A couple years ago they were talking about a red light green light feature, which they said would solve the static part of the plan. Haven’t heard anything about it since.
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This is really helpful information. It doesn’t care if two threshold sessions a week is killing me, it’ll presumably just adjust down the next threshold workout but won’t suggest an endurance ride instead.
You guys have giving me some things to think about. I’m going to can the second threshold and put a good long endurance ride in there, and I might even kill the SS one as well since TR wants me to do it on Saturdays anyway and a long outdoor endurance ride is better suited to that for me.
Then I’d just have vo2 Monday and Threshold Fridays, maybe SS Saturday, with one rest day. Probably amount to about 10 hours. I guess this is why they say AI can’t replace a real coach.
Hey @jsiegrist,
After looking at your calendar, I can see that you had a big A race in late July and jumped into Sweet Spot Base immediately after. Looking back further, it looks like it was around 12 weeks prior to your race when you had a true recovery week. This may have seemed like it was working out okay for a short time, (your FTP jumped up almost 5%), but this isn’t sustainable for anyone.
It’s common for athletes to have these quick gains in fitness after burying themselves in work before crashing.
Shortly after starting Sweet Spot Base II, you most notably started to struggle, though, specifically with sustained power intervals.
My thoughts here are:
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You didn’t give yourself any recovery in the block leading up to your A race.
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You jumped back into training too soon after your A race.
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Your weekly schedule might not be set up as well as it could be to bring continued success.
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You also might simply struggle with sustained efforts at this point in your career. You’re doing really well on VO2 efforts, which is a good sign, and some future focus on sustained efforts could fix this.
The first thing I’d recommend you do in this situation is to take a little time off. At most, do some really easy active recovery if you feel the need. You need to make sure that you’re getting the time in to recover and adapt to the work you’re doing.
After some needed rest, I’d recommend using Plan Builder to get things going again, starting fresh in the Base phase.
Using Plan Builder will best consider any future events in your training schedule and also factor in Recovery weeks when they’re needed.
When building out a new plan, I’d consider rearranging your week a bit to ensure you’re able to get through the week with success.
As of now, you’re doing:
VO2 - Endurance - Threshold - Threshold - Sweet Spot
In my opinion, this could make things more difficult for you as the VO2 workouts have been easier for you than the sustained workouts such as Threshold and Sweet Spot. Starting your week with an easier workout and following it up with Endurance leaves you with three hard workouts in a row.
It might help to arrange your days something like this:
Threshold - Sweet Spot - Endurance - Threshold - VO2
This way, you’re breaking up the more difficult workouts and getting some sort of break from the sustained efforts later in the week when you’re likely more fatigued.
As always, do not be afraid to skip workouts if you’re not feeling up for them, or use Workout Alternates to bring the intensity down or replace them with an easier Endurance ride altogether.
Another option would be to drop down from a mid-volume to a low-volume plan, which could help things out even more.
Feel free to reach out with any questions you might have about this moving forward. I’d be happy to help some more! 
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Good info, and I will take it to heart. Time to make some changes. Thanks!
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Awesome! @jsiegrist Stay in touch and let me know how things go moving forward. If you have any questions or concerns along the way, just shout, and we can help you out. 
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it would probably help you at the very least to drop the sweet spot day and do endurance. despite TR’s insistence, sweet spot is intensity, and 4 days of intensity in a week is a lot
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why don’t training plans have planned recovery periods after A races
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They do. People don’t follow them though.
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TLDR; My plan ended and I did recovery rides between races, but apparently too much of it.
Long winded version:
In my case, the A race in question was a triathlon. it definitely took a lot out of me, but I felt good enough to get back on the bike after 3 full rest days of no riding at all. My plan finished with the A race, so the week following there wasn’t anything on the calendar because I wasn’t on a “plan” any more. I did a somewhat mild SS workout followed by really easy endurance for the rest of the week with a total of only 5 hours, so I do feel like I recovered pretty well.
Some of my problem is that I had an XC race two weeks later, which I took 2nd place in so I must not have been too fatigued, but I went deep for that one too.
Then of course, I got sick becuase I had pushed too deep and for too long.
The advice given in this thread is well taken, and Im going to make some changes and see how things go. TR has been a great tool for me so far and I hope to keep growing with it even if I have to make some adjustments along the way.
I do think for someone like me who is prone to push through in order to check the workouts off the calendar some more or better guidance in app would have helped me without having to resort to the forum for help. I know they say don’t hesitate to change the workouts and to take rest days, but I’m never sure when the fatigue I feel is normal, or it’s too much.
Similarly, when I started I had no idea how intense threshold should be vs Vo2 max. It’s not something I can ever recall being covered in app, and only learned that by turning to other sources.
Now I’m at a place where I can’t tell if my problems stem from too much accumulated fatigue or if AI ftp just has me set way too high. Probably both in my case.
I think I’m on the right track now. TR just requires a little more of my own input than I thought given the mantra of just follow the plan.
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