Priority Symbols
I like the idea behind the priority symbols added to the workouts, but noticed that there are alot of Low Priority workouts throughout the week. More Lows than Highs. My initial concern is that new members or less motivated members may interpret those Low Priority workouts as not important and skip or slack on them. My improvement over that last several years came because I saw every workout as just as important as the last and every workout built on the last one for the next one. If those Low priority workouts are skipped then building blocks are missing. Am I way off base here?
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Steve,
What training plan are you in?
Monday - Bike Test: High, Brick run - low
Tues - Off: High
Wed - Run Test: High
Thur - VO2 Bike: Med
Fri - Off: Low
Sat - FTP Bike: Low
Sun - EZ run w/ strides: Low
Ok, Patrick and I are splitting this task up, with me handling the Long Course plans and Patrick doing the others. As I was doing the LC plans today I realized that I needed to document my thinking behind how I was assigning priorities. Patrick and I will do that later this week.
To Steve ... yes, I have your attitude as well, although I do not tend to add volume as you have in the past. But our goals are expansive. Others may be constrained for time, or have different backgrounds, and need guidance as to what is absolutely essential vs not completely necessary for one just getting off the couch or simply trying to participate and finish. Thinking back to my first year training for tris, when I was just making it up as I went along, well, this kind of help would have saved me some energy, and actually might have goten me up to speed more quickly.
We've all got our own opinions. But I have always seen a minimum week for me as one set each of bike, run and swim intervals, a brick, a long bike and a long run. Without those five workouts (bike+run brick counts as one), I will regress; with them, I can hold serve. To improve, next up is more biking for me, for others it may be more swimming or more running, depending on specific needs.
As a newbie I think they are pretty good. If your a slacker your not going to be here and I need the knowledge of what is really essential. This will save me some time on the forums. Keep it real. I know you guys have alot more knowledge and experience than I do so what ever you guys settle on will be great so I'll say thanks in advance.
My opinion is not coming from a guy who "hacks" the plan and adds all kinds of extra volume. I do not add any volume to the OS and consistently come in at exactly the prescribed weekly hours +/- 15 minutes. but the +/- 15 minutes is the key part...CONSISTENCY AND NOT BAGGING WORKOUTS!!
Seriously, though - I suppose there would be cases where some people might just skip the low priority workouts, so there is certainly an argument to be made to have a disclaimer saying that all workouts are important, but if you HAVE to triage, the priority is a mechanism to help with that.
I've had multiple cases where my workouts for a particular week got garbled up because of other stuff in life, and I've had to make an educated guess as to what to drop, and what to keep or modify. This week is a perfect example, as the plan said:
Saturday: 2 hr bike (12' VO2, rest 85%)
Sunday: 1 hr run (3 total miles @ TP)
Monday: rest
Tuesday: Bike FTP
Wednesday: run strides
Thursday: bike FTP
Friday: bike FTP
However, I had a race scheduled for Sunday that then got cancelled, so I did it on Saturday before the weather got nasty. I pushed myself hard, so there was obviously no way I was going to do the prescribed run on Sunday, and I felt I needed Sunday as rest. That left me with missing VO2 work from Saturday, and then on top of that something else came up for Tuesday that would prevent me from doing that days FTP. So if I just went along with the plan, I'd be having Sunday as a rest day (forced), Monday rest (scheduled), and Tuesday rest (scheduled). By knowing the priority of the various workouts, I could then shuffle things around and at least get something done on Monday after I've rested up a bit. In the end, I'll still miss a workout for the week, but the damage is at least limited.
And I think the priorities will totally vary based on the person's strengths/weaknesses and season goals. I'm only doing short course this year so maybe I'd be better off skipping a longer less intense WKO vs. someone else.
Please don't take my comments as criticism of your plan or training. You know I drink the EN Kool-aid! I just read the priorities as a potential easy way out for a newbie that didn't understand the way you build a training plan as building blocks. But who am I to talk, I'm the guy that follows the plan into a brick wall and keeps going until I can't walk anymore.
In general all us EN peeps are a bunch of over-achieving type A individuals that are much more likely to overtrain , overachieve, and dig ourselves right into a hole, than we are a bunch of weak willed individuals just looking for an easy way to skip a workout.
A structure like this will help people that maybe teetering on the edge of fatigue and need to back off a bit or , or if life gets in the way it will help people prioritize there workouts.
Reading the Dashboard and Forums its sound like more people are overtrained than not at the moment!
Hi folks,
Thanks for the discussion. Patrick and I will put our heads together later this week, make sure he and I are on the same page with this, _that_ is then reflected consistently across all of the plans, then close the loop with some detailed guidance in the wiki so everyone knows the thought process and intent behind this new feature.
However, this is a product of the kinds of problems and issues that RnP solve everyday: "The week says to do A, B, and C, but I can only do X, Y and Z because of whatever. What should I do?" This priority system will add another descriptor to each workout and allow people to make better self coaching decisions.
Again, more from us later. Thanks!