Is TR for me? Advice

Training
1

Hey everyone,

I’m returning to structured training after a long hiatus. My fitness has dipped, and I’m looking to get back to my “glory days”—specifically rejoining the fast group on club rides and potentially pinning on a number again.

The Goals:

  • Increase power-to-weight (lose a few kg while gaining watts).

  • Regain the fitness to stick with the “upper group” on Wednesday nights.

  • Build a base for local racing.

The Constraints:

  • Total Volume: ~10 hours per week.

  • Tuesday: Zero availability (work).

  • Preference: I’d much rather be outside if the weather allows.

Current Weekly Template:

Day Activity Notes
Monday 2.5–3h Outside Varying terrain; flexible intensity.
Tuesday OFF Work restrictions.
Wednesday 2h Club Ride High intensity; currently struggling to hold the wheel.
Thursday Potential TR ?
Friday Potential TR ?
Saturday 100km Outside Endurance/Social.
Sunday Potential TR ?

My Questions:

  1. Is TR viable with this much outdoor volume? I want to use Adaptive Training, but I don’t want to overtrain.

  2. Double Days: On Mondays, would it be productive to do an easy spin outside and a focused TR session later? Or is that overkill?

  3. The Weekend Bridge: How should I structure Thursday, Friday, and Sunday on TR so I’m not “legs like lead” for the Saturday 100km?

Looking forward to hearing how you guys balance high-volume outdoor riding with the TR platform. Cheers!

2

You should be able to schedule all that in to plan builder and be good to go :grin:

If you want to keep that high intensity ride on the Wednesday I’d be tempted to choose a “masters” plan just because it will then only give you two hard interval sessions rather than the standard 3.

Maybe have Monday as a sweetspot day (inside or outside) and Friday as a VO2max/threshold day.

Don’t be too scared about going against plan builders advice initially - treat it as a guide rather than a rule.

My observation is that TR can be a little conservative with new starters (perhaps understandably?) this has left people feeling a little frustrated by initial lack of volume… but the truth is you can pretty much get it to give you whatever you want if you ignore a couple of warnings.

For what it is worth my schedule looks pretty similar to yours with club rides Wednesday and Saturday, my total volume is only 7-8 hours and I have seen good results.

3

Why not?

I dislike training indoors and would 100% ride outside. TR is a good option for me if it’s raining or cold. It’s also a good option for openers the day before an event. As for intervals, they are obviously very structured on TR but I can do them outside - some can’t because of where they live, so may be better in those circumstances. I’m not bought into the AI aspects, so there’s that.

4

Ride on! I would say TR’s strength is biased to when you do a lot of indoor work, i think they’re working on getting the outdoor integration working better now but it’s not optimised and can struggle to assess the indoor data vs the outdoor numbers

5

Hey @Darthshearer :slight_smile:

How long of a hiatus? haha

If it’s been long enough, then I like @kevistraining idea of changing your plan to a Masters one so you start with 2 interval workouts a week if you’re going to be training 6 days a week and only resting one…

I would personally ramp up, instead of the other way around, it’s easier to add more along the way seeing how you are feeling. If you are keeping 3 interval workouts I would then have 2 rest days, and try to spread those days so that you’re not doing back to back intensity days.

6

Depending on your personal athletic abilities, I think you could really struggle with fatigue if you’re planning to add hard TR rides on top of your outdoor sessions. Some thoughts below.

Wednesday - going really hard here and not doing a TR workout

Thursday - you’re cooked from Wednesday, so you may need to either take the day off or ride easy knowing what’s ahead for the rest of the week

Friday - How much does the Saturday ride impact you? Do you need to take Friday easy so Saturday isn’t a slog? Or is this a good day for a hard TR workout?

Saturday - Sounds like this might be mostly Z2? Or does it go harder at times? You’re talking about at least 3 hours in the saddle, right? This will be impacted by what you did Friday (and the days before)

Sunday - you haven’t had a day off since Tuesday, you rode for at least 3 hours the day before, and maybe went hard on Friday, so might want to rest or go easy depending on how hard the Monday ride is, but at the least, there is another 3 hours coming up tomorrow.

Monday - Maybe I’m just reading it wrong, but “flexible intensity” sounds to me like “part of this is hard work” over the course of a 3 hour ride. Maybe doing a hard TR structured workout and then adding easy hours on top? Just remember you might be pretty cooked after all you’ve done the week before without any days off

Tuesday - off. That’s good, you’re going to need recovery here after the prior 6 days!

Assuming Monday and Wednesday (max effort group ride) are your hard days, that really only leaves room for 1 hard TR ride on Monday and MAYBE another on Friday?

TR is awesome, but regardless of which training platform you choose, you’re doing a lot of work outside of the structured hard stuff, so I’d be really careful ramping up and make sure you take some recovery days to avoid burning out.

7

I just want to quick chime in from a similar standpoint of having a lot of pre-planned training each week. For me I mainly have been a runner (marathons/ultras) but have been using TrainerRoad over the past two years for periods of time to have focused structured training - use a Masters Training plan, 2x hard workouts on days I chose (Tue/Thur) and 1 dynamic endurance ride on Sunday (long run on Saturdays typically, EZ run M/W/F). It then manages when I do easy or long spins with my wife or my friends.

Last year I was very impressed and my bike fitness gains and leg strength for running trails went up. Loved it! (coming from someone that had been self coached and coached others) Nice to have a 2nd opinion on training, progression, and another form of accountability (consistency, sticking with plan/goal, and from deciding to go too easy or too hard!)
This year I decided to jump into again, but starting in January instead of late winter. Already hitting PR’s and highest FTP yet (17w+ compared to june2025) and its only April!!! Definitely works, meets you where you are at in your training, and monitors your other training to prevent too much too soon.

Just do it! :grinning_face:

8

I’d recommend an open mind when you sign up. You can train however you want to train, but if you want to get faster it will be worth seeing what TR proposes based on your training history and considering that against your current preferences for a training week.

When I’ve been training 10hrs bike a week, it’s usually been something like a 4h weekend long ride with shorter vo2, sweet spot and tempo rides midweek and it’s been great. Or, lots of commute riding, and a couple of hard indoor sessions at the weekend.