I’m on a low volume plan with workouts scheduled for Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. How do I go about Incorporating the local Wednesday Night MTB race into my plan?
I’ve added the WNW race to my training plan as a C-race, but that leaves me with hard workouts Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It would be great if TR adapted automatically, but it doesn’t (at least I don’t think i does) since it’s not a TR workout and I don’t have power on my MTB.
How should I modify the Tuesday/Thursday workouts so I’m not totally buried?
I’d shift your entire week 1 day forward or backwards so your training day lines up. So either: M, W, Fri/Sat, or W, Fri, Sun/Mon. Ideally the MTB day replaces a high intensity workout (ie: Vo2).
Back when I was using the TR plans I called that the picket fence problem. I’ve played around with different patterns, the one that appears to be working well as I start WNW tomorrow:
Mon intervals
Tue endurance
Wed intervals (January/February) or WNW (March-October)
…
Given your schedule, a somewhat challenging aerobic endurance / zone2 might work. Or perhaps a shorter endurance plus an opener.
The whole family races, it’s our mid week family activity and we all look forward to it. I’m really just looking for some advice on how to adjust Tu/Th to work with the mid week race. I know it’s not ideal, but how do I maximize what it is.
Its all a balancing act and based on your priorities. I was just throwing out an option for balancing TR and the mid-week race. See meme above. Good luck!
You could try making it a B race and see how Plan Builder alters Tuesday (I’ve no idea if or how it will though). Thursday worries me less as I hope AT would adjust if it finds that you are struggling on Thursday (hopefully it’ll do that even better and adjust pre work out when PL2’s are launched and take account of your MTB races). Good luck!
I say do whatever you can to make your training as fun as possible while still being effective, or what’s the point? So experiment with different types of workouts on the Tuesday until you find an approach that makes Wednesday still fun and also able to do subsequent workouts that keep you progressing.
Hopefully TR makes this easier soon when they can handle outside rides. Until then you might be better off using Train Now to schedule workouts rather than a Plan Builder plan.
I would TR Tuesday per the plan, WNW on Wednesday and race or sit in depending on how you feel, then do the Thursday TR workout if you feel up to it or turn it into an endurance / recovery session, then get your third TR workout during the weekend.
Depending on what your goals are for WNW, you could treat it as an outdoor version of your Thursday workout. So, if Thursday is VO2 then practice repeated short attacks. If Thursday is threshold the try to pace an entire lap at WNW. Just a thought.
Why are you doing TR? What’s the goal… or your “A” event?
Sounds like you can only ride 4 days a week; T, W, R, and Sa. As you know from the podcast and the forums you really only want to be doing 2 hard workouts a week. Simple math will then answer your question. 2 hard 2 easy. You choose.
How hard is the W ride? TR can calculate hrTSS if you have a HR monitor. If that’s one of your hard rides, then make Sat your other intensity day. Then Z2 Tuesday so you’re fresh for your actual fun real world ride that matters. If you’re feeling frisky maybe go Z3 on Thursday since Friday is an off day.
So, based on what was discussed on this weeks podcast the recommendation would be to lean more on train now since it will take into account the Wednesday night race. So I’ll probably start out the season like so and adjust based on how I’m feeling.