I did sweet spot base in 2018-19 and then did traditional base in 2019-20. I got gains in both. I did a lot of the base outside and did longer rides of 4-6 hours weekly during that 12 week base and averaged 11-14 hours a week. I may be crazy, but I love the long slow distance and my FTP really shot up in this 2020 build phase and I wasn’t burnt out at all during the traditional base. I think both sweet spot and traditional base work. It just depends on what you like and how much you want to ride.
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Sweet spot base is brutal even at low volume, but if you fuel them properly and take it one interval at a time then trust me you can get through it (speaking as someone who failed at first attempt).
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Looks like you got plenty of good advice already about not using plan builder for your situation. I just wanted to add that the purpose of plan builder is to get you fit and ready for an event or multiple events that are say 3 to 6 months away. It solves the problem of how and when to progress through base, build and specialty phases in a way that matches your weekly schedule as well incorporating tapers right before your events. It’s kind of like asking what is the most (cycling) fit that I can be by this date and how do I get there?
So no wonder it gave you nonsense for your purpose. 
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As somebody above said Sweet Spot needs fueling and is not as good as Z2 work for increasing michocondria. As @bbarrera said go down the Traditional base route at the volume that suits your time availability. Don’t be afraid to either turn down the intensity if you HR is getting too high or cutting short the session if you can’t stand being on a trainer for that long. The important thing is consistency. Not doing a couple of days then not being able to face getting on the bike for a week.
OR maybe just use Plan Builder and let it come up with workouts and then on each workout lower the intensity so it only reaches your zone 2 so that you get a bit of variety in your workout but still staying around your zones that you want to?
More intense and longer-duration activities can improve insulin sensitivity for up to one to two days, as muscle glycogen that was used during the exercise is being restored. A short, low-intensity workout however may not have any lasting impact on insulin sensitivity since very little glycogen is used during it.
So maybe the TR approach is in fact exactly what the doctor ordered
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Sweet spot really shouldn’t be that hard.
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Hi,
FWIW I’ve had type 1 diabetes for more than forty years now. With a lot of help from my father initially, I’ve kept my blood sugars under very tight control since I was diagnosed. Anyway, a few ideas maybe I can share with you.
First, your idea of substituting exercise for injected insulin is one I’ve tried out. In a way it works. You can have a high carb snack right before exercise to give you energy for your ride. I’ve found that starting a ride with blood sugar around 8/9 or 150/165 depending on your units tends to work well for me and then I add in boosts of carbs as the ride progresses. Note that different ride types can lead to different blood sugar consequences depending on how much stress your putting on your body and how your body reacts.
The issue you’re facing of eating carbs before exercise and then feeling starved afterwards is natural. If you’ve balanced everything out perfectly and blood sugar is same before and after, it roughly means that you have used all the carb energy you are during your workout. Now think about what would have happened if you just hadn’t exercised and decided not to eat, because this is at a minimum what you’ve done. You’d probably be hungry anyway. On top of this and depending on the duration of the ride, you may also see your need for insulin over the next few hours be reduced. If you haven’t adjusted your insulin dose, this can contribute to potential for hypoglycaemia and may exhibit itself as starvation-like hunger. But all in all, any way you cut it, the food you ate initially is all gone and just like if you skipped a meal, you’re going to be hungry.
For my part I’ve found that eating something with fat/protein after a workout helps to fill me up and offset some or all of the downward pressure on blood sugar after a ride. So, eat some yogurt with nuts or some peanut butter on crackers.
Another important point though is to remember that insulin is needed both to handle food intake and for steady state rise in blood sugar. These correspond to bolus doses of insulin and basal doses. In the old days, I used to take regular insulin to offset meals and NPH or Lente to help stabilise the steady state. Nowadays, this can all be handled directly by one insulin if you use an insulin pump. Pumps can administer short-acting insulin in large doses for handling blood sugar spikes after meals but also in very small doses all the time to deal with steady state. This works really well. Pumps give you a lot of flexibility that at the moment you can only get through injecting repeatedly. Like you I used to give injections sometimes six times a day but now I only have to change my pump connection once every three days. I’d urge you to discuss this option with your diabetologist.
One of the primary benefits of aerobic training (and for that matter weight loss) is reduced steady state insulin need. For type 1 diabetics sadly this is only a reduction, not an elimination. It’s a great goal to go for being as light and thoroughly trained as possible but it’s not likely going to change the number of injections you’re taking significantly. You still need to control the steady state and your body still needs to eat meals to provide more energy than just what you’re using during exercise.
In terms of training, I’ve found that the intensity of TR workouts is really high but it definitely pays dividends from a fitness standpoint. I tend to think you get more bang for your buck of time using the SSB plans than the lower intensity workouts.
Good luck figuring it all out. Diabetes is kind of a like a puzzle that keeps evolving while you’re solving it. The good news is that technology has really made many aspects of the puzzle more manageable than they once were… but it still takes a lot of determination and discipline to get the best outcome possible.
Not so different than training using TR in that respect!
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Very well put.
As a fellow diabetic I can concur that just once you think that you have the insulin / food / excercise equation all figured out, there’s a shift in the equation and you have another set of parameters to figure out.
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The triathlon plan I put together for my season this year (that has now been put off thanks to the pandemic) was based off the Traditional Base plans for my three Base phases. I mixed things up by taking the workouts from the low/mid/high plans each week since I could go longer on some days than others, the weekend especially where I did the high volume long ride. I ended up tieing my highest FTP (323W, ~4.3W/kg), which had been previously set using virtual power so was likely not actually that high before. It also made completing my other swim/run/strength workouts much more consistent since I didn’t have to recover from too much intensity–I’ll definitely be going that route again when I start ramping up training again.
ETA: I’ve been a TR member since 2012 and have gone through a lot of the different plans they offer/have offered as well.
big appreciation to my two fellow T1ers.
It is a learning curve, every day anew.
Think about it this way. FTP is your 1 hour max. You’re working well under that. So it should be doable.
I’m sure this isn’t officially sanctioned but as I am recovering from injury, I simply understate my FTP for the first base phase. If you are totally new to cycling you might do this and just repeat the base.
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