I’m getting an odd situation where every week my Threshold interval set keeps being set to a 1.4 workout. My adaptation level is 5.3. so this is quite a drop and would be very easy. It seems to happen mid-week and happens under the radar.
I’m nominally running the ‘climbing’ plan, high volume. Although i admit that I make a few tweaks to make the workouts practical on the open road.
My week structure is:
Tuesday: Vo2 intervals (should be hard). TR typically recommends “attacks”. I swap them for standard Vo2 intervals at the same difficulty. I also do a group ride in the evening.
(The reason I swap the attacks for standard Vo2 is because the roads tend to undulate, so it’s easier to run a consistent effort than be changing frequently).
Wednesday: Z2 easy day. I tend to ride a bit longer than planned, but keep the intensity in the right band.
Thursday: Vo2 intervals. Suprathreshold. Then an easy z2 ride in the evening.
Friday: Z2 easy day. Again. I run a longer ride at the same intensity.
Saturday: Long threshold interval set.
Sunday: Group ride.
I’ve observed that at some point during the week TR will swap out for a really low level threshold session. I swap it back to the “right” level, and successfully complete it.
My week is high volume (typically 2.5 hrs during the week. 3+ hours at the weekend). However, I have been doing this for over a year and manage my training fatigue well.
What I can’t figure out is why the threshold workouts keep being dropped. I can reset them, but it’s a little frustrating.
It’s split across several screenshots, but I’ll explain this week:
Shot 1: TSS. There’s one spike from a few weeks ago. You can see last week’s recovery week. Otherwise, TSS is pretty consistent.
Shot 2; Mon- Tues. Monday is unusual for me, but not extreme (bank holiday in the UK). Otherwise, usual workouts. Mesa was easy.
Shot 3: Wednesday. Endurance work + Yesterday: Vo2 work. One interval has an annoying gap because of a car mid-interval. Otherwise it was spot on (if anything I was slightly above target).
Shot 4: today (easy) + tomorrow. I have already selected a workout at a difficulty I know is about right.
My week’s tend to look similar to these shots.
If I look ahead to next saturday (6th) Dragon’s head is scheduled. I can almost guarantee that by Thursday it’ll be downgraded to a Threshold 1.4 again!
Every ride is a hard ride, multiples in a day - that’s not good training. AI or a coach should be giving you easy work, and sounds like it is trying to.
Switch back to balanced and the recommended volume, would be my advice.
On the road: easy rides are kept to a low intensity and the second ride per day is commuting home. Kept to low intensity (well below the top of zone 2).
They’re long, admittedly, but don’t feel taxing. Maybe I’ve become a little warped in my perceptions though!
The lowest you’ve clocked is an average IF of 0.73, so no I wouldn’t agree that you’re capping it well at all, you’re definitely well over endurance efforts in every ride. Endurance is not in itself easy either, certainly not the top end.
See if you can accumulate less than 50 TSS per hour in a ride. With nothing in the tempo zone.
I’m finding the workouts at the level I’d expect them to be. E.g. some fatigue towards the end of the last rep, but could probably do another if i needed to.
