I’m on recovery week this week. I’ve done my planned workouts but have a camp trip this weekend which is going to considerably bump up the TSS and another upper endurance in the calendar this evening. In addition I’ve had two really tough physical weeks at work with super early starts (I normally start late/ finish late), a huge amount of stress and may have lifted pretty heavy on squats as got a bit carried away.
Essentially recovery week hasn’t been much recovering.
However, I’m feeling pretty good and I’m not sure how to deal with it. I haven’t done any serious intensity in terms of HR, just z2 with some z3.
Is there a way I can bump the entire upcoming build and speciality blocks forward a week (I’m only on a getting fitter for group rides plan, not training for an event) so I can schedule in another recovery week?
Or
Should I just continue with the plan and hope TR Adaptive Training realises before it’s too late whether I am likely to cook myself?
I’m surprised it hasn’t downgraded my endurance workout tonight, I’ve clearly hit recovery week TSS already and have a camp trip in the calendar - probably 4 hrs total riding each day (z1/z2) carrying luggage.
Perhaps a future improvement could be for the program to identify issues with recovery week and adapt for them?
I put a broad suggestion in one of the feature requests thread about this.
Something akin to RLGL - something to warn you if riding outside a suitable window for recovery, perhaps even going as far to suggest more recovery time (though a fine balance that I suspect many users will reject).
Most of us want (or have) to ride in the recovery week, a few nudges to stay in a window could be useful.
Though for all the guidance that you might get from an app, if you feel great, I’d say crack on and let Adaptive Training do its thing.
If you are feeling pretty good, then I would follow the plan as is and complete your camp this weekend. But considering you’ve had a pretty stressful time at work, (personally) I would consider dropping today’s endurance ride just in case, so you can hit the weekend more fresh.
If the fatigue management system thinks you should take it easy after the camp to ramp back up into training, it will guide you through it with Yellow/Red days So no need to bump the entire training plan.
Thanks @Caro.Gomez-Villafane I skipped the workout last night and have just found out my riding partner for the weekend is panicking about the distance as she hasn’t ridden much lately so we’ve cut it down a lot which is definitely a good thing for my recovery week. I’ll hit build next week then and see what happens
Ahh yes, I agree with you. I would also like to see Adaptive Training work for when you personally schedule things that are too much/too hard, or at least flag it. Essentially it seems that I get adaption suggestions only on the TR workouts, but if I delete those, replace them, modify them, or add in other riding, the system doesn’t seem bothered about these things - like it was my choice so “suck it up buttercup”
However, often I have to change things around because of work/home/terrain and I would like it if the system said - “hey, we would recommend this instead”
And I’d like it even better if it said “hey, we would recommend this instead because……” (you have already done 1.5 hours total time in Threshold this week and you need some base time, or, you are way over your regular TSS, or last time you tried that you were sick for a week etc) - Then I could really make an informed decision whether to accept the adaption or not.
AI is progressing so fast, I genuinely think this is possible, but then, I am not an IT person so they may all be pulling their hair out at me right now
Great feedback. To me, it sounds like you want AT to warn you if you are overdoing it when you manually change the prescribed workouts, right?
As far as completing additional riding, our fatigue system takes it into account when recommending adaptations to your scheduled TR workouts. So if you’re overdoing it, the system will adjust your TR workouts so you can ramp back up again in a progressive way.
If you have a plan set in place, then I like to think of AT as trying to bring you back to the plan built to get you faster for x. A good analogy would be following Google Maps directions. If you are constantly missing turns, the map will keep rerouting to get you where you need to be. Eventually, you’ll get there, but it may take you longer if you’re constantly changing directions.
The weekend was lovely, steady paced and mostly cruising along and taking it super easy uphill. Although even Z1/Z2 feels different when the bike is twice the weight of an oil tanker. I went with full touring luggage including two sleeping bags, a chair, the tent, more food than was needed and some sketch books
Yes, that’s exactly what I would like, well actually maybe a warning PLUS the system making a suggeation for what I may like to consider changing. This would also apply if add in too much planned ‘other’ work like group rides. I appreciate that I am still very much learning/experimenting with how my body reacts to structured training. A bit of feedback if I am looking like I’m pushing things in the wrong direction would be good. I know really what my body can handle in TSS terms and I know I am capable of handling huge variations in TSS, but I am less sure of its ability to repeatedly handle the intensity, especially threshold work. Obviously I may still override it, but often, I just pick a workout to replace the suggested one because of time constraints/outside terrain/bike choice and I am often unsure if I have done the right thing. I tend to pick the same zone, obviously, and a same or higher PL, but there are so many different formats within the specific zones too.
The other thing I would like is an undo button! Sometimes I delete workouts, change my mind, and then have no recollection of what they were called
Just coming back to this, I actually ended up blowing this week and have had to have a few days off the bike, it was a combination of factors, a huge TSS week last week, no proper recovery week after base phase and then a massive dose of lifestress I wasn’t expecting that has unsettled everything.
Obviously me blowing up is not TRs fault, just want to make that crystal clear. There were factors at play, including my own stupidity, that got me here although I didn’t ignore any RLGL warnings. However again, it would have been really useful to be able to shove in a recovery week and shift the build block back a week, or to stick in a recovery week for this week and not loose a week of the build but to pick up this week’s build next week.
As it is I’ll just bring myself back into the plan and go from there.
I think that this situation highlights that, although TR focuses strongly on keeping consistency and not letting riders overdo it, it doesn’t, yet, have enough flexibility for riders to adjust when they know they need additional recovery, other than just missing workouts and loosing big chunks of a training block rather than pushing it back.
I totally get how it won’t work to push a block back if you are training for a specific event, but even then, it would be useful to be able to change the date of the event as some things, like ITTs can be flexible and if sticking in an additional recovery week and shoving the trial back a week means the rider doesn’t blow up but keeps a similar load, then surely it has to be worth it?
I’ve noticed the same thing—AI adapts aggressively after recovery weeks, especially if you nailed your workouts leading into it. It bumped up my progression levels more than I expected. Personally, I like it, but I always listen to my legs too. Sometimes I manually nudge things down if that first hard workout back feels like a wall. The system’s smart, but not psychic.
