Time for an update on the first 8 week block of HV POL. I stopped after 5 weeks as I had a bad accident on my bike causing me to have an immediate hip replacement and a broken collarbone.
However I had come to some conclusions based on the time spent following the plan.
- Polarised is easy to follow.
- Two hard sessions a week is enough for me at aged 64 but it was also enjoyable and not too taxing.
- I had a real difficulty in keeping in Seiler Z1 based on power but on HR it was quite easy. I think that was my overall issue with the block and it was nothing to do with TR plan, rather the vagueness of Seiler’s advice.
- It is a plan that is ideally suited to a Masters athlete in my view.
- I cannot advise on the efficacy of the block I did but I felt I was putting good time and good effort in over each weekly period.
- I do not see it as good for the TR business model if a lot of users took up these plans. This is for two reasons
a) The Z1 efforts are quite boring on TR. Great if you are outside or on Zwift etc but really there is not much you can do with 2 hours at 70% of threshold
b) After a couple of weeks of following the plan you realise that actually you do not need a training plan. Polarised is a very simple method to manage yourself and I suspect that eventually those following a POL plan would not need to use TR at all.
In summary, once I get back to base level fitness I will continue following a polarised model but I doubt that I would follow a TR plan