Monthly group ride or C race

Training
1

I’m thinking of doing a low volume plan, with MWF indoor TR sessions, and an easy outdoor ride on Saturday. Most likely I will do a masters plan, so MF intense, and W endurance.

How to integrate a regular (hard) Saturday group ride (or C priority race) into this? I’m thinking once (or at most twice) per month.

These are a few options I’m aware of:

  1. Swap the Friday TR session for a Saturday group ride

The pro is keeping the number intensity days the same. The con is sacrificing a quality TR session.

  1. Do a Saturday group ride on a recovery week.

A lot of non-TR plans don’t have a full recovery week, only five days. And will actually schedule a race (or FTP test) at the end of the 4th week of a training block. So this sounds reasonable. One nice thing is being fresh for the group ride. The concern is not being fresh enough entering the next training block.

  1. On the 3rd week of a training block, just add a Saturday group ride do the regular MWF sessions.

This is the opposite of approach 2: you have a whole recovery week to recover from this, but you would join the group ride on pretty wrecked legs.

Any other options? What seems to work for people?

Thanks

2

Hey @jarkjarks :slight_smile:

Great question!!

First things first, I would not add the Group Ride on a Recovery Week if possible. Recovery Weeks are for recovery, and these are super important for the body to heal and absorb all the training adaptations and be ready for the next block of training.

I would add the Group Rides based on how you’re feeling on the given week:

  • Option 1: Add your Group Ride as an extra to your MWF schedule if you’re feeling pretty fresh.
  • Option 2: Drag and drop your Friday TR Workout to Saturday and change it to a Group Ride. The workout card will advise you on how to tackle the Group Ride so you still exercise the energy systems scheduled for the day.
1 Like
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Thanks, this makes sense. So basically Options 3 and 1 from my initial post, with Option 2 not recommended.

I’d be curious also to know what other TR users have done in practice.