After being made redundant and the whole COVID-19 lock down. I have moved from LV to MV SSP block, with the increase in decent weather I have been going outside for decent rides. I find harder to recover from, and they’re kinda ruining my training so to speak.
Would you guys advise to drop down to a LV week after a ride outdoors, then increase to a MV week before heading outside again (as I don’t know how often ill go outside) or shall I drop MV to LV and enjoy the rest.
With the lock down, I want to use the time to GET FAST so to speak, hence why I increased to MV…before heading outside I was smashing all the MV work outs…I am just finding the out door rides harder to recover from as I generally go Full Gas because it’s outside and not on a trainer. With the MV plan putting in 5 work outs in a week and myself having 1 outdoor ride…I find myself needing extra rest days…
I use apps like Elevate and Intervals.icu but when they say im “optimal” I still feel slightly fatigued.
Any tips to handle the extra TSS or longer workouts (90mins +) with having a decent day in the saddle outside.
I wouldn’t really worry about it too much. After all why do we ride? Is it to NAIL that next upcoming kinda hard workout on a trainer that you have on Tuesday? Or is it to go out in the nice weather, ride your bike and enjoy being alive?
But you have to be flexible about it. You can’t just stick to the plan because you think you’re supposed to or the next ride is “scheduled.” Keep going with MV if you can, add extra rest days if you need them (either push the whole thing back a day or just skip the workout, if it’s a key important workout, push it to later in the week), and if that’s still not working, drop to LV. IF you build up too much fatigue to shed day-to-day, you can always insert a rest week. You’re not tanking your training, your just making it different, potentially in a beneficial way.
and i wouldn’t worry too much about intervals.icu. These things are useful guides but you can’t really use them too prescriptively. E.g., it’s based on TSS, which is calculated based off normalized power. Well, we all know that two rides can have the same NP and yet a very different effect and impact on your body.
That’s very good advice. I train to “Get Faster” but as you said. We ride to enjoy our bikes in weather, that’s the main reason I train is to enjoy my bike out doors.
Never really thought about pushing a workout back to another day. What would you do in the situation of attempting a workout say 90min and only managing an hour?!
Call it quits for the day and just move on? I don’t like to not finish a work out, I have on occasion reduced the intensity to finish a workout but today I just couldn’t finish it. Got me a bit down…but now I’m just going to give myself a couple of rest days and then move on.
Moving from 3 structured days on LV to 5 structured days MV is already a hue jump in stress. Adding outside rides again is likely too much, and it sounds like your body is telling you this.
A couple of possible approaches:
Push some of your MV rides to outside using the Outside Ride functionality. You can do this on a day-by-day basis, to take advantage of good weather days, and staying on the trainer on the other days,
Stay with LV for your structured training, and try to keep the additional outside rides to Z2. You could drag workouts around on the Calendar to keep the plan, but taking advantage of good weather when it happens.
I know it sucks to not complete a workout but i think that’s exactly right. If you just don’t have it that day, maybe you ask, can i reduce either the intensity or duration and still accomplish the purpose of the workout? If so, awesome. If not, do some endurance. If you can’t even do that, then you know for a fact it’s time for a rest!
This, as well as moving to the mid volume plan, is your problem. Stick to the low volume plan mid week and add zone 2 rides, not full gas rides. Come the weekend, perhaps swap the Saturday ride for your “full gas” ride outside. Make Sunday a long zone 2. Obviously you can change the days around based on weather etc.
