I have been cycling for 3 years now after a 20 year retirement( I am 44 Years old). I started cycling as a cross training tool for Surf Boat Racing(Lifeguard Boats), which I have been Racing for over 20 years. I started using Trainer Road last year casually for rainy days with no set work out plan. I recently signed up for a 15 Mile Row in June(Cape to Cape Paddle), which will be about a 2.5Hr full gas row, and would like to set up a plan on Trainer Road. Would this be possible? If so What do you recommend?
Think it depends what you’re doing on the rowing machine and/or in the boat alongside the cycling, as the fatigue and stress from that is going to have an impact on what cycling you can or should do. The risk would be that in following a full TR plan and then adding in rowing sessions as well you could be doing too much intensity.
One approach might be to follow the half distance triathlon plan as the cycling in that is targeted at a similar effort to your race (2-3 hours at a high percentage of threshold) and obviously the cycling element of the plan is based around you cross-training in other sports at the same time.
Another approach would be to use TR to guide both your rowing and cycling sessions. I.e. pick a TR plan such as SSB → Sustained Power Build → Century. And then do some of the workouts on the ergo/in the boat instead of on the bike. They won’t quite be like for like - your threshold in rowing is likely a bit lower than in cycling, and the power curve is a little different as well - but you should be able to adapt them get similar training stimulus. If you do that then I’d mainly pick the key and race-specific workouts to do as rowing, the recovery and Z2 workouts as cycling.
ok, Thanks!!