In the mid of December I got sick and couldn’t train for five weeks, right at the beginning of SSB2. Now I am back into the groove since mid-January, but I wonder whether I should extend my base phase for a few weeks. While I am feeling great on and off the bike, I’m still not back at my previous peak (323 W at the time of sickness —> 295 W as tested when I began training —> 303 W —> 309 W), so I am missing half the horses I gained. Any opinions? Right now I have no races scheduled since, well, it’s still Covid time. So my training schedule is quite flexible.
My goal for this season was to cross the 330 W mark and improve my endurance and grit.
Looks to me that you’re not in too bad a position having been off the bike with sickness for that long. Your FTP goal should easily be within reach over the season. This question sparked my interest given that I am just in the process of getting back to health are a similar period of illness. I am not on a TrainerRoad plan, but my intention is go back to what I was doing about 4 weeks before I was ill, with some adjustment regarding FTP. On top of that I will carefully monitor various metrics (things like HRV, resting pulse rate, sleep) and ease off if I feel things are not quite right. I will do a proper FTP test after a couple of weeks steady work and if things are looking stable health-wise.
With no events on the horizon, definitely go back to base. Maybe even do weight training for a couple of months. Hopefully, a lot of people will get vaccinated and late summer will be sort of normal.
I added 5 weeks of base training to my calendar. Starting from next week, I will repeat the last week of SSB1 MV+, added a week of rest and then start SSB2 MV+ all over. (I’m half-way done with SSB2 already, so I’ll repeat a fair chunk of workouts.)