, but Threshold workouts kick my ass, which will help me to better pace myself during events).
I hope that’s of some help.
You can also go into your plan and adjust you time availability. Make sure your long endurance day has the correct time avalible for you to ride. It usually adjusts accordingly in my experience.
There’s a bunch of great advice here already. Thanks for chiming in, everyone!
I’ll echo the fact that we won’t prescribe workouts that are longer than what you have set for your max duration caps.
I’d set those caps to reflect the length of workouts that you’d like to take on each week, and we’ll either prescribe workouts that long or work you up to them over time to ensure that your plan is sustainable and productive long term.
Those really long rides are taxing, though, and there are likely going to be times when a slightly shorter ride makes more sense depending on your recent training history, and we’ll suggest changes for you along the way.