So besides me sitting here wasting time before my first ramp test, I got to thinking.
I am at an all time high as far as my fitness goes. I’ve had a coach for the last 4 months and his workouts have gotten me to this point. But at $150 a month, I just can’t see keeping him now that I’m out of the winter months.
So back to my question, does the plan builder take into account current fitness and previous recent load?
Ok now off to hurt myself… I’ll be back
No it doesn’t. The only insight it has into your past are when you choose your volume and experience levels.
Dang it. Thanks though that helps
Curious, why would you not continue with your coach during the Spring / Summer?
One of the reasons is the cost associated with it, in addition to the fact that I don’t believe it was a plan specially tailored for me but more of a generic plan.
Example: Monday off, Tues-intervals, Wed-Zone 2, Thursday-Intervals of a longer duration, Saturday/Sunday- group rides on one of the two days and Zone 2 one of them… and repeat…
Now I know that this is a generic plan but it also worked from the sheer standpoint of I’ve never continued riding over the winter and this year I bought my smart trainer. And having a trainer took the thought process out of it for me, I only had to do what was instructed.
Furthermore, at the $150 price point, I’d have expected ore actual feedback than i received. But again I wouldn’t do anything differently up to this point. It was well worth the he money. But given the shutdown of everything, this also has me worried about do I REALLY need to be spending that right now.
I think you’ve certainly answered your own question in regards to whether the coach was value for money. You’re highly likely to see improvements just from doing more riding, regardless of whether you have a coach or not.
If I were you, I’d find that Trainer Road more than accommodated everything I need. It takes in to account your current fitness in the sense that the workouts are adjusted according to your FTP. As far as recent load goes, you can choose a plan “volume” that best matches your previous training block’s TSS very easily indeed.
Dang it. Well by going by my current TSS scores of-
650 last week
637 the week before
605 the week before that,
597 the previous week,
350 the week.
This is with an average of 8 hours a week.
It looks like I’ll have to pick the Mid Training load but High Volume. The only problem with that is that it has a huge time difference in the base phase of the plan. But I guess that is what base is. I’m new to all this stuff.
And I messed up my dang Ramp test last night, I bailed too early, I could have made it to 21:00 but bailed at 20:30. 
What do you mean by mid training load? High volume sounds good, or consider starting with mid volume for a few weeks and then adding additional workouts later on if you’re still feeling fresh.
The hours per week in base are actually slightly lower than in build for most plans
The first Plan Builder screen is titled “Training Load” and asks how many hours a week you have trained in the last six weeks. The second Plan Builder screen is titled “Volume” and lets you pick between Low, Mid, and High Volume.
@DustinDucote As far as I know, your choice of “Training Load” does nothing. Rather, it helps you pick a Volume. There are three training plan volumes, selected by your Volume choice.
The usual recommendation is not to immediately jump in to High Volume.
It looks like your Strava → Trainer Road import is messed up. At least, the TSS values in your Calendar for past rides are all wrong. But it looks like you’ve been doing 6-8 hr/wk with some interval work via Sufferfest. Mid Volume plus additional Z2 riding might be a prudent choice?
Oops! Indeed it does. I somehow skimmed over the part that specifically referenced the plan builder
Yeah I am not going off of what the values are that were pulled over from Strava, I am going off of my Training peaks account TSS scores.
And I said screw it and picked the High Volume and I can adjust some from there.
That’s a fair shout, I wouldn’t pay any coach for a generic plan, been there, done that (only found out through some digging). Unfortunately a high number of coaches do that, so give them the boot IMO.
You can just manually adjust your FTP. An extra 30 would have roughly been a 2.5% increase to your FTP.
