I’ll give that a go and see what happens. Could be fun or I could need a bucket…
This is very similar to the Dardanelles/Dunderburg/Unicorn progressions in the 40k TT Plan, just SS instead of thresh.
Is that on Zwift?
No they’re TR workouts. They are in the 40k specialty plan and accumulate between 48-55 minutes of nearly continuous time between 97 and 102% FTP.
Looking at your power curve you definitely should try longer SS intervals. In my opinion block of this will give you way more than SPB and should be way easier (I must admit I hate this plan, a lot of pain, not enough gain in…sustained power).
At what point does one decide Trainer Road plans are no longer beneficial and would be better served with custom workouts?
After finishing the plan completely trashed with no improvement in the thing it suppose to improve.
This is only my personal experience but my main issue with SPB is are the suprathreshold intervals (especially combined with “precision” of a ramp test) and lack of proper progression through real sustained power workouts.
After this plan I have used only custom workouts and plans with way more benefits. Training composition is highly individual case but progression through SST and threshold is quite a concern from many people here. Basically SST and threshold workout are too short or have too long recovery time in plans. As I said this was my personal experience with this particular plan, and as we know there is a lot variables in training so maybe other people have different experience.
When you stop improving
In my specific case I find the high volume sweet spot manageable from physical point of view. But after 5 days of sweetspot per week for some weeks I do not want to touch my bike anymore. Mentally I find it taxing. I do not look forward to pain every time I ride. I also want to enjoy.
That is why I have decided to move starting this autumn until next spring to 2 SS long interval sessions per week, with the kind of progression described in this thread and the rest z2+gorup rides.
This way I have a sustainable base plan and will always be mentally fresh to smash it on my interval days.
My plan is to include VO2 max and anaerobic capacity work when my A events come closer (say 2 months out), but if I feel I can not progress TiZ or increasing power I will do a 3 week block with some VO2max workouts earlier.
For me the purpose of the shorter intervals is to gradually build the time and the inteval length. If I can do 10 min intervals then I know I can do 12, if 12 is feasible then 15 will be fine and so on.
Your ability to hold power without constantly looking at your Garmin will definitely get better with time. I have definitely gotten better at it throughout the spring/summer of doing tons of outdoor intervals. I practiced by consciously increasing the time between checking my Garmin. So I wasn’t just going minutes and minutes without looking and suddenly I’m 20W below target. But rather I went from checking every 5 sec to every 10 to every 20 and so on until I was better at going by feel between checking.
Also, when Garmin updated their firmware for the x30 series they got rid of the target power field that was previously recommended. You should use the “Target” data field within the “Workouts” folder. The update is detailed a little more in this post.
Yes my power curve doesn’t look to good after the 5min mark. Bringing 1h power closer to FTP sounds like a good idea. I looked at some of the workouts and, granted I am coming out of SSB LV2, starting with these workouts should go smooth. There are a lot of information in this thread already, does someone keep a list of must read posts?
You are able to bookmark posts by clicking the 3 dots icon at the bottom right of a post and then clicking the bookmark symbol. I don’t use it much but I probably should.
Yes but still I need to traverse the entire set of posts and filter out what provides value and what not. This kind of progression seems to grow and maybe we need to create some written down guide/faq?
There are 271 replies with an estimated read time of 51 minutes .
You could read the thread during a TR workout!
Or click the “summarize this topic” button at the bottom of the first post.
Thank you for volunteering. 
Things happen when someone values it enough to do it and is willing to share. A FAQ or guide would be fantastic… give it a try and see what you get.
@AgingCannon thanks for creating these workouts! I just did 1x75 today
Sorry if this has been answered before somewhere, but how do you incorporate these workouts/progressions into your TR training plan?
I’m starting over with SSB LV next week and am wondering if I’d be better off with these progressing workouts?