+1 on naming plans by ranges of hours rather than low, mid, high.
On that note…. some of us need more hours than even than the current “high volume” plan, which is more of a high intensity but still relatively low volume plan. I wouldn’t call it elite because I have not yet heard of an elite cyclist whose biggest week matches the hours of this plan. We learned in this episode that Alex, a working elite, has more time than that. So, although they might do the high intensity interval load of the “high vol” plan, I think they are adding in quite a bit of extra time in lower intensities.
I have more time available to train (no kids) and past experience training for longer than the high volume plan (12-15 hours/week during leadup to big goal events), but am not “elite”, maybe aspiring to be “sub-elite”, lol, and would not benefit from doing more than 2-3 hours of high intensity intervals on the trainer/week.
It’s also not obvious which plan matches my goal events, which are primarily MTB focused bikepacking races like Arizona trail race (300), Colorado Trail Race, and similar, which are the equivalent of like, 3-8 road double centuries in a row with higher intensity and less recovery. (And perhaps nobody in their right mind should be doing these things). There is also a lot off the bike that is critical for success in these crazy races. It’s an impossible task to serve every small niche, I get it. But allowing for higher volume with lower intensity is a big gap in the plans that might serve more riders, especially doing any type of longer events.
By that I don’t necessarily mean polarized, because I feel that sweet spot and tempo do have their place, just as do threshold and VO2. My training that helped me most when I worked with a coach ended up being mostly pyramidal.
My ideal plan would be what I did in the past working with a coach which was 5-6 days, with 2, at max 3 SS or higher intensity interval sessions of 60-90 mins max on weekdays, with short recovery rides between. Then on the weekends, at the highest volume weeks in the plan, 2 back to back 4-6+ hour rides that are mostly lower in intensity, maybe with some jumps, or a tempo block.
And also, as a mountain biker, I need something set aside in the overall TSS budget for sessioning skills, which is gasp - unstructured time on the bike! But skill sessions are just as important as structured training for mtb’ers to “become faster cyclists”.
And, I’ve heard over and over, “just add in your own Z2 workouts”. Sub the SS with a longer Z2, or, “Do a longer cool-down”. That’s not the point. The point of having a “plan” is, those time blocks are working well with the overall program, are there on your calendar. Mentally, for me anyway and perhaps others feel the same way, it can be more motivating than being left to your own poor judgment.
What I have been doing is making things up as I go with TrainNow, which is a nice feature! And using AI FTP, which is not only a cool concept but actually works really well evidenced by not failing workouts. But I want/need a plan with a real progression that meets all my needs and there isn’t one. The existing plans I have considered have some 2 hour weekday rides and 90 minute weekend rides, which is backwards and frustrating. If I have 2 hours to train on a work day, I would rather do 1 hour on the trainer and use the extra hour for going to the gym. If this is geared towards working folk, why aren’t the weekends not more utilized for more longer low intensity rides?
I heard that there might be new plan builder updates where we can choose our available time per day. I am hoping this might be the exact thing that I need. But if we’re still capped at 10 or so hours I might look elsewhere.
another possibility is that the majority of 8+ hours/week folks are simply riding a lot, or have a coach, or found ‘reasonable’ off-the-shelf plans on Strava premium or TrainingPeaks.
