TR Guidance: how to choose between BASE and BUILD?

I’d suggest doing LV and completing all 3 rides PLUS your long outdoor ride rather than doing MV and dropping the most important ride of the plan.

Good luck and have fun!

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I realized that my outdoor ride has usually been around 160-180 TSS, which is much higher than the workout usually scheduled for Saturday and would add around 60 TSS to my week. So I took your advice, stepped down to LV and added my outdoor ride. I’m now again looking at around 360 weekly TSS, but it seems to be a more realistic plan.

I’ll start off like this. If I should be so lucky as to feel that I can add more workload to the week, I can add in the easy Wednesday ride (~40 TSS) and/or increase the intensity of each workout by 2-3%. But you’re right, LV+outdoor makes more sense.

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I think pretty much everything you’re suggesting now sounds great to try - I’d only suggest one very minor thing - see if you can swap the Sunday mid-volume SSB ride for outside, instead of the Saturday.

Reason being, the Saturday rides are among the most challenging milestone rides (90 mins at high intensity factors) - unless you have really pristine open road, you may find it hard to do them faithfully. For example, something like Carp Peak + 2 needs 16 mins non-stop just barely over/under threshold. A couple stoplights brings that from brutally tough to very do-able - it’s just not the same. The Sunday rides are often already longer by design, more moderate intensity, and thus slightly better suited to take outdoors.

You can also try exporting the planned rides to your Garmin or Wahoo - I live in a rural area and it’s a fantastic way to do them if you can find good uninterrupted roads! Never hurts to have extra Z2 time before/after the planned workout portion as well, if it gets you to nice open roads.

I also looked at your calendar history and a few things jumped out to me - again, full disclaimer, just an amateur who loves data and reading about all of these things a bit too much…

  • Your big IF / power rides are all outside - it’s very typical to be stronger outside than inside - I made mistake my first year of training with an outdoor tested FTP and it crushed me. Don’t assume the power you can do outside will translate indoors. If it’s way off, then read the threads on here about cooling and high performance fans to close the gap.

  • You seem to have no problem nailing the short VO2 max intervals - but I see a lot of SS and O/U workouts that came up short - maybe you just often ran out of time, but I’m seeing Kaweah, Carp Peak +1, Antelope… a lot of bread and butter SS base workouts indoors very frequently not done to completion. Prove to yourself you can nail most of those in your new structure before moving to build. These are the ones that will really help you just get out and ride 50+ miles faster without blowing up.

  • MV is going to be a brutally tough step up. Don’t sweat it if you have to drop the Wed/Sun rides to just get the other stuff done reliably each week - as others have said, doing 100% of a LV plan is already going to be a massive step up. If things get tough, most would say drop Pettit first; then either drop the Sunday ride, or cut it back from intervals to an easy Z2 long ride - but still aim for steady constant Z2 power output - no coasting That makes it a lot more productive time. MV is no joke first time through :slight_smile:

Good luck and please do post back how things go, or to find a support group when you get to know Mary Austin :grin:

EDIT - just saw your latest post - looks like a perfect strategy to manage the MV risk!

I think I forgot to mention it last night, but I did take note of feedback about the importance of Saturday’s workout. Since I have flexibility in scheduling, I moved the tougher Saturday ride to Tuesday, put my outdoor ride on Saturday, and moved Tuesday’s easier workout to Sunday so my big outdoor ride is followed by the easiest workout of the week.

I now have hard TR on Tuesday, medium TR on Thursday, outdoor on Saturday, and “easy” (or at least “shorter”) TR on Sunday. That seems like a better balance of work during the week.

I get back from a week’s vacation this Saturday, and I have my ramp test scheduled for that evening. Can’t wait to get going!

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Pbase, I agree 100% with your comment that some folks may take exception to the phrase “low volume” work - not me. And, I was an indoor trainer hater, but TR has made it bearable. Hear me out.

I’m new to structured training, although I’ve been “riding” for years (got back on the bike in 2012). Note, the operative word being just “riding.” I’ve done century rides and everything in between, so I can say I do have a base to build on, but decided I want to be better at this. I checked my ego at the door and have turned the reins over to TR and trusting the system. Just like when I was in basic training, I’m being stripped down and built back up, but better, stronger and more efficient. I chose to start with the SSB1 LV (will be moving to SSB2 LV once finished) and just completed week 4 (just completed the over/under at 95/110) for 1.5 hours. What a great sense of accomplishment completing all of the prescribe training so far. I can see just how it’s getting me ready for SSB2 LV, which seems to have a lot of those over/under intervals targeting V02 and Threshold. Getting ready.

To the OP, I see someone has pointed out that you have not completed all of the SSB1 sessions. If that’s the case, if it were me, I’d check it back down to SSB1/2 LV until I could complete those sessions before considering moving forward. For me, completing those will be the checks and balances for me to move forward to the build phase. If you have not done so, read each training session goals to get an idea of what’s to come.

Like Pbase stated - trust the system and don’t get too ahead of it or you will miss out on some of the step by step building sessions that’s getting you ready for the next phase. If for some reason, a session can’t be completed on a specific day because of life, just move it to another day, but don’t skip it.

Just One Man’s Opinion.

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At the age of 60 (and I’m pretty sure I’m not the oldest here) I find I need to focus on the recovery as much as, if not more so, than the workouts themselves. While ego might look at the high and medium volume plans, common sense dictates the low volume.

There’s a number of threads on here where low volume + is the general recommendation where the “plus” might be extra TR workouts or outdoor rides. I prefer outdoor riding, it’s what the workouts are aiming to help after all. I moved the workouts forward one day so I’ve the weekend free for the outdoor stuff.

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Thanks to both @Methodical and @bobw for your input. Over the course of this conversation and with a lot of tinkering in the Plan Builder, I’ve come to understand that the points you both made are spot-on.

My training plan is now exactly as you suggest. The base is SSB1 LV (4 wks), 1 week recovery, SSB2 LV (4 wks), and then a taper week ending with my event. I’m making that “LV+” by switching the workouts around so the toughest one is on Tuesday and the “easiest” one is on Sunday, then adding one long outdoor ride each week on Saturday. Each week has roughly 220 TSS on TR and 160 TSS outdoors.

Got back from vacation last night. Was too tired to do the ramp test well, but did one 3 weeks ago so I’ll leave it at that. Rode 60km this morning, and I’m ready to formally start my training plan on Tuesday. :+1:t2:

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Progress update:

  1. I’ve finished my first training block: 4 weeks of SSB1 LV plus one outdoor ride (50-60 km). Managed to mostly stick to it (well enough to make me happy) and my average weekly TSS jumped 56% (!) from 215 to 330.

  2. This week’s ramp test yielded 195W, a gratifying 17W (9.6%) boost from the previous 178W. And although I’ve felt tired during training, overall I feel better.

  3. An important note is that the additional training has convinced me to make sleep a higher priority, with all sorts of other positive side effects.

  4. The next block is 4 weeks of SSB2 LV plus one outdoor ride (60-75 km). Average weekly TSS will jump again, almost 30%, to 430. Then a taper week leading up to my “A” event, the Dolphins Cancer Challenge.

I’ve come to understand very clearly how the Sweet Spot Base regimen, and the “long slow distance” outdoor rides Chad recommends, are a great way to build muscle endurance and aerobic conditioning that will provide a base for other work. If you can’t work hard for a long time, then becoming very strong (for very brief rides) won’t do you any good.

Once I recover from the Dolphins Cancer Challenge ride, I’m going to go back and do a full 16-week SSB plan before going to Build. I’m very clear now that there’s a lot more aerobic conditioning I can still capture before Build (or anything else) really becomes relevant.

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