Ha, everything I know about structuring a training plan I’ve learned from reverse-engineering the TR plans, so I’m probably not the best person to answer this question. When I say “load” I’m talking about “Training Stress Score”, and there’s a good explainer for that on the TR blog:
So using the first block from those Short Power plans as an example:
| LV | MV | HV | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Load weeks | 792 | 1328 | 1665 |
| Recovery week | 194 | 358 | 410 |
| Recovery percentage | 24% | 27% | 25% |
The exact numbers will look different for you because the plans scale to your current progression levels, but you can see the gist: Recovery weeks are about a quarter the load of the previous build weeks.
The Rolling Road Race plans are similar:
| LV | MV | HV | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Load weeks | 676 | 1298 | 1322 |
| Recovery week | 173 | 319 | 341 |
| Recovery percentage | 26% | 25% | 26% |
The load weeks themselves usually build on the previous week’s TSS by 5-10%.
Standard disclaimers apply, TSS isn’t everything, everybody recovers differently, listen to your body, fuel the work, and so on, but if I were building a plan from scratch, I’d start with that relative split and then see how my body reacted. It’s normal to feel fatigued and unmotivated during the recovery week, but if you’re still feeling that way by the time the next block starts, you might need a few more days.