I’m relatively new to TR and so far loving it. I’m about half way through my current plan (a 3 month long plan) and starting to think about what to do next and more importantly how to set it up on TR.
For context I have a couple of rides that I’m looking at completing next year. These are just gran fondo, not races as not fit enough for that. However, I was wondering is it better setup a plan for the whole year, or setup shorter plans across the year e.g. create a series of 3 month plans?
I did play around with setting up a plan for the whole year but it seemed to skip the speciality phases until the very end even though it seemed to cycle through the base and build phases. Is there any advice on the best approach for this, do people generally setup a plan for the year ahead of them or smaller plans so they can adjust focus from say general to climbing specific training?
Did you add these GranFondos as Events to your calendar? If so, even the plan for the full year should account for them and try to prepare you for each as best as it can.
As for which way to go, that’s entirely up to personal preference. Both options have advantages and disadvantages:
A long plan will be consistent with itself and keep you busy for the whole year. But you won’t have a true time-off to regenerate beyond the recovery/endurance week every 4 weeks.
On the other hand, the shorter plans allow for more flexibility (e.g. playing with different settings or focus for the plans) and you can add some time between these plans to regenerate and have fun away from TR.
Especially for someone starting with structured training and TR, the later might be better. You can react better on what works for you and what doesn’t and don’t have to regenerate the whole year long plan every time.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my question.
To answer your questions, yes I did add them to the calendar when I was playing around with setting up the single long plan. From my understanding depending on the type of event i.e. A type or B then the plan will automatically adjust the load so that you are fresh for the event. I guess my query is what is the correct/best way to handle this, to get the most out of myself? However, it sounds like in your experience it’s a bit of a “dealers choice”, as both have their pros and cons.
Thank you again for taking the time, I really appreciate it.
Yeah, IDK. For me, it’s more of a psychological thing than physical. Personally, I like plans around 3 or 4 months long. Having an end in sight helps keep me motivated. In any case, I can always edit an existing plan, or just delete and start a new one. TR AI has all the history up to that point so the edited plan or new plan is not like starting ab initio.
I usually prefer shorter 3-month blocks myself. It gives you a nice chance to shift focus and re-evaluate goals without feeling locked in for a whole year.
I personally think that one long plan is a good option. You really don’t need to run through specialty phases very often unless you’re building specificity towards a unique event.
I’d add any events you plan on doing to your calendar and prioritize them based on how important they are to you or what you’d like your effort to be for each one. You don’t have to have a specific level of fitness to race or go and try to ride a really good time for your own standards.
If you have events where you want to give a really solid effort and build your training to perform as well as you can, make those A races. Just keep in mind that they need to be at least 12 weeks apart.
If any of those events are more participation-driven than results-driven, B or C priority might be a better fit there.
At the end of the day, if you’re just looking to build fitness between events, Base and Build phases will do that well enough. Again, Specialty phases are mostly for really sharpening discipline-specific fitness for high-priority events.