Adjusting the plan to move weekend rides - what's worked/not worked?

kyliejean

Hi team,

I'm about to start training for a half-ironman in Feb (I'm southern hemisphere so our season is just starting - or rather it's started, but I'm just getting back into it after an extended post-marathon lay-off). This is my second year training for this event with EN and based on last year, I want to move one of the weekend rides to during the week (regularly, not just a one-off). I know the coaches have developed the plan as it is based on years of experience, but I don't want to follow the plan into that (mental) brick wall . I have a love-hate (mainly the latter) relationship with cycling and despite telling myself repeatedly to SIUP, I just get miserable every Friday night thinking about how much of my weekend I'm going to have to spend cycling and often don't really hit the second workout properly, for mental rather than physical reasons. I'd rather a slightly sub-optimal plan that I can set in advance and actually do well. (And I work a nine-day fortnight, every second Thursday is a day off, so I have a bit of flexibility)

I have some thoughts on how to do it and will do a Micro thread post to check my ideas with RnP, but wanted to see what the collective brains trust has to say first. I did a site search and didn't find much in the forums (although I see Al Truscott mentioned moving one of the rides, and I felt rather relieved. If Al's okay with it, I certainly am!). And I did find this great post on following/modifying training plans:

 http://members.endurancenation.us/F....aspx#7814

So, who's played around with when they do the rides set for the weekend, as a regular thing? How did you rearrange the week's workouts? Did it work for you? All comments much appreciated.

Kylie

 

 

 

steve Beyer

I always takes Sunday off, so I did the ABP ride on Tue and moved the Tue TP run WKO to Friday, and just dropped the normal Friday run WKO. Two things with that: one- my legs were pretty tired for the Fri. Run WKO given that it's a day after the Thur. Long run, but I always managed to get both in and have them high quality. Two- I eventually (in an Intermediate IM plan) had to adjust the intensity/duration of the ABP WKO in order to get in the FTP sessions. In fact I had to have a couple of weeks where I skipped the Tue. ABP WKO in order to get out of a "hole" I'd dug for myself.

See "Steve's micro thread' where I went through this with coach Patrick. Good luck

Al Truscott

Fortuitously, I'm just finishing a week when the weather and work have conspired to allow me to put my workouts any time I wanted. I'm five weeks out from IM Arizona. Here's what I did, and it has seemed to work well with little of the usual deep fatigue I feel at this point of an IM build:

Mon: Bike FTP intervals, Monday run

Tues: Swim, Run TP intervals

Wed: "Friday Ride", done @ 0.7 IF

Thurs: Long Run

Fri: Swim

Sat: Long Saturday ride  (done @ 0.75+ IF) + run

Sun: Swim, Run with strides

All of these were done within the ranges the plan dictates for plan intensities and times.

MattAaronson

I suggest you post to the micro thread and lay out in detail your constraints. Personally I'm a big believer in the value of back-to-back biking where you follow your long ride with a long-ish z3 ride the next day. I think it really goes a long way to making you stonger on the bike. If you can somehow preserve that sequence during the week it's probably good.

Al Truscott

Matt - I agree with you, but speaking from 25 years in your future, that may not apply as one starts to need more recovery time from big efforts. A Saturday 4.5 hour ride+ 42 min run for me eats up > 250 TSS points; trying to add another 130-180 the next day puts me in too deep a hole for the following week.

So, for the record, I endorse the EN Sat/Sun ride program as a general rule. But for those over 55 or so, or whose life circumstances don't permit it, getting the rides in any way you can during the week is an alternative to be considered.

[Deleted User]

I found myself in a similar situation. In a 2 period week i only work 7 rotating days, which gives me every other Fri, Sat Sun, off and either 2 or 3 days off during the week. I had to copy my EN workouts to my Outlook calender and move the according to my work week. Because i work 12 hour shifts and sometimes over night i have move some of my long weekend rides to Monday and Tuesday instead. Like Matt said i also value the back to back bike days. Ill take shorter sessions like the Monday swim and run and do them the Saturday and Sunday i work. Some weeks i can follow the plan as written.

kyliejean

Thanks so much for sharing everyone, hugely helpful! On a transition plan for A couple of weeks so have time to really figure out how best to do this when I then drop into HIM plan. You've helped make me feel excited about that!