Thanks for letting me know Chad - here’s hoping it’s near the top of the list!
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Sound like several people have mentioned or ask for this, but an age graded section would be useful. I realize age related recovery is highly individual, but as 60+ year old cyclist, I really would like the plan to account for the additional recovery necessary, rather than have to manually rework each week. I spend almost as much time reworking the week as I used to put into building workouts/weeks in Training Peaks.
That said, TR is an outstanding platform
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Hi all,
Just query of anyone knows the logic behind the following schedule from plan builder.
I have a single A race - a sprint triathlon in about 10 months time (actually a sprint duathalon, but for argument sake let’s say a sprint tri as no duathalon plans).
When put this into plan builder in simply repeats Sprint tri base, Sprint tri build, sprint tri speciality over and over again until the event…
Now at first glance I guess that makes sense…BUT surely no/less value in doing specialty several times. Surely better to save specialty and just do it once before event and in mean time just repeat base and build?
I’d also argue mixing it up with some different base/build so don’t get bored BUT that is a different matter (which is what I’ve done, mixed in sweet spot base and gen build earlier in year with own running plans before one full Sprint tri base, build, speciality cycle).
So…if only have 1 A race and long time in future…is there value in just repeating base/build/specialty…or as I’d have thought, more value in repeating base/build and just doing specialty once leading upto the event.
@Bryce - any ideas?
Since you have over 40 weeks to prepare for your Sprint event (which requires 16 weeks following the standard protocol), I’d recommend following an “Off-season” procedure before jumping into the Sprint Plan.
From our Sprint Triathlon Training article, we give this advice:
Off-Season
A great way to use your off-season is to focus on cycling-specific training to improve your bike-leg. This time spent with a singular focus will allow you to progress much faster than when your efforts are split three ways. When taking the time to focus on cycling in the off-season, we recommend choosing one of our cycling Build Phases.
Sustained Power Build is the plan that will offer the most direct improvements for your triathlon performance. It focuses solely on raising your threshold and your ability to maintain steady, consistent power.
General Build If you are looking to increase your general cycling fitness and keep up on spirited group rides or try your hand at local cycling races, this plan is a great choice. Also, if your events have climbs or undulating terrain, this plan will help broaden your range of capabilities, which may increase your comfort level on race day. But remember, even if the course profile is varied, a steadily paced effort is a faster and more sustainable approach.
Short-Power Build is not a great choice for improving your triathlon performance, however, if you like to participate in criteriums, or just want to improve your burst power for other reasons, then Short Power Build could be a good way to mix things up in the off-season.
Since you have the time, you could also choose to do SSB II before jumping into the Build Plan to focus even more on your cycling fitness.
Ultimately, that would look like this:
SSBII (6 Week)
General or Sustained Build (8 Weeks)
Plan Builder - Sprint Tri (Remaining weeks)
I hope this helps!
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Hi!! So I encountered what might be an issue on Plan Builder and wanted to bring it up in case you haven’t thought through it.
These days that we all need to reschedule our races, I did edit the race date and then recalculate. So plan builder gives me a plan but what I found out is that it does not take into account what I have just done. For example, I just completed a Specialty Phase and Plan Builder suggests to start over with the specialty phase again. I believe that this happens because it recalculates from the begging of the plan (which for me is Nov 2019).
I started a new plan builder from scratch and it takes me through the classic approach of BBS for the remainder of my season. This sounds more reasonable.
Wanted to hear your thoughts on this and if this is something that will get worked out in the future.
Stay Safe!!
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Hi,
i struggle with the plan builder. Why is there no option to define which power zone(s) i’d like to concentrate on? See my other thread: Exhausted for days - why?
I would like to follow the recommendations I received and concentrate mainly on zone 2. How do I build a plan in the Plan Builder accordingly?
As of now I feel I will need to search the workouts via filters and put the plan together manually. any other way I might have overlooked?
Thank you
What were your inputs to PB? Generally it proffers plans biased towards Base for beginner and towards Speciality for expert so if you want lower power zones set your experience as “beginner” even if you’ve years of trainer experience.
True, I have set up as “beginner” and tried to keep everything as low as possible. Still: most workouts turn out around 0,8 IF and somewhere around 80% FTP.
Presumably you’ve ended up with SSB LV1 & 2? Most of the workouts in all variants of SSB are around 0.8 IF apart from those in the recovery weeks like Pettit which are down around 0.6 IF.
Plan Builder pushes you towards Sweet Spot Base as it works for most people. You might be better manually choosing the Traditional Base Low Volume plans and following those but be aware that there isn’t much variety in them.
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As much as I love the way Plan Builder shuffles workouts around events, it’s kinda embarrassing that it still messes up the first week of my plan every time.
Anyone who’s had issues with Plan Builder dropping the Ramp Test and/or the first week of base knows what I’m talking about. 4 months on and it’s still doing it.
Anyway, I set up my spare trainer for my neighbor, as she’s not able to leave the house for two weeks every time she flies back from overseas. (Being a Qantas pilot sucks right now).
I was all like “I’ll hook you up with a TR referral. It’s really easy to use and they have this cool Plan builder feature”. Then when I tried to show her how to set up a plan it did the usual trick and dropped the ramp test and first week of base.
Unfortunately, that’s not a great first introduction to the platform.
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I know there wasnt at the outset, but is there now a way to push the entire plan back a week??
Hi TrainerRoad Team, is this something we can ask you nicely to reconsider? I’m currently having all planned workouts set to “indoor” regardless just so that I can get a quick overview of what’s expected. It doesn’t have to be any more sophisticated than e.g. what a planned workout in a Trainingpeaks calendar looks like.
Already mentioned recently and under consideration.
My sister’s training plan was interrupted a couple of months due to an injury. It is time to restart training and there are ~6 weeks left on the plan she created late last year.
Is it better to delete the current plan, and run Plan Builder to create a new plan starting Monday? Or is it better to edit the existing plan and adjust the end date? Or something else?
Yes. A couple of months is a very long interruption.
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Hi there, is it possible to edit the days of the week in a plan without manually dragging 35 weeks worth? thanks
Can you be more specific on your needs and goals?
There are potentially ways to handle issues within the Plan Builder steps initially, as well as after the fact. But the best option depends on your specific needs.
My plan currently has rides Monday and Thursday and Saturday need to change to Monday, Wednesday and Friday due to work.
OK, see [Step #6: Schedule] in the article below:
- You can drag the workouts to any day that works for your schedule. Do this during the actual Plan Builder process, and it is all set once you add it to the calendar.
You can also do a bit of editing after the plan is added to your calendar, but it is a bit more work.
Open the specific phase of interest (like Base, Build or Specialty by the annotation on your calendar:
And then you can drag around the days like the method above. The issue here is that you have to do it individually for each phase vs an all-in-one approach that takes place in the Plan Builder at the top. But it’s an easier fix vs manual edits you have tried.
Thanks was clicking on the overall plan not the blocks
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