Gran Fondo Endurance Week Question

I am in the final week of the base phase 1 of the LV gran fondo plan and am training for hopefully a 100-miler in August. What should I do if I have the capacity to add volume this week and also need to practice riding longer? I have something labeled Pettit Endurance 3.2 on the schedule for today. Should I try to do that twice to get 2 hours in instead of 1? Or is there a way to toggle the same workout to a longer time? My understanding of “endurance” is that it has to be longer at the low level. Or am I confused?

I am an indoor rider because I am afraid of the drivers here (the NW Houston area), so I am interested in getting some longer rides in indoors. My husband found a park last week that has a 2km paved car-free loop, so I will be going out there to practice outdoor riding and some bike-handling skills (like unclipping and stopping without falling down), but indoor riding is going to be my main way of training distance. Suggestions?

For starters:

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A general article on adding volume in safe ways that is worth the read:

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It’s worth noting that if you’re just wrapping up SSB LV 1, then Pettit is in there as part of your recovery week. If you are new to structured training (and perhaps bike riding in general, if I’m reading your comments correctly), I would be very careful about adding volume or intensity to a recovery week. SSB LV 2 is appreciably harder than 1, and you want to make sure you actually recover during your recovery week and don’t start the next block “in the hole”.

This is predicated on understanding your use of the word “capacity” to mean “free time”, and not physical capacity in the sense of “every single ride of this first training block felt easy to me and I’m not concerned at all with compromising recovery”.

If you’re going to extend an endurance ride, do it early in the recovery week, and then seriously consider making your 3rd ride of the week just 60 mins, by again selecting an alternate.

I’m not an expert, but I was new to this just 3 years ago and I tried to do too much during recovery weeks and blew up half way through the plan.

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Hi @mcneese.chad, thank you very much for both replies! I will read the article right away! Am I seeing it correctly that I cannot keep the same workout and just up the duration? To get to the duration tab, I also would have to select a different workout, right? If that’s the case, then I certainly won’t do that. I do want to follow the plan since I do not pretend to have any idea at this point as to what might be better for me.

  • Right, there is a unique name for every workout version, no duplicates.
  • “Pettit” exists, and there are “+1, +2, -1, -2 etc.” versions of this and many other workouts, but they are all different in intensity and/or duration. So you will never have a workout Alternate with exactly the same name.
  • No, follow the instructions in the article.
  • You just open the currently scheduled workout from your Calendar day or the Career tab of the app, switch to the Alternate tab, then adjust Duration and/or Intensity to suit your goals, and then “Swap” once you find your desired Alternate workout.
  • It will be a different name in one way or another, and will directly replace the prior planned workout.

Thank you @Mipegr for sharing your experience! Yes, you understood me correctly that I have some extra time this week and not that the workouts were too easy.
I think I am going to go ahead and take your advice and do everything this week just as written, then I will see how I do. One of the reasons I am here and not still flailing around with the workouts over at Zwift is because I trust that TR is not going to lead me astray. I really disliked suddenly being in way over my head with the Zwift workouts. I think I’ll worry about longer rides a little closer to my event. Thanks again!