I have a simple ask that Plan Builder can’t seem to accommodate - MV plans with Saturday group rides built in. Essentially, a MV plan done over 4 days (e.g. Tue, Wed, Thu, and Sun with a Sat “unstructured” group ride).
TR support says Plan Builder can’t do an MV plan in 4 days and I need to choose between
a 5-day MV plan and associate the group ride to a similar structured workout
a 5-day MV plan with the Saturday workout done as a second workout on another scheduled day.
a 3-day LV plan and add a Train Now each Sunday to add after my Saturday workout.
I guess I could also do:
4. a 6-day HV plan and substitute the Saturday workout with a group ride
None of these seem ideal since
a. Group rides aren’t similar to any structured workout (I looked for these last year after many of my group rides and never really found any that were that close)
b. Plan builder typically makes the Saturday rides an important Threshold ride coming off a Friday recovery day. I guess I could swap the Threshold day with an Endurance ride day on Saturday but that might not be ideal since Plan Builder is telling me to do active recovery with an endurance ride on the day I’d now be doing threshold workouts.
c. 2 workouts in one day probably isn’t going to work time-wise on any day but Sunday and not likely training-wise after I’ve smashed myself in the group ride on Saturday
d. doing an LV plan is suboptimal for my goals and having to pick a Train Now each week seems to underutilize the benefit of Plan Builder.
Anyone else have this issue or have a Plan Builder-based solution that integrates group rides? I really want the benefit of having Plan Builder do the plan design for me and not have to do a lot of manual re-jiggering that may create a less optimal training plan.
Why can’t the fun of group rides find some love in the Plan Buider world? Thanks
Before AT I was doing an MV plan and dropping the Weekend sessions for group rides when they occurred (not very often in the worst Covid periods) .
Now AT is here I am doing a LV plan and if the Sat or Sun group rides dont occur (they usually do now) add a TN workout/ RGT session in its place.
TR are working on Levels 2 (or whatever its called) which will take account of group rides and influence AT appropriately.
More recently Ive deviated a bit from my LV plan as I am riding outside too much and Ive been dropping the intensity of the middle LV workouts and I think its working for me.
Interesting you mention this. I found that the only 4-day plan is the traditional base mid volume. When I started using TR I assumed that LV was three days, MV was 4 days, and HV was 5-6 days. But all plans but one jump from 3 days to 5 when going to MV.
I’m using the MV traditional base because I want to try a lot more Z2 this winter. If it’s warm enough to ride outside on day 4 (Saturday’s for me), I just switch the ride to be outside and it auto-associates my outdoor ride with the planned 4th workout.
But it’s just traditional base. If you’re doing something else, you’ll have to manipulate it to match what you want to do.
In one of the last steps in plan builder during plan setup you can rearrange each workout to a different day in the week structure. Just arrange the week as you like and move the workout the most similar in intensity to your group ride to your group ride day (Saturday) and just leave it in the calendar while enjoying your group ride.
Kind of number 1 of your post. WLv2 is around the corner and will take care of the rest in the future.
The Polarized MV is 4 days. One Threshold, one VO2, and two Endurance workouts. I completed 2 blocks of Polarized Base and I’m now doing a LV Plan with either added Trainnow or outdoor rides.
Yes . Workout Levels Version 2 (WLV2) will allow Plan Builder to play very nicely with unstructured workouts .
For the time being, we can make this work for you. It sounds like you’d like to ride 5 times a week; 4 TrainerRoad rides and 1 Group Ride?
You could continue with the Mid- Volume Plan, if the Training Load is manageable. As others have helpfully suggested, you can customise your Training days in the schedule portion of Plan Builder (section 8 of Plan Builder). See the screenshot below.
If you have already built your Training Plan, you can customise training days for individual training blocks.
Here’s how:
Select the block of training that you’d like to customise the Training days of.
A new window will pop up showing your current default training days. Drag and drop them to different days to change the default training days for that specific block.
I suggest that you move the Endurance (Easy) Workout to Saturday (the day of your group ride). I do not recommend that you associate the Group ride with the TrainerRoad Endurance Workout as this is not the intended use.
With two rest days a week, it will take some trial and error to figure out when it suits you best to schedule those. If the Training Load is too high, I’d suggest you swap the Group Ride with one of those harder Workouts and use the Endurance Workout as a recovery day. You could even change which Workout you swap out for the group ride depending on how you feel that Week. Your Training Plan is flexible! You can drag and drop Workouts to different days ad libitum, and Adaptive Training will still consider each of your TrainerRoad Workouts in your Adaptations.
I hope this helps! Let us know if you have any questions for us about this!
Thanks everyone for sharing your experience and suggestions.
@SarahLaverty, your recommendations make good sense and I’ll set my plan up that way. I did HV last year so should be able to accomplish the MV plan with a “fatigue dependent” scheduling approach during the 3 “difficult” workouts in order of declining difficulty from Tues to Thursday and the “Moderate” workout on Sunday following my Saturday group ride. I’m also looking to integrate maintenance strength training 2x/week - something I didn’t do/have time for last year on the HV plan - probably after the structured rides on the days before my Mon and Friday “rest days” and some yoga and mobility work on those rest days.
Regarding the quoted section of your recommendation, should I also delete the endurance workouts on Saturdays so as not to have them associated with the Group rides?
. Workout Levels Version 2 (WLV2) will allow Plan Builder to play very nicely with unstructured workouts 
.
