I love TrainNow, and just dropped the experimental Polarized LV plan 2 weeks into the second repeat of Base. Why? Well, at my age the appeal of POL had nothing to do with optimizing competitiveness anyway. I just found I felt better doing a little really hard work on the trainer plus a lot of really easy outdoor sightseeing than I did doing pretty hard (SS) most of the time. So I had been patching together my own makeshift POL until TR came out with TrainNow and its experimental POL at roughly the same time. I really loved the few TrainNow suggestions I tried – from each of the categories. But I thought I ought to give a real POL plan from TR a try (rather than my kludge), and so I did – 8 weeks worth. The ratio did kept me feeling good rather than run-down, even though I did more easy miles than prescribed, but the ramp up on the hard was too steep for this old man – especially the jump from 4 x 8min at FTP (just) to 3 x 16 min at FTP (nope) just a month later, so I had to tweak it down a little anyway (2 x 16 min), whereas the TrainNow suggestions were all do-able. (Should add that I’m not yet in the AT beta group, so the POL plan couldn’t itself fine-tune the Rx based on previous workouts. I had to do that myself.)
I’m not at all criticizing the POL plan. But since I wasn’t on AT yet, it didn’t adapt to me, and I faced a 6 or 8 week calendar of Shoulds – regardless of weather, family, other stuff – and always felt like a cheater if I tweaked – either way! When I heard Nate on the last podcast talking as if directly to me – just want to maintain or improve fitness a little – with TrainNow as a dynamic way to do it, it was easy to make the decision. (The only “plan” for the mere Enthusiast like myself in the old days was what was called “Maintenance” and turned out to be nothing but HIIT workouts of varying duration – almost guaranteed to kill any enthusiasm in the likes of me. TR has come a long way!)
I have lots of time but live where the weather can change hourly, and I have lost all enthusiasm for foul weather riding, which can get pretty dangerous. Last night the prediction was for rain all day, so I plugged in the short hard intervals suggestion for today instead of the Recommended endurance ride (TN was looking at Dry Peaks from day before yesterday). This morning, the sun came out and the forecast for the rest of the day changed, so outside I go, with a 1.5 - 2 hr ride outside! No Shoulding on myself. It feels like I’m getting reasonable suggestions for today based on what I’ve done lately, instead of an off-the-shelf agenda for the next 6-8 weeks based on what may have worked wonders for a group of younger racing mavens. I feel like, oh goody, get to do this. Instead of oh lordy, I have to do THAT, when I feel a lot more like doing THIS.
Codger thanks for TrainNow! (Now you can just trashcan that misnamed Enthusiast offering, which I’ll wager no one ever did anyway – at least not without a major grudge.)