I completely understand why MV & HV riders should go back to base after specialty. OK, well, I sort of do. They are thrashing themselves to the limits of what their bodies can recover from between each ride, and each week, and need to:
1 – Take a break from that and continue to provide high volume of stimulus, at lower intensity, to allow full recovery.
2 – Return to building & further expanding their aerobic base fitness level before returning to further work on VO2, anaerobic, etc, so they can build these higher.
But for LV riders, we have far more recovery time.
All riders only have 3 variables to increase stimulus: Duration, intensity, frequency. If frequency is locked at 3 x / wk, and duration is locked at 60 – 90 min per WO, does it really make sense to return to a full back to back SSBLV1 and SSBLV2 ?
SSBLV1 is six weeks of SS, SS, Thresh. Pretty low intensity vs. build & specialty, that we have just been doing. Huge drop in training stimulus, and for a long time… six weeks!! Then SSBLV2 is VO2, SS, Thresh. A bit of intensity now, but still far far less than build or specialty. And is it not way, way less than we could properly complete, and continue to recover from, and grow?
(I know 2 – 4 hr Z2 rides are The Spice^TM but I have zero interest.)
Bottom line: For riders locked to 3 x / wk and 60, 60, 60 – 90 mins, what is the best plan RE: Base / Build / Spec training plan cycles?[Assuming no future A event to schedule around.]
But most importantly, seeking to understand, if returning to base truly is the best plan, why that is still the case, even if you’re not able to incorporate 2+ hr Z2 rides and other longer duration, lower intensity type work.
[Did a very deep dive on forum search, couldn’t find anything that addressed this Q, please link, and apologies, if already covered.]