Hello. I’ve been doing a low volume training plan but find it hard to stick to it while trying to incorporate weekend rides with friends which tend to be 3-4 hour tough rides while getting enough rest. Right now I do TR mon wed fri but then have to do a tough weekend ride either day after or day before a TR session which I know is not ideal. Being this is the low volume plan each TR day is rated as difficult.
Would you do 2 TR sessions on consecutive days say Monday Tuesday rest Wednesday train Thursday and tough weekend ride Saturday? Or skip a TR day or change a TR day to lower intensity TR session? I really don’t want to change the difficulty of my weekend rides since that would mean my buddies would always be waiting for me or I would have to do them alone which would be a bummer.
Thanks!
This question get answered fairly commonly on the podcast ans seems to revolve around swapping out one of your intensity days. That has worked for me too, I sometimes do a hard drop ride on a Tuesday and will drop on the the sessions as 4 x intensity is hard! If you want to keep the volume maybe swap the Monday ride for an easy hour to keep the legs spinning. Hope this helps
My lv plan is Monday Tuesday Thursday, with zone 2 added as I feel - normally Fri but sometimes weds instead.
Sat is whatever takes me: gravel, fast smash fest, MTB or even another turbo.
Another option is dropping one TR session and then doing your workouts on Tuesday / Thursday and leave your weekend rides as is.
This is a fairly traditional approach to a training week….you can then add in endurance rides on Weds if you have the time.
You don’t find the mon-Tuesday to be too tough on build phase?
This is what I’m doing at the moment:
Saturday: fairly hard, long ride (300-500 TSS, IF 0.8-0.9)
Sunday: fairly hard, long ride (300-500 TSS, IF 0.8-0.9)
Monday: active recovery
Tuesday: LV prescribed 1hr workout
Wednesday: LV prescribed 1hr workout
Thursday: LV prescribed 1,5hr workout
Friday: either additional 1,5hr endurance or sweet spot workout, depending on how I feel
I get around 800-1000 TSS a week, which is quite a lot I reckon. Mondays I’m very fatigued, but rest of the week is Ok. Never failed a workout and FTP is going up (currently 4.2 w/kg).
You will be fine doing TR rides on consecutive days, might take a few weeks to adjust but you’ll be fine. I do a medium volume plan Tuesday thru Friday and a hard 3hr race pace ride on Sunday. Saturday and Monday are bike rest days.
I’ve been on a LV plan since I started TR last March 2020. During lockdown, I did all 3 prescribed workouts per week with a Z2 ride (about 90 min and low-ish TSS). After local guidelines were relaxed, I wanted to get in some longer and more intense outdoor weekend rides, but knew that adding this to the existing 3 workouts per week plus life-stress would bring some added fatigue. I ended up dropping the prescribed 90 minute workout and substituted my outside ride. My 60 minute workouts are Wed and Fri, with the outside ride being on Sunday. Gives me a couple days off the bike to incorporate some weight training too. I’ve been doing that for the past 7-8 months yet still making gains.
Not always great fun!
But it’s manageable and my thinking is I train to be faster for non racing rides (cos I’m just not good enough) so if I occasionally have to reduce or skip a workout to keep my outside ride it’s a ok sacrifice.
I do LV Tues/Thurs/Fri with 3-4 hours MTB Sundays. Monday is a rest day, Saturday is a family day (so never restful). I also incorporate various strength training on trainer days too and Wednesdays.
You get used to it, your body adapts to what you can fit in over time. 
If these stats are only “fairly hard” for you then I’d venture your FTP is way low haha. These rides would probably hurt almost anyone and to do it twice a week is crazy. These are like 4-6 hour hard race efforts.
you are probably correct. I just had a scheduled ramp test and it put me from 267 to 283 (4.4w/kg) Pretty sure these are noob gains, as I’m only 3 months into structured training (and a bit over a year since starting riding a bike), but pretty happy with the results. Still, I think my Saturday and Sunday rides are around 0.8 IF and they are between 4 to 7 hours. By “fairly hard” I mean that they are certainly hurting and the rest of these days is spent resting, but they are not all out efforts, I could go harder and I could go longer.
Is there a way to link rides from my calendar? Does just copying links work?
If so, here are the receipts.last weekend I did this ride on Saturday: Log In to TrainerRoad followed by this on Sunday: Log In to TrainerRoad
The weekend before I did this ride on Saturday: Log In to TrainerRoad and this on Sunday: Log In to TrainerRoad
Get a message saying your data is private. Not sure where you can change it but it should be a setting somewhere on your profile.
should be accessible now
this would totally crush me and seems like a crazy idea for 99% of the population.
My respect though 
Yes, these are full on rode rides.
5w/kg is my goal for this year. I still can lose another 3-4kg (currently at 64kg) and getting to 300w FTP should be doable.
I don’t think my FTP is set too low now. At yesterdays ramp test I gave everything I got. I may have not been recovered fully and could have carbed up more, but I think 283 is realistic, if not even a bit too high, since my kickr core tends to read a few watts above my dual sided garmin rally powermeter.
I think I’m gifted with very good recovery during a ride, my top end power is nothing to speak of, but I’m pretty good at long efforts around 80% of FTP, even late into a long ride.
You can say that again. I thing that stands out the most to me about those rides is in “Bummelrunde” you did 2 6-7 min efforts at ~108% at 7.5 and 8 hours into the ride (3500 and 3900 KJs). Those are seriously hard efforts even at the beginning of a ride (that’s essentially the older TR 8 min FTP test). You could just have some seriously impressive fatigue resistance but to me that would indicate that your FTP is a bit low. But if 283 is about right for your normal interval rides then maybe it is right and you just perform really really well deep into a ride.
This highlights the shortfall of estimated ftp and the metrics based off of it. The training load is relative to your ftp so I agree their estimated ftp is just way low. They prob have low vo2 but high ftp (since ramp test is estimating vo2 max power then assuming on avg ftp is a percent of this number).
I don’t think you could go week after week hitting 800-1000 TSS as a weekend warrior (400-500 TSS x 2) and not burn out.
If it’s accurate, become a pro Ironman and go get paid!
Remember, these rides were calculated with an FTP of 267, just before my ramp test which put me at 283.
I really don’t think my FTP estimate is too low. Today I did the first workout with the new 283 FTP and Warlow+1 murdered me. I had to drop it down 3% to get through it, which has never happened before.
Edit: I did some comparing myself…apparently I did much harder efforts at my outdoor ride than at the Warlow+1 workout, but I felt way better outdoors even with 120km in the legs. I think overheating might play a big role here as I only have two small fans cooling me and I’m sweating like crazy indoors. Will look into getting a proper fan.