I diligently(-ish) followed the structured training plan starting around January, taking into account all my vacations, etc. when planning. During my vacations, I enjoyed a few leisurely rides whenever the opportunity arose or went on a bike trip with my friends.
Upon returning home, I seized every chance to ride outdoors and didn’t adhere to any of the workouts outlined in the plan. So, essentially, I more or less neglected TrainerRoad for about 2 months.
Now that winter has arrived, I’m geared up for some quality time on the indoor trainer ;).
I logged into TrainerRoad today and am uncertain about how to proceed: should I simply follow TrainerRoad’s recommendations (as it adapted some workouts)? Should I (and if so, how) reschedule all the weeks I missed to start them today manually? Or should I consider restarting my plan with planbuilder?
Regarding my targets: I have two events scheduled for May. While I don’t necessarily require peak form for these events since I don’t compete, if TrainerRoad requires a date to aim for peak fitness, that would be it.
I’m concerned that TrainerRoad might assume I haven’t been on the bike at all for the past 2 months and consequently, prescribes the wrong (too easy) workouts.
If your original training plan and the current training phase scheduled align with your event/performance goals, I would continue the plan. If not, re-evaluate your training calendar. Either way, 7.5 months is plenty of time to dial in a larger scale training approach.
In regard to your concern of workouts being too easy, I wouldn’t say that you have to be worried about that. Adaptive training will course correct to proper intensity reasonably quickly following your resumption of structured training and corresponding feedback via workout difficulty ratings.
If it were me, I would probably just re-start the plan if you’ve been away from structured training for that long. It should re-start you with Base/Build/Specialty from now until your events taking into account your current AIFTP and PL’s.
It seems like you had about two months off from training – and while it may not have been entirely off the bike, I checked out your account, and it does look like there wasn’t very much consistent riding going on during that period.
Your current plan has you jumping back into your Specialty phase, which, at this point, wouldn’t make much sense. I think you should delete your current plan and start over with a new one. You can use Plan Builder to get set up again with your events in May in mind.
As @shofmeister said, Adaptive Training will have you dialed into the right workouts again in short order once you get back into regular training and start filling out your Post-Workout Surveys.
Hope this helps! Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions.
