Two very basic (kinda stupid) questions: Bike hack and IM plans

mpalios

Team, I know these should be obvious, but being new, I can't find the answers (don't know where to look).

1) where can I go to view the IM plans?  Just curious what they look like and how they are laid out.  Didn't know if as a team member, we had 'easy' access to the PDFs on the site or not.

2) the Bike Hack.  Coach P discusses this in the podcast this week.  Does this basically mean, to NOT follow the PDF bike workouts at all and to use the workouts that are listed on our "My Training Plan" site?  What are the differences, if the differences are easy to explain?

Thanks all.

Al Truscott

I'll repond to #1; I'm not sure I know what is meant by the "Bike Hack" idea.

For business reasons, RnP limit our access to ANY plans to less than 4 weeks into the future. You might check out this page on the wiki to see the difference between IM Beg, Int, and Adv. plans. What you'll see on that page is "Week 13", which done 8 weeks before the race. The general pattern of workouts each week will be the same (long runs on Thursday, longer bikes on Sat/Sun, etc), the details of each will differ times, zones for intervals, etc.)

Coach Rich

Mike, not sure what you're asking about the bike hack. Please explain.

You can load up any IM plan in your account and you'll see the next 3-4 weeks. As you are paying us month to month, we have decided to only show you the details of a plan in a rolling 3-4 week window. But, in your training plan view, you can scroll down to see a macro level view of your plan: flavor and volume of each workout each day for every week of the plan. We understand that people want to know how long the long run is in Week 15 or the location of race rehearsals, etc. This is our compromise.

mpalios

Posted By Rich Strauss on 05 Dec 2010 02:40 PM

Mike, not sure what you're asking about the bike hack. Please explain.

You can load up any IM plan in your account and you'll see the next 3-4 weeks. As you are paying us month to month, we have decided to only show you the details of a plan in a rolling 3-4 week window. But, in your training plan view, you can scroll down to see a macro level view of your plan: flavor and volume of each workout each day for every week of the plan. We understand that people want to know how long the long run is in Week 15 or the location of race rehearsals, etc. This is our compromise.

 

thanks, Rich.  Actually, I was curious what the race rehearsals looked like from a workout perspective, I wasn't interested in anything else.

The "hack"...Patrick makes mention of it in the podcast, where the hack is an inrease in intensity for team members.  I was curious how the plans compared, that's all.

Gordon Cherwoniak

Mike,

I too am not sure exactly what you are asking.  The bike hack is a way to alter the workouts so that you have more of a focus on biking over running. 

It is not a difference between the PDF and my training plan.  Did you purchase a plan from RnP before joining EN?  If so just leave the PDF and use the workouts in My training Plan site.  They should be similar but if there are any changes they will be reflected in latter as well as the aditional information podcast/wecast stuff that is in there each week.  if it's something else you are talking about then I'm lost too.

Now back to the bike hack, you can check out the wiki here for info on focusifying your weeks:

members.endurancenation.us/Resource...fault.aspx

I can't seem to find it on the site but here's a document I have saved from last year. I'm not sure if RnP still advocate this strategy so if they want I will take this post down.  Sorry for the length.

Focusifying Your EN OS Plan

Guidance on how to get as Specific as you want!

In 2008-2009 we offered bike and run focused versions of our Out-Season training

plans. Bike focused was just that: heavy on the bike work, very light on the run, ditto for

the run focused version. However, we found:

 

• These plans weren't very popular. Probably 90% of our customers purchased the

"Balanced" plans.

• When people asked us which to choose, Focused or Balanced, we

overwhelmingly advised them to go the Balanced route.

• Many focused training plan customers ended up tweaking the plans during the

training cycle to create a more balanced approached: they recognized the

opportunity cost of focusing on one sport for so long while placing the others in

maintenance mode.

 

For these reasons we no longer offer focused versions of our Out-Season training plans--

they are all balanced. Still, while our plans are 95% solutions that work for 95% of

triathletes 95% of the time, we realize that unique situations come up and we want to

give you all of the tools you need to make the most of our training plans. Below is

guidance to help you "focusify" your EN Out-Season Training Plan should you decide to

go that route:

 

Implementation Notes

While converting an entire plan to focus on a single sport might seem like a good idea,

remember we are talking about (A) a hard block of training and (B) five months of your

year. In our world, we'd prefer it if you only modified the middle 6 weeks of your plan.

 

In other words:

 

• Weeks 1-8 of FTP work remain balanced. You are prepping for focus period,

watching the gains/changes to your fitness, etc.

• Weeks 9-14 you implement your focus plan to perfection (note this is happening

during the VO2 phase of the OS)

• Weeks 15 - 20 you return to the Balanced plan, cementing your hard work.

 

Conversion to Bike Focus

1. Lose the Sunday run

2. Replace Sunday with a duplicate of either one of the weekday interval sessions

(doesn't really matter which one) or the Saturday bike.

? Which one you use, weekday interval or Saturday bike, is completely up

to you, based on your other Sunday commitments, your weather

conditions, the length of your season, etc.

 

? We encourage you to focus on intensity rather than volume. That is,

choose to go shorter and harder vs longer and therefore necessarily less

hard. This low volume approach works and will, in our experience,

preserve your head across a long season.

 

Conversion to Run Focus

 

1. Drop the Thursday bike intervals, and move the Tuesday session to Wednesday.

This will leave you with two bikes for the week: Wednesday and Saturday.

2. Move the run that was on Wednesday over to Tuesday.

1. Beginner Level: Take the "new" Tuesday Run, add up the total distance,

and run that at z3/HMP intensity. So 3x400, 2x1000, 3x400 becomes

4400 or 2.75 miles (one mile = 1600) @ z3/HMP.

2. Intermediate Level: Take the "new" Tuesday Run, add up the total

distance and divide to make mile repeats that you run at z4/TP intensity.

So 3x400, 2x1000, 3x400 becomes 4400 (2.75 miles) that you run as 2

x 1 mile + 1 x .75 mile all @ Z4/TP.

3. Advanced Level: Repeat the "new" Tuesday Run, dialing intensity down

only if you can't complete the intervals as listed.

 

Exceptions?

Exceptions to the above guidance occur when experiencing undue fatigue -- Nothing like

cooking yourself when you aren't even training! Be smart and don't be afraid to revert to

the Balanced plan as needed.

 

Questions?

Ask us in the forum

jburbatt

Or you can add in a Big Bike Week somewhere in your season. Check out this wiki article: http://members.endurancenation.us/Resources/Wiki/tabid/108/Default.aspx?topic=Volume+Strategy+Series,+Part+II:+The+Big+Bike+Week

mancona

There also was a power hack at one point that we did for 6 weeks instead of the OS plan. I'm not sure if RnP are going to offer this anymore though because with the changes they made to the OS plans this year (i.e. 30/30 became 2:30"(2:30"), etc ) it is basically making the normal OS plan more like the power hack was anyway.