Looking for some direction in how to navigate group rides

Group rides are starting up where I live which I will be including into my training week.

Currently, I am on a LV plan with trainer days on M,W,Sat. The stated speed of the group ride i will be joining is 14-18 mph on T but in years past the same people show up T,W,R and the W,R crowd are 20+ avg speed.

I’m going into this assuming it’s going to be a near threshold workout for 20miles.

If that’s the case what is the play for the Wednesday trainer session? Do I see what’s scheduled and do a -1 version if I feel wrecked or do I swap to an endurance workout.

Just subbing in an endurance seems like it would do disservice to the plan.

Background on myself.
33yr male. 181 lbs 147 ftp
Currently on a diet of 100g of carbs a day due to Dr’s recommendation to combat insulin resistance. lost 30 lbs in 2 months weighing food and monitoring macros. Training consistently for 2 months 1 via zwift 1 trainerroad. Also do 1 day lifting a week at home.

Sounds like a tough ride for you so I’d just do endurance riding around the group ride, maybe a little short easy spin the day before and after. 14-18 is quite a pace gap though, that’s basically D level to B level, never seen a group ride myself that has that range unless they have multiple groups leave from the same location

That or completely swap out a ride for your new group ride. Think of it as a threshold workout and sub out whatever workout that week looks like it is targeting the same gains! I did the same after joining a fast local ride, after a good few weeks I started with considering an extra endurance spin but play it conservative is my advice.

If I have 1 threshold on sat scheduled.

Your saying I can drop the sat trainer session for the subbed group ride. Potentially push the W trainer session out a day to move the rest day if needed.

Yea move things around however fits your life, your body doesn’t know what day of the week it is! For example I make sure I do my long ride in the week so I don’t need 90 mins off family time at the weekend and that works for me, the website is really easy for dragging your calendar around!

Honestly if you’re 81kg, ftp 147w and 2 months training history, then you’re going to have a very tough ride hanging with a fast group doing 18-20mph, and if there’s any hills then it will be brutal. If you do a hard session the day before then you may find it gets even worse… Is it a drop ride or will they slow for you if you are struggling? It will be different if they actually do 14mph but from what you said I think that its unlikely, especially after a long hiatus and people being desperate to get out and smash it with their mates!

I think you need to clearly prioritise what is most important to you - is it the training sessions or the group ride? I really dont see all that being very compatible with your training and other history. You’ll have to try it and see what happens based on a hard day on Monday and then again the next day and potentially a 3rd tough day in row and 4 tough sessions in a week - LV sessions are deliberately HARD.

Good luck.

Agreed I expect it to be tough. I also think since it’s the beginning of the season it’s going to be on the lower end and is a no drop ride.

I did do a charity bike race on the 24th where I managed an avg power of 153w and 15.3mph over 88 minutes.

Realistically I think there was some error in going from zwift to trainerroad and testing in TR directly after finishing a plan from zwift. It said I went from 120-147ftp however my ramp test took 33min. I’m just holding the course to see my true ftp in 2 weeks.

Biggest thing I don’t want to see happen is what happened my first time with zwift which was go from 125-169 after my first training block and lose momentum.

Good luck with it.

Just remember that the LV plans are already 3 hard sessions per week and NOBODY is going to recommend 4 hard sessions per week, plus your lifting day. If you aim to cntinue these group rides then you’ll need to make some changes or simply bury yourself pretty quickly.

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I appreciate you looking out.

Thanks for the advice!

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