Noob question about training plan adjustment

[MiguelArino]

Hello there,

I moved to a different city for two months, and in the beginning of November, they locked down the city. Then, I decided I would give trainerroad a go, because I was obviously not going to be able to ride unstructured anyway. If I was going to suffer in the turbo, better do it right, I guess.

Just a quick overview of my numbers for context. I am 42, 306 FTP in the initial ramp test, and I did a month of High Volume SSBI

I moved back to my hometown last Saturday. During the last week I had to prepare everything to leave, so I set a recovery week (week 5 in the original high-volume plan).

In my hometown, there is not such a stringent lockdown in place. So I can go out on group rides again, which I am really looking forward to. As these long rides would place additional stress on my body, I decided to lower the plan to mid volume. To account for the month spent doing high volume SSBI, I put the date of plan start in the past. I also changed the end date to peak in mid spring.

I see that the plan starts with a new ramp test (which I programmed in my old plan anyway) and an easy week, then it throws me in a Build phase of 3 weeks starting next week.

My question is, if I took an easy week during my preparations to move, then my first week here the plan is another easy week, is it advisable to go straight into a build phase? Should I put a week or two of SSB work before the Build?

Cheers,

Miguel

[cartsman]

2 weeks of easy riding isn’t going to have cost you much if any aerobic base. But the stress of moving cities might have done! Seems very personal - I’ve known people who literally take the whole move in their stride, go for a ride before they pack their bike, do the move, then the first thing they do in their new home is unpack the bike and go ride it. And others where the move seems to use up all their available energy for weeks or even months.

If the move has been pretty low stress, I think it’s fine to just go into Build, but do so being prepared to dial workouts down a little bit if necessary. If you’re adding long rides to your plan then your base is going to be fine. Challenge might be keeping those long group rides at an intensity that isn’t going to mess up your key TR workouts, the excitement of being back out in a group and meeting new ride buddies or reuniting with old ones can make it pretty tempting to go a bit hard!

[MiguelArino]

Thanks for the answer! It sounds all very reasonable, I am happy I won’t be losing too much fitness from the two easy weeks.

I felt pretty drained this weekend. It is also about 10 degress celsius colder in my hometown than where I spent the last two months, and I feel the colder weather has made me feel like “hybernating”.

I am getting used to being here again, I will try an easy week with a tougher sweet spot workout thrown in for good measure, and try the build week next week.