One doesn’t need precision, but a little bit of common sense and the law of large number. If I’d like to have the most accurate threshold estimation and a field test is out of the cards, I take the average of of:
Intervals ICU
Xert
Garmin
Join
CP 3 different combinations of durations
Last 30-45min effort
What are people’s long term review of Optimize? A worthy competitor for TR and/or JOIN? Curious what people think about it.
In my opinion, Fascat plans are not great. They work you hard, but the progression is not awesome and I think they do too much intensity. Not a fan.
I haven’t used the App since they first released it, so it has certainly improved, but still looks to need more improvement (ie desktop integration, which is coming) and export to computers other than Garmin (which is coming too).
I saw you said Basecamp with Tim Cusick was the most valuable training you did. is that a one time thing? I’m looking at the website and there’s a virtual 16 week block that I’m guessing is like a winter base/build(?) that is starting in Nov. Is that what you did or does he offer more plans?
Yes. I did the winter basecamp, which is the 16 week one that starts in the end of November. Not only do they provide a great plan for you, but they really really try to teach you how to train. Plus, you get full access to Tim Cusick, Amber Neben and other coaches on the private FB group to ask them anything. It’s a great value for what you get. After its over, they have some prebuilt plans built that transition perfectly from the basecamp training for different types of events…so you can do that if you choose to. Their plans are broken up by 2 hour? increments, so the plans are similar, but different for someone doing 6 hrs, 8 hrs a week, 10 hrs a week, 12 hrs, 14 hrs week etc…
I can only speak to the off-season strength training, 18 weeks of sweet spot, and SS4. Those plans were very good for me, and to be honest they are quite similar to my Tim Cusick Full Season Masters Plan (26 weeks). And my archived emails from the Strava/CTS Gran Fondo plans. All 8-12 hours/week plans. All more alike than different.
@CaptainThunderpants the way I look at it is you need to decide between off-the-shelf plans with some personalization and guardrails (knowing yourself + something like Optimize, or just tracking CTL ramp rates in PMC), or something like Join that dishes out a week at a time and adapts/personalizes on the fly. While I was impressed by Join, I’ve got pretty good ideas on how to train and so I’d rather create or adapt an off-the-shelf plan.
I’ve got one of those plans - the BaseCamp Road Build to Peak: Intermediate (8-10 hours/week, 5-6 days/week) plan and its similar but different to what we (my coach and I) came up with on my better builds. Its 2 blocks, so 8 weeks total, and at the start of each block is a unlisted YouTube video with pointers, for example (and not in order) “you are going to see 2.5 hard days a week” and stuff like feel free to drop out this Friday 30 minute recovery session, in cycle 2 video if you are feeling beat down drop an interval or two on this workout, if you make changes pay attention to the weekly TSS progression, raising CTL 2-3 points per week, etc., etc. This newer plan is very nice, I like it better than the older Full Season Masters plan.
Does JOIN only give you a week of training at a time? I’m not sure my personality (read: anxiety) would like that. I like having the full season to look at. It’s one of the features of TR I liked, even if I did modify plan builder’s choices for blocks at times (General Build over Short Power Build for example). But I did like having the blocks leading up to my A event somewhat known.
I’m intrigued by both Basecamp, or Tim Cusick’s other off the shelf plans like the season plan you mentioned, and Fascat’s 30-wk base/build and strength plan. The one thing I’m worried about with the Basecamp is the timing of it. It finishes on Mar 17 and my A event is May 25th. Not sure if that’s enough time to get a proper build. Which is why his (Cusick) other TP plans might fit better.
The FasCat plan would I presume build me up for my A event in May based on the description. But again I’m not totally familiar with them and whether I need to add a crit specific plan to the end of it.
Both plans include weight training which I want and something that TR is lacking.
re: Join someone else can correct me, my trial just ended, believe Join shows you the weekly volume for the plan you are on but only the next 7 days of workouts. My coach always had a block or two of workouts, but would only push 7-10 days to TP. Its fine but when I was self-coached had a definite preference to seeing a full calendar in order to help re-planning or scheduling around epic group rides.
Yeah, I prefer to see months in advance, but Join only gives you a week at a time. I assume this is because it’s always adapting based on your workout feedback and weekly availability. I thought this would drive me nuts, but I’ve been fine with it so far. The only part I don’t like is I’m addicted to watching my CTL…but the new “in thing” is to tell you not to do that, so maybe it’s forcing me to adapt to a new way of thinking.
guess I’m not ‘with it’ because along with my coach I never stopped watching CTL/TSS/ramp. And instead defied aging and watched my fitness keep going up!
@FergusYL moving questions about Optimize you posted over here:
to this thread.
Can you modify a workout in Optimize? For example if it has 15 minute warmup, and I need to change that to 20 minutes. During my pre-ride workout review on computer that takes 5 seconds in TrainingPeaks and instantly syncs to Garmin and shows up when I turn on my Edge 840.
Are you using the Garmin sync?
Can you create a workout in Optimize? I’m not expecting that feature, assuming they have focused devs on other features.
Are you syncing sleep and hrv?
Any thoughts on the new post-workout analysis stuff? I like what I see in Frank’s Strava feed.
Thanks in advance.
I think that as a poor sleeper, I sometimes don’t know if I am taking it way too easy or if I am doing training that I shouldn’t be doing. I know to skip training on days I feel really rotten or limit intensity, but I would love to have precise numbers or guidelines and correlate these to actual results…
You might have precision, but id say accuracy is always an issue with scores taking in hrv and sleep data and determining if you should ride or not.
Not to mention the accuracy of the device recording the sleep
Been thinking of the 50% off deal Frank has. Has he finally put in plans that don’t include 3 or 4 days of intervals? I’ve had success with his plans (have four or so) but they do have a lot of intensity. I went with a Dylan Johnson XC build last year and had pretty nice gains with only two days of intensity.
