My only suggestion is changing the VO2 workouts. I did't feel the 30" on/30" off workouts were beneficial...IOW, they felt very easy even over Z5 (e.g. 130%). Can we go back to the VO2 workouts from 2016 OS or a progression of 2-5' at Z5? Thanks.
I wondered if the 2' rest between the Tuesday FTP sets was an accident or on purpose. Also, I thought the same about to 30/30s but I believe I was doing them wrong. The description (I think) said best effort. In erg mode they were not that hard. If I went manual and gave best effort, I bet it would have been more effective.
I'd like to see a 4 week block pattern introduced...I felt like the outseason plan was one hard slog with no "rest" weeks to look forward to. I ended up knackered and unable to produce the work as the plan progressed.
Much as I hate to agree with my wife ;-).. yep, I prefer working in 4 week blocks, 8 weeks between tests/rest weeks is long slog in the winter. Other than that, this is great plan.
Coach P helped me modify my outseason (bike) this year, which seemed to help grow my FTP, but more importantly helped me to hang onto those numbers later into the season so that they could be utilized closer to my half and full IM. The biggest change was on the Tues wkos where I substituted 110% work in place of FTP work in various sets of 5x3,4x4,5x5, etc.
I also have trouble with the run durability program, where as every day run frequency ends up with injury....however I am likely in the minority there...
I haven't done an out-season the past couple of winters but will be back in the game this winter. I like the idea proposed above about adding in rest, but do not concur with the standard 3-1 block. Instead, I would recommend that the plans cycle through 14 days hard, 3 days light activity, and right back to another 14 days hard, rinse and repeat. As to 30-30s - if they don't hurt then you aren't doing them right!
Swimming. Perhaps there could be an option or acknowledgement for people that want to continue swimming in the outseason? Like Brad, I also find the high volume of running difficult to maintain without injury so would welcome the option of replacing a run with a swim. Even if its just 1 x session a week to keep the swim side of things ticking over. I do Triathlon because I like doing the 3 x sports so to do zwro swimming during the outseason is not something I am in favour of.
@Abbey Bonner ENs outseason plans follow a philosophy of faster before father, but also recognize the time constraints of most Age Group athletes, many of whom want a break and are susceptible to burn out. I lack the 'burn-out' gene and have been swimming year round for the past 10 years, but that is not for everyone and could lead to a premature exit from the sport for some. That said, I second your call for a swim option...perhaps a choice between outseason plans WITH and WITHOUT swimming.
VO2 for the bike- I have a feeling this is personal preference/what works for you. Perhaps a return of "x minutes of work, divide it up as you see fit". For me the 30 seconds was too little, even if I totally hammered it and the 5 minutes at 110 from the past was too much. 1 minute seemed to be the sweet spot for me.
FTP for the bike- for me building up to the twenty minute blocks that seems to be the method used wasn't the most effective. I preferred just a straight 3x12 with slight adjustments up of the target watts based on my FTP. For whatever reason I can hang better for 12 mentally than I can gear myself up for 20. Again, likely personal preference.
We have core and cords work on Monday and Friday. Perhaps, for those who prefer, some swimming can be introduced earlier in place of the cords. This can be dangerous I know because of the likelihood of us type A's over cooking ourselves early in the OS, so either strict distance guidance or don't start until a month in to let the work start to sink in.
I would love love the addition of a few "big weeks" throughout the OS. Perhaps we go to 15 weeks with three blocks of 4 weeks of work followed by a big week. It helps break up the OS mentally and allow for some far mixed with all the fast. Guidance would be a must obviously.
Lastly, maybe the addition of a yoga session on the Monday or Friday block would help with both core and flexibility.
The run Strides (really helped me to improve run cadence)
Most workouts were an hour or less
Mondays were super easy with no run or bike
Would suggest a few changes to consider:
The bike 30/30 Zone 5 workout didn't work at all for me. If we're going to do Z5 work, then let's really push it ... something like 30 seconds at 1.7x FTP with 2-3 minutes of recovery; start with 5 of these in week 2 and build to 12 by the end of the OS
If the OS is about building FTP, then I'd have a few weeks with 2 Z5 WKOs (Tue and Thu); then keep the Saturday Z4 WKO; Tuesday could be short sets (30 seconds or 1 minute); Thursday could be longer sets (2-4 minutes)
Have an optional swim session that's focused purely on form; 100% drills and technique stuff; doesn't need to be longer than 30 minutes. (The current plan adds swims in week 11; add this form session to weeks 1-10)
@Abbey Bonner - you can always go in your coach's thread and ask P for where he will modify. This year I did the OS + 2x a week swim. these were mostly master classes focused on drills. Next year I am planning on 2-3x a week swims of 3000 yards, if 3 sessions, one will likely be on the Vasa
@Coach Patrick - I remember reaching out to others on the pointy end about the volume of FTP work from roughly week 6 onwards in the Advanced plan. I just peeked at it to remind myself. Seemed like doing north of 40' per session 2x a week of FTP was extreme, especially with the Saturday ride exceeding 50' and topping out at 60' @ FTP... all in the context of the extreme OS...
I'm going to assume I am in a very small minority here. I would have liked to have seen a good bit more run intensity. While I got pretty darn fast and got a huge Half Marathon PR, as thrilled as I was, I was left believing I could have gotten a good bit faster. I personally found the run intensity a bit on the light side with lots of slow easy running, leading me to believe speed and endurance was left on the table.
Or maybe I am horribly wrong and it was the abundance of slow and easy running that worked the magic in producing the HM PR.
Have you thought of having 2 Out Season plans, each with an over emphasis on either the bike or the run for people to pick from based on what they see as their greatest need to focus / improve on over the winter?
I know come October after IM Chattanooga as I start to lay out my ideas and plans for 2018 there will be a raging conflict in my head as to which avenue to go down. Since the boss only allows full distance racing every other year, I will have to decide if I want to attack more running races (half and full marathons) with a smaller focus on sprint, Olympic, and HIM tris mostly for fun. Or the flip side. A hardcore effort on shorter Tris with an outseason HM test as my only real A+ running race for the year.
I'm still fairly new to triathlon, and have only completed two OS's, but here are my thoughts:
Run: I love the emphasis on run durability! I've struggled for years with running-related injuries and the this program has finally helped me stay injury free.
Bike: For some reason, my FTP has barely budged over the last two OS's. I do the OS workouts on TrainerRoad so I know I'm hitting the all the power targets. This doesn't seem to be a problem for anyone else, so you shouldn't change the plan for me, but nearly all my FTP gains have come from the slightly lower intensity workouts in the TrainerRoad Sweet Spot base plan in October before start of NOS. This is a conversation I should have with Coach P.
Swim: Yes, I need to swim in the OS. Partially because I'm a poor swimmer, and partially because it seems to help me recover from the running. There is some guidance on how to modify the OS if you want to swim, so that my be enough.
I like the idea @Brian Terwilliger has about separate plans. I cannot absorb tough workouts from both run and bike, so this past OS I did the bike WKOs and only run durability. By the way Brian, there's a lot to be said for that slow and easy running; it worked magic for me at a HM in April
Also could consider 4-week blocks emphasizing either bike or run. The 14 OS weeks could be grouped as:
4 week bike focus; lots of VO2 stuff; running would be mostly RD with strides
I did the beginner plan for 2017 with limited run volume 13' week 1 with 94' week 14, no intensity above zn2 until week 12 if I recall. So not a real OS perspective as I did not have the run durability.
I too am not a fan of the 30/30's. Having said that I did 1' intervals mostly this year at 1.2 and did over cook myself a little bit coming off the couch on an occasion or two. I was also doing it old school with recover at 60% so by the end the HR was starting to push up. I found if my recovery intensity was too low I just did not get a good workout particularly at 30/30. I found the old 1' -1.5' sessions tough but good while the 2' was hard work, all at 1.2 FTP.
Beyond my VO2 exploits when I did get in a funk around week 8 I had to triage the FTP workouts for almost 2 weeks breaking up the long intervals in to short ones.
There was definitely more FTP work given the move from run intensity to durability. I found in the past when we had more run intensity in the OS I got a significant gain from the plan without injury. Unfortunately there are those who get injured form the intensity and those, probably a smaller minority that could benefit vs more that could get injured. Perhaps there is a need for more run intensity for those going on to 70.3 or short course plans for sure. The challenge is how we balance this with the IM work and durability. If I wanted to push up the VDOT in the OS I'm with Brian it would be great to have more intensity like the older plans. Having said that I know there is a cost to durability so is there a 4-6 week hack that we can add in.
Unfortunately when you put an option few take the easy road but after many OS' that 95% FTP workout, or z1 run can save the downstream workouts and salvage your week.
So maybe this is not two plans but some guidance for year 2 or 3+ OS athletes on how to add in the run intensity or bike intensity for the OS.
I could've written @Scott Imlay's post. Although I did get injured this year, I don't believe it was from running too much--just a dumb choice or two on my part. Up until I was injured, I was running faster than I ever have. I also felt like my FTP didn't move much. I built all my workouts in Zwift, so I knew if I was (or wasn't!) hitting my power numbers. Hard to tell from my numbers at IMLP--had my fastest loop ever on the first loop and it felt sooo easy, but I got sick on my 2nd loop--thinking not race-related--which slowed me down a lot, so not enough data to know for sure how I responded to the bike training.
I would look at the plan and how workouts were prioritized, and sometimes I would sub in a workout I thought I needed for a low priority workout. Maybe for the OS, there can be a swim substitution for low priority runs, for example. I've always done a 2 or 3 week on, rest and test 3rd or 4th week (Joe Friel). While I did find the OS mentally hard, I feel like the physical effort was well-planned to build my fitness and not burn me out.
I live in a household divided. My husband finds any kind of VO2/FTP work relatively easy and I am the opposite. I think it might have to do with the fact that growing up he was always in stop/start sports (tennis, badminton, hockey) which finely tuned his fast twitch fibers, and I was a slovenly teenager which was not active so I am just a weeny. Regardless, it would be great if the tests could identify what your weakness is and then you choose a plan that works that weakness. I think by reading this you know how I feel about the 30/30 or 2.5/2.5 - I would do none of it, if I did not have to ,but if i do, less is more, but that is probably because I need it.
I haven't done the outseason plan in a while but have done plenty of 30/30, 60/60 etc. My feeling is the first few may feel easy but the 30-40th (30/30s) are incredibly difficult if you go hard enough through all of them.
I agree with @Brenda Ross, I struggle with VO2 max intervals, the longer they are, the harder they are, and I really don't want to do them. I just assume anything that is hard or that I dislike is exactly the thing I need to do.
@Brenda Ross I'm like Steve,18 years of figure skating make the fast twitch and Vo2 much easier for me especially the shorter 30/30's. I think you and @Alicia Chase are calling for the old school 1.2 ratio. This was maybe the 3rd/4th year of EN where the coaches took a group of volunteers and did some hard core work. In the end if your Vo2 5' test was 1.18 less than you FTP 40' test (maybe it was 20' but I think it was all 2X20(2')) then you needed more FTP work if you were at the or above the 1.18 ratio then you needed to work more FTP.
As we do the tests now it would be a matter of instituting more Vo2 work vs FTP. The problem is that Vo2 stuff can really burn you out. In the end unless you ration is really low you should still benefit from FTP work as well with maybe a tough more VO2 work. With the run durability now in the plan perhaps a little more than back when we did more zn4 running work.
Here's an interesting article about the benefit of high intensity work, especially for older athletes, to maintain fast twitch muscle fiber. http://lavamagazine.com/27376-2/?cbg_tz=240
Thanks for all the input folks...super good stuff here. There are somethings we can't accommodate, others that we won't on purpose. Regardless, I wanted to present my initial thoughts for 2018. Please read on...
+++++++++
In addition to your recommendations on improving the VO2 work on the bike, we are considering quite a few macro-level edits.
#1 -- There will be two plans to choose from; RUN or BIKE focused.
Run Focus = Durability (incl. 1 Quality Run) & 2 Quality Bikes, Run prioritized on Saturday.
Bike Focus = 3 Quality Bikes & Durability Running, Bike prioritized on Saturday.
#2 -- Each plan will have Beg/Int/Adv Main Sets to choose from, no more toggling plans (think 2 OS plans vs 6):
MS BEG: 2 x 8' (2') @ Zone4
MS INT: 2 x 10' (2') @ Zone4
MS ADV: 2 x 12' (2') @ Zone4
#3 -- The plan will still be 14 weeks long, but broken into three cycles. Each “work” cycle will have a training focus, each “test” cycle will give 3 days for recovery before testing the focus discipline (Bike or Run) and returning to a regular training weekend. Bike and Run disciplines will both test in the final OS week.
Cycle 1 = 4 Work + 1 Test
Cycle 2 = 4 Work + 1 Test
Cycle 3 = 3 Work + 1 Test
#4 -- Swim or Strength Options will be on Mondays & Fridays. So folks can choose to:
Rest.....because it's winter and we get tired; or....
Swim.....because they are younger than 50 years old and really want to work on their swim; or...
Strength...because they are either older than 50 or need to work on strength to reduce body comp or fix issues.
Sample Training Weeks
Run Focus Week:
Run Frequency and Durability, up to 5 runs.
1 Quality run a week.
2 Quality bikes a week.
Bike Focus OutSeason® Week:
3 Quality Rides
RDP runs on all other days; as two runs as many as 4.
I'm here with Tim Cronk and Scott Dinhofer - they both cheered modifications #1. We each will often mix and match between Int and Advanced depending on the sport, injury issues, time in the OS, run vs bike, etc. This makes that game MUCH easier.
Speaking from my vantage point @, what, 69 next year, I would suggest strongly that those over 50 self-diagnose how FREQUENTLY they should be doing "quality" workouts, which I assume means what I would call intensity, others might call "speed" work, in a given period of time. There may be some younger OFs who can handle every single workout as prescribed without hitting a brick wall, but at some point, most of us will have to determine when they need to take a reduced day. Say, same volume, but less intensity. Eventually, probably by 70 for everyone, that will need to be built in from the start.
I would urge everyone over the age of 48 to keep a close eye on how their body is reacting to the OS. While doing some high-intensity, fast, quality running and cycling is essential to maintaining and improving one's capacity to race, it become progressively easier, even if you have a lifetime of training behind you, to do too much too frequently. A little may go a long way for those over 48.
Specifically, I intend this winter to schedule during each five week cycle 3 bike FTP workouts (one of which might be a test), and 2 VO2 workouts. The second "quality" bike each week would be intervals @ 0.8-0.85, up to a total of one hour work time. For the runs, I will split up the "long" and "quality", not trying to cram both in the same day. I will probably use 5 & 10 k races for the "quality" work, 1-2 5Ks/ five weeks, and the first cycle, a 5k as the test, the second cycle a 10K, and the last either another 10K or HM. I think 5-10 strides done about 2x/week works well to pump up the intensity also.
So I guess I will be tweaking the Run Durability OS. I've also concluded I am less injury prone with more frequency and less volume each workout, so I will be aiming for 6-7 runs a week. And 2-3 weight training sessions, along with 2 swim days each week, cause I'm a life-long swimmer and that's something my wife and I do together.
Liking all of it: 1. Having three main set choices within the plan--could be called Level I, II or III--and I can choose based on my fitness at the time, or what I feel is appropriate for my age and ability to recover (as Al pointed out). 2. I've already added in strength for the post season, and I like plugging in either a strength or swim a couple of times a week. 3. Looks like both plans will have enough of the discipline not being focused on that fitness should be maintained.
Just like last year, I will be doing all my runs as snowshoe running until I can no longer do it. It just makes winter so much more enjoyable for me and I am doing the World Championships again this year, so do not want to make a fool out of myself. I am going to follow the run durability plan until January and then I will start the JOS. I think the Bike Focus is what I will be following. I will hack the plan a bit, but it works best for me schedule-wise.
My plan is: Monday - Weights + Snowshoe run with son (flat and no more than 5km) Tuesday - Swim + Bike 1 Wednesday - Snowshoe run with a running group (1 hour and it's always hilly) Thursday - Bike 2 + option brick run on treadmill Friday - Swim with local Triathlon Club + Weights Saturday - Snowshoe run (flat and up to 10km in duration) Sunday - Bike 3
@PatrickMcCrann - I like the option of Bike Focus or Run Focus, but I think the question will come up - which one is best for me? Will there be questions one can ask themselves so they can pick the right plan, or is it a matter of scheduling? I think you will agree that most people like to pick what they are better at when in actuality they should be picking the latter.
As for the testing - do you mean we will be testing every 4 weeks? For people who hate to test, or are not good testers this might be a bit much. What is the method behind that madness? Will testing more make a bad tester better? or will it continue to frustrate them?
I don't believe it's been mentioned in this thread but with regard to the VO2 work, I personally like the idea of doing it on Tuesday rather than Thursday.
As @Al Truscott mentioned, at 50+, my body needs a little less intensity and a little more "quality" to reap the greatest benefits of the OS.
I think by moving the VO2 work to Tuesday (first bike wko of the week) I can complete that work and still have plenty of gas left in the tank for the rest of the week. Just my two cents and please feel free to comment.
I like the idea of the split plans and intend to continue to "swim" (Vasa & pool) this year. I LOVE the Vasa but still need to feel the water at least once a week if possible.
Comments
Coach P helped me modify my outseason (bike) this year, which seemed to help grow my FTP, but more importantly helped me to hang onto those numbers later into the season so that they could be utilized closer to my half and full IM. The biggest change was on the Tues wkos where I substituted 110% work in place of FTP work in various sets of 5x3,4x4,5x5, etc.
I also have trouble with the run durability program, where as every day run frequency ends up with injury....however I am likely in the minority there...
FTP for the bike- for me building up to the twenty minute blocks that seems to be the method used wasn't the most effective. I preferred just a straight 3x12 with slight adjustments up of the target watts based on my FTP. For whatever reason I can hang better for 12 mentally than I can gear myself up for 20. Again, likely personal preference.
We have core and cords work on Monday and Friday. Perhaps, for those who prefer, some swimming can be introduced earlier in place of the cords. This can be dangerous I know because of the likelihood of us type A's over cooking ourselves early in the OS, so either strict distance guidance or don't start until a month in to let the work start to sink in.
I would love love the addition of a few "big weeks" throughout the OS. Perhaps we go to 15 weeks with three blocks of 4 weeks of work followed by a big week. It helps break up the OS mentally and allow for some far mixed with all the fast. Guidance would be a must obviously.
Lastly, maybe the addition of a yoga session on the Monday or Friday block would help with both core and flexibility.
- The core and swim prep work
- The bike spin-ups and single-leg drills
- The run Strides (really helped me to improve run cadence)
- Most workouts were an hour or less
- Mondays were super easy with no run or bike
Would suggest a few changes to consider:This year I did the OS + 2x a week swim. these were mostly master classes focused on drills. Next year I am planning on 2-3x a week swims of 3000 yards, if 3 sessions, one will likely be on the Vasa
@Coach Patrick - I remember reaching out to others on the pointy end about the volume of FTP work from roughly week 6 onwards in the Advanced plan. I just peeked at it to remind myself. Seemed like doing north of 40' per session 2x a week of FTP was extreme, especially with the Saturday ride exceeding 50' and topping out at 60' @ FTP... all in the context of the extreme OS...
@Coach Patrick
I'm going to assume I am in a very small minority here. I would have liked to have seen a good bit more run intensity. While I got pretty darn fast and got a huge Half Marathon PR, as thrilled as I was, I was left believing I could have gotten a good bit faster. I personally found the run intensity a bit on the light side with lots of slow easy running, leading me to believe speed and endurance was left on the table.
Or maybe I am horribly wrong and it was the abundance of slow and easy running that worked the magic in producing the HM PR.
Have you thought of having 2 Out Season plans, each with an over emphasis on either the bike or the run for people to pick from based on what they see as their greatest need to focus / improve on over the winter?
I know come October after IM Chattanooga as I start to lay out my ideas and plans for 2018 there will be a raging conflict in my head as to which avenue to go down. Since the boss only allows full distance racing every other year, I will have to decide if I want to attack more running races (half and full marathons) with a smaller focus on sprint, Olympic, and HIM tris mostly for fun. Or the flip side. A hardcore effort on shorter Tris with an outseason HM test as my only real A+ running race for the year.
Run: I love the emphasis on run durability! I've struggled for years with running-related injuries and the this program has finally helped me stay injury free.
Bike: For some reason, my FTP has barely budged over the last two OS's. I do the OS workouts on TrainerRoad so I know I'm hitting the all the power targets. This doesn't seem to be a problem for anyone else, so you shouldn't change the plan for me, but nearly all my FTP gains have come from the slightly lower intensity workouts in the TrainerRoad Sweet Spot base plan in October before start of NOS. This is a conversation I should have with Coach P.
Swim: Yes, I need to swim in the OS. Partially because I'm a poor swimmer, and partially because it seems to help me recover from the running. There is some guidance on how to modify the OS if you want to swim, so that my be enough.
Also could consider 4-week blocks emphasizing either bike or run. The 14 OS weeks could be grouped as:
I too am not a fan of the 30/30's. Having said that I did 1' intervals mostly this year at 1.2 and did over cook myself a little bit coming off the couch on an occasion or two. I was also doing it old school with recover at 60% so by the end the HR was starting to push up. I found if my recovery intensity was too low I just did not get a good workout particularly at 30/30. I found the old 1' -1.5' sessions tough but good while the 2' was hard work, all at 1.2 FTP.
Beyond my VO2 exploits when I did get in a funk around week 8 I had to triage the FTP workouts for almost 2 weeks breaking up the long intervals in to short ones.
There was definitely more FTP work given the move from run intensity to durability. I found in the past when we had more run intensity in the OS I got a significant gain from the plan without injury. Unfortunately there are those who get injured form the intensity and those, probably a smaller minority that could benefit vs more that could get injured. Perhaps there is a need for more run intensity for those going on to 70.3 or short course plans for sure. The challenge is how we balance this with the IM work and durability. If I wanted to push up the VDOT in the OS I'm with Brian it would be great to have more intensity like the older plans. Having said that I know there is a cost to durability so is there a 4-6 week hack that we can add in.
Unfortunately when you put an option few take the easy road but after many OS' that 95% FTP workout, or z1 run can save the downstream workouts and salvage your week.
So maybe this is not two plans but some guidance for year 2 or 3+ OS athletes on how to add in the run intensity or bike intensity for the OS.
I would look at the plan and how workouts were prioritized, and sometimes I would sub in a workout I thought I needed for a low priority workout. Maybe for the OS, there can be a swim substitution for low priority runs, for example. I've always done a 2 or 3 week on, rest and test 3rd or 4th week (Joe Friel). While I did find the OS mentally hard, I feel like the physical effort was well-planned to build my fitness and not burn me out.
As we do the tests now it would be a matter of instituting more Vo2 work vs FTP. The problem is that Vo2 stuff can really burn you out. In the end unless you ration is really low you should still benefit from FTP work as well with maybe a tough more VO2 work. With the run durability now in the plan perhaps a little more than back when we did more zn4 running work.
http://lavamagazine.com/27376-2/?cbg_tz=240
2018 OutSeason Plan Edits [Feedback Requested]
Thanks for all the input folks...super good stuff here. There are somethings we can't accommodate, others that we won't on purpose. Regardless, I wanted to present my initial thoughts for 2018. Please read on...+++++++++
In addition to your recommendations on improving the VO2 work on the bike, we are considering quite a few macro-level edits.
#1 -- There will be two plans to choose from; RUN or BIKE focused.
Run Focus = Durability (incl. 1 Quality Run) & 2 Quality Bikes, Run prioritized on Saturday.
Bike Focus = 3 Quality Bikes & Durability Running, Bike prioritized on Saturday.
#2 -- Each plan will have Beg/Int/Adv Main Sets to choose from, no more toggling plans (think 2 OS plans vs 6):
#3 -- The plan will still be 14 weeks long, but broken into three cycles. Each “work” cycle will have a training focus, each “test” cycle will give 3 days for recovery before testing the focus discipline (Bike or Run) and returning to a regular training weekend. Bike and Run disciplines will both test in the final OS week.
Cycle 1 = 4 Work + 1 Test
Cycle 2 = 4 Work + 1 Test
Cycle 3 = 3 Work + 1 Test
#4 -- Swim or Strength Options will be on Mondays & Fridays. So folks can choose to:
Sample Training Weeks
Run Focus Week:
Bike Focus OutSeason® Week:
@Alicia Chase @Gordon Cherwoniak @Brenda Ross @Satish Punna @Paul Hough @scott imlay @Brad Marcus @Derrek Sanks @Abbey Bonner @KARL BONNER @Paul Curtin @Al Truscott
Speaking from my vantage point @, what, 69 next year, I would suggest strongly that those over 50 self-diagnose how FREQUENTLY they should be doing "quality" workouts, which I assume means what I would call intensity, others might call "speed" work, in a given period of time. There may be some younger OFs who can handle every single workout as prescribed without hitting a brick wall, but at some point, most of us will have to determine when they need to take a reduced day. Say, same volume, but less intensity. Eventually, probably by 70 for everyone, that will need to be built in from the start.
I would urge everyone over the age of 48 to keep a close eye on how their body is reacting to the OS. While doing some high-intensity, fast, quality running and cycling is essential to maintaining and improving one's capacity to race, it become progressively easier, even if you have a lifetime of training behind you, to do too much too frequently. A little may go a long way for those over 48.
Specifically, I intend this winter to schedule during each five week cycle 3 bike FTP workouts (one of which might be a test), and 2 VO2 workouts. The second "quality" bike each week would be intervals @ 0.8-0.85, up to a total of one hour work time. For the runs, I will split up the "long" and "quality", not trying to cram both in the same day. I will probably use 5 & 10 k races for the "quality" work, 1-2 5Ks/ five weeks, and the first cycle, a 5k as the test, the second cycle a 10K, and the last either another 10K or HM. I think 5-10 strides done about 2x/week works well to pump up the intensity also.
So I guess I will be tweaking the Run Durability OS. I've also concluded I am less injury prone with more frequency and less volume each workout, so I will be aiming for 6-7 runs a week. And 2-3 weight training sessions, along with 2 swim days each week, cause I'm a life-long swimmer and that's something my wife and I do together.
1. Having three main set choices within the plan--could be called Level I, II or III--and I can choose based on my fitness at the time, or what I feel is appropriate for my age and ability to recover (as Al pointed out).
2. I've already added in strength for the post season, and I like plugging in either a strength or swim a couple of times a week.
3. Looks like both plans will have enough of the discipline not being focused on that fitness should be maintained.
My plan is:
Monday - Weights + Snowshoe run with son (flat and no more than 5km)
Tuesday - Swim + Bike 1
Wednesday - Snowshoe run with a running group (1 hour and it's always hilly)
Thursday - Bike 2 + option brick run on treadmill
Friday - Swim with local Triathlon Club + Weights
Saturday - Snowshoe run (flat and up to 10km in duration)
Sunday - Bike 3
@PatrickMcCrann - I like the option of Bike Focus or Run Focus, but I think the question will come up - which one is best for me? Will there be questions one can ask themselves so they can pick the right plan, or is it a matter of scheduling? I think you will agree that most people like to pick what they are better at when in actuality they should be picking the latter.
As for the testing - do you mean we will be testing every 4 weeks? For people who hate to test, or are not good testers this might be a bit much. What is the method behind that madness? Will testing more make a bad tester better? or will it continue to frustrate them?
As @Al Truscott mentioned, at 50+, my body needs a little less intensity and a little more "quality" to reap the greatest benefits of the OS.
I think by moving the VO2 work to Tuesday (first bike wko of the week) I can complete that work and still have plenty of gas left in the tank for the rest of the week. Just my two cents and please feel free to comment.
I like the idea of the split plans and intend to continue to "swim" (Vasa & pool) this year. I LOVE the Vasa but still need to feel the water at least once a week if possible.
All sounds like good improvements to me