I am finishing up Sweet Spot Base (mid volume #1). I’ve had some really good gains, and I’ll go through my recovery week and then immediately as Sweet Spot Base 2 should begin I have a 1 week work trip.
During this work trip I’ll have 10-14 hour days of sitting in conferences, and some evening “mandatory fun” outings. Chances for workouts of any productive nature will be limited to non-existant. I cannot bring my bike or a power meter, and at best I’ll have a hotel gym.
Right now the plan is to take week 1 of Sweet Spot Base 2 (minus the ramp test) and do it in place of my recovery week, thereby accruing even more stress than normal. I’d try to really bury myself by the end of the week. Then, in lieu of the recovery week I go to the conference, don’t work out at all and try as hard as I can to relax. Come back on a red eye, do Pettit to wake my legs back up and then the next day do my ramp test and roll into week 2 of Sweet Spot Base 2.
Does that seem like the best option, or am I going to set myself back by building up too much stress etc? Is there another way? I don’t have any buffer weeks between my race and now so the plans all perfectly align with my major A race in August.
This probably doesn’t help you since it sounds like your trip is about to happen, but I usually try to throw an extra partial deload week roughly equally spaced before the trip. Instead of trying to cram even more tss than normal in before a stressful trip.
As an example, I might plan to start SSBI 7 weeks before and take week 4 as a partial deload (e.g. Z2 during the week, normal rides on the weekend), then back to weeks 4 and 5 from the plan, with the final week as travel.
This obviously doesn’t always work (the luxury of always having 7+ weeks of notice for work trips). How I respond given varying degrees of notice obviously depends, but the general guideline I try to follow is to avoid really piling on the TSS right before with the notion that I’ll “recover” while traveling.
Based on the stressful nature of your trip, it doesn’t sound like you will really get much chance to recover from the stress overload state caused by skipping the rest week.
When recommending a course of action, we always try to determine the type of training break you will be taking.
If it is a relaxing break (think beach vacation), then overloading into the week and recovering is a good option.
If it is a stressful week or an injury, we assume that you will not get the chance to recover. It’s important to remember that your body doesn’t care about the source of your stress, Whether it is cycling stress or life stress, stress will prevent you from effectively recovering.
Becasue of this, I would recommend completing the recovery week before heading into your Work Trip.
Then, take the week off the bike at the work trip, and just pick up on Week 1 of SSB II when you return. You’re pushing your plan back by a week, but sometime that is the only option with the “life-stuff” we have to deal with. You mention you don’t have any buffer weeks, so you’ll just end up trimming out week 6 of Specialty in the weeks leading up to you event. No biggie
I went on vacation a few weeks ago. Put in a heavy week just before and planned to just take it easy. No bike.
My wife had a different idea. We walked a million miles a day. Ha. Combine that with a few late nights, a hangover or two, and I was exhausted when I got home. Had to take the week after of as well.
