I’m back into TR but coming from a fairly decent base during the Autumn months on the mtb. Due to work commitments, sometimes my time is very limited but sometimes I can fit in an extra 15-30 minutes. As a general increasing fitness plan, would it be a crazy idea to use the time crunched 45 plan during the week and extend any of the workouts to their 1 hour equivalent if I have the time? The idea would be to leave the weekends free for longer rides. Rest days are usually covered an hour walk if I can get away from my (home) desk.
I’m not training for any specific event but also trying not to kill myself in the process of getting fit!
Or increase the warm up to make sure you are properly warmed up before the efforts. Since I started warming up properly I’ve noticed a massive difference in the RPE of workouts. Research with muscle oxygen appears to point to much longer warm up times being beneficial.
With the time crunched plans I would be careful with choosing the 1 hr equivalent workout to replace the prescribed 45 min one. That plan usually has a lot of high intensity VO2 and sprint workouts so adding too much intensity on top of the extra time might end up being too much. I would recommend what others have said to just hit the “extend cooldown” buttons at the end of the workout and ride in Z2 for as much time as you can fit in.
But if the workout is a SS or maybe even threshold if you are feeling okay then I’d say you’re safe by choosing the +1 version.
Edit: But as with other things. Use your best judgement. If you consistently finish those higher intensity workouts feeling like you have a bunch more in the tank and you don’t carry any excess fatigue from one workout to the next then I’d say you could choose the +1 of those. Just don’t over do it.