I have been following the low volume master’s olympic triathalon plan for maybe 4 months, now entering the specialty phase in a build up toward a April 26 A-race olympic triathalon. And I’m really pleased with the plan so far, but I’m a little confused by relatively light bike workouts at the start of the Specialty phase.
The weekly order of my workouts is a little odd, I know, but I’m constrained by a big swim Sunday mornings and some other life event timing.
What I find odd is that in this two week block, 3 of the 4 bike workouts are plain old endurance. After 4 months of consistency following the plan, I don’t see how this is the stimulus I need right now. I see the value in the 90 minute rides with brick runs - but even then I would choose to add some quality there and make them Threshold workouts (better approximation of race pacing). And the Baxter-2 Endurance workout on Wed 3/12 (tomorrow) irks me - I’m coming off a really easy rest week and in the Build phase this would be a tough VO2 workout (as it is in the 2nd week on 3/19). I think I will make this into an outdoor VO2 workout if I can, to gain more outdoor time in the saddle (I hunker down inside in the winter) and gain a little quality. The next 2 week cycle to come is much more along these lines, which is similar to what I did in the Build phase, and I don’t see any reason not to keep pushing hard at 7-8 weeks out from my event.
Perhaps my issue is a lack (in the plan so far) of difficult Endurance efforts, since only do them in recovery weeks and I only sit at a 3.1 Progression level there (I feel I could bang out a workout harder than 5 without any problem, but do I have to prove it to the TR AI? Does it think that this is a deficiency of mine, because I don’t - it just hasn’t been put to the test.)
Any thoughts or rebuttal?
