Biking outside and abandoning the training plan

I finally made it outside for a ride this past weekend. It was overcast and windy but it felt so good to get out on the bike. Since my training hasn't really been adhering to a structured plan very well, it doesn't really matter that there's no power meter on my road bike. I just rode by heart ride and did 40km as tempo ride (so around 160 bpm).

It's still incredible to me how many workouts I've been failing to complete, either because I never start them or I can't finish them. I haven't experienced anything like this before. But given that I don't have any serious performance goals this year and have already established that I'm just going to try to have fun at races, I've decided to ditch the training plan. I haven't been able to stick to a structured plan since february, so I'm just going to wing it from here on out and do what I can/what feels right.

Last year I saw good gains in my FTP through TrainerRoad's 12-week Sweet Spot Base plan. After completing the 6-week Olympic Build plan, I was dismayed to see that my FTP had actually dropped. I chalked this up to a bad day, but didn't test again. I continued my training and adjusted my FTP based on feel... the session continued to feel as hard as they should have, and my FTP only really creeped up once I was through the race-specific phase and was doing most of my rides out on the road, either as endurance rides or as threshold intervals.

This year, once again, I saw nice gains from the Base phase, and things really seem to have stagnated since. Granted, my training has been totally inconsistent, and I haven't been able to string together 2 weeks without getting sick. This is surely contributing to my feeling of being  knackered on the bike, but it is interesting to see that once again, the Build phase seems to be a step backwards for me.

David Epstein's The Sport Gene is an interesting read, and one of the key takeaways is that everyone's physiology is different. Not everyone responds to training in the same way - what works for some may not work for others. Thus, it's essential to track what you're doing and the effect it's having on your fitness, and adjust your training in order to do what will yield the best results for you. There is zero chance that one rigid plan is going to be equally effective for every single person, so it's likely that following a Trainerroad plan religiously is not actually the most effective thing to do.

Thus, I've been looking at what's different about the Base and Build phases I've been following in order to get a sense of what's been most beneficial for me.

TR's Sweet Spot Base program typically consists of one 60 minute VO2Max session, one 60 minute Sweet Spot/Threshold session (95-99% of FTP), and one 90 minute criss/cross session (intervals that go back and forth over/under threshold).

The Build plans keep the VO2Max session, but swaps in a Suprathreshold (typically 108% of FTP) session midweek and then a longer Sweet Spot session on the weekend.

It appears as though the culprit may be the Suprathreshold sessions, since that's the key difference between the two plans. Basically I seem to respond best when my riding is mostly just below (or right at) threshold, or well above (like 120%). Those longer intervals at just above (108%) threshold seem to be taking too much out of me or just not yielding the results they should.

So, since I've more or less abandoned the training plan, I figure now's a good time to experiment and see what happens. The plan is to keep a VO2Max session, do either a Sweet Spot of Threshold session, and then get outside for a Tempo ride or maybe some Threshold intervals.

It won't make sense to judge the success of this plan based on my performance this year, but hopefully if I listen to my body I can get a sense if this approach is a better one for me. Regardless, I'm going to do my best not to feel guilty about doing a recovery ride instead of a hard session on the bike if that's what I feel I've got in me.

Struggling for Consistency

It's been a while since my last post, and based on the subject of said post, it should be fairly apparent why. And it shouldn't come as a surprise that training hasn't exactly been going well.

I managed to finish my Base training feeling pretty strong - I was running consistently, my swim fitness was approaching the form of last season, and I managed to set a new high FTP on the bike. But that was back in February. I began my Build in mid-February and everything fell apart in short order. It's now mid-April, and two months later I'm re-starting my Build - definitely the latest I've ever commenced this phase of my training. So what happened? The short answer is: life.

For a longer answer, here's my TrainingPeaks calendar for the past two months:

I got the first week of TrainerRoad's Olympic Triathlon Build done, but couldn't complete the weekend's long ride - life got a little crazy and I was wiped out for a few days (there's a recurring theme of 2 hours of sleep/night throughout this period). I elected to do some maintenance and attempt the culminating workout the following Saturday... which ended up being Sunday, and I still included my sunday "long" run on top of that. Everything seemed to be going according to plan for Week 2 but by the end of the week I was sick. I recovered from that with just a few days before some minor surgery that would necessitate a week off from training, and I still was not 100% so just some general maintenance work in the short time I had before the surgery.

Unfortunately yet again (due to no sleep at night and the dual germ-exchange programs that are Grade 1 and Daycare) I got sick less than a week into my reintroduction to training. Another few days off due to that, and here we are, the middle of April and I'm back where I was in mid-Frebruary.

The biggest hit has been to my swim fitness - it's amazing how quickly it declines. I've knocked a few watts off my FTP on the bike but it's held together relatively well, and the run is somewhere in between - I'm definitely running at a slower pace in order to hold Zone 2. On the plus side, I'm back running outside again which is awesome after the drudgery of the treadmill. More on that later.

As a byproduct of all of this, it looks as though I may end up with an "A" race this year despite my initial plan - it's unlikely I'll be in good race shape for the first few events of the season. It's kind of depressing that I was in better race shape in February than I am now, but this can't really come as a surprise given my life circumstances. So maybe I'll be able to plan for a peak in Brockville and make another attempt at going under 2:20. We'll see how the intervening months go.