I just signed up for TR and I’m struggling with where to begin and which build to start.
Background:
Cat 4 road racer/Crit racer.
First pedal stroke on a road bike: Aug 5, 2018.
Age: 36 years old
Starting FTP: 250w
Starting weight: 235lbs
Current FTP: 325w
Current weight: 187lbs
I’m currently on the bike 6 days/week with about 9-10 hours/week in the saddle. I’m riding approx 200 miles/week with an average weekly TSS of about 700.
I. feel. great!
I’ve never felt this good in my entire life.
I’ve heard the boys (@Jonathan, @chad, and @Nate_Pearson) mention that sweet spot base low volume is where most people should start but I feel like that won’t be enough stimulus for me.
Are the plans designed to add extra workouts if you feel like you can do more?
Like say I pick sweet spot base low volume for now and want to add a handful of extra workouts/group rides to that plan - is that considered ‘ok’? Or does that impact the efficacy of the prescribed plan?
I don’t want to cut back on my training, but also don’t want to sabotage the workout plans that the TR staff have developed!
With your history, I would try mid volume with a ramp test at the beginning and do that for the first block. You can switch out weekend indoor rides for weekend outdoor workouts or longer rides.
After you’ve been through one mid volume block, you can decide if you need to adjust the mid volume yourself or go to high/low volume.
Sounds good @Nate_Pearson, ty! I’ll give that a shot. 3 day stage race starts Friday of this week (C race for me) and then the new plan starts Tuesday!
One more question - when planning your Base/build/specialty plan around an A race - how much taper or break do you place between your A race and the end of your specialty phase?
For example - next year one of my A races (possibly my only A race) is the state criterium championship in July. If I’m backing my training schedule with the goal of peaking for that race, where should I place the end of my specialty phase?
Apologies if this has been covered and if it has - please direct me to a thread or other resource and I’ll be happy to read up. I just haven’t seen this question answered before.
Look at the Specialty phases, and you will see the last Sunday is empty. This is the intended location for the A-Race. The 8 week plans already include a 1-2 week taper, and an opener on the Saturday before the A-Race.
I have seen this as a common question. It happened again earlier this week and I converted the prior question into a Feature Request, asking that this be made more clear in some way. It is not obivous without reading the Week Tips closely, and even in some cases there, is still not stated cleanly.
