What is the best practice when you hit a workout and your just to fatigued to finish the intervals. I recently had a hard ride outside with one day rest between it and my next TR threshold workout. I was unable to finish many of the intervals even with my HR not hitting my max area that I would normally hit before fatigue. I lowered the intensity 4% and found I could complete the intervals with several having to take brief 15-20sec breaks. I continued through the whole workout and finished. Is this a proper way to complete the workout or would it be better to just stop the workout entirely and come back another day. I will say my legs feel completely shot the following day.
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This is strictly something that I follow: If my legs are shot , not just sore but really shot, there is no benefit to continue. Breaking down more muscle fibers at this moment will not make me any stronger. Time for me to spin down. Now if it’s just a matter of the intervals being a bit tooo hard, turning down the intensity a small amount will allow for me finish. My legs should feel ok the next day.
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Also, if you go into the workout knowing you’re feeling tired/weak, I’d take a look at the Alternates/Train Now recommendations and pick something more doable. Better to go a little easier for one ride and maintain consistency than to blow it out and have to skip a ride later so you can recover.
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If you’re going into a workout with clearly still sore/fatigued legs, I’d either choose an easier workout or push it back another day or so. Going into hard intervals fatigued is usually not going to pan out well.
If I go in feeling good and my intervals end up being much harder than expected, I’ll still generally aim to finish them, assuming I started fresh. For me, it’s the long outdoor workouts where if I’m targeting 5 hrs and I’m feeling totally washed at 4 hrs at a moderate Z2 effort, those I would be more likely to cut short as pushing deeper in what’s intended to be a steady Z2 seems counterproductive. Granted, I think I’ve only actually followed through in cutting my long ride short once or twice.