I read this thread carefully, including Brian’s comments above, as I had very similar experiences with the TR Olympic mid volume plan this year. The base program seemed well structured and reasonably challenging, the bike part was mostly sweet spot with some small injections of short sprints and vo2max. Very reasonable.

However when I moved into the build phase, I started grudgingly questioning the logic of the bike program. I very much respect the TR team, their excellent podcast and the really polished software - so questioning the design of this training plan was a gradual and almost subconscious process. I could just barely finish some of the workouts - and some of them now left me completely gassed, even when I adjusted the intensity down a bit for some intervals. Well, every week it is always one tough VO2max workout, one workout with long intervals usually at 108% (likely overinflated) FTP, and one long ride. And then the specialty phase was even worse - even more grueling VO2max workouts every week, long intervals at 105% (again, likely overinflated) FTP, and a more reasonable long ride a bit below FTP.

I may be missing something, but where is specificity in constant VO2max and above FTP intervals? Maybe this could be relevant for draft legal professional Olympic triathlon, but I doubt that the pros are the target audience of the TR plans. Out of curiosity, I recently downloaded a trial version of Sufferfest to check out their Olympic plan, and while their plan unsurprisingly also includes a fair bit of intensity, many of their suprathreshold intervals are shorter, they also have easier workouts and over and under intervals, some of the intense workouts themselves are shorter, and they have weeks with significantly reduced volumes which is not the case with TR. The Sufferfest plan overall is shorter and less polished, the swim and run workouts sometimes look like an afterthought and I find the whole Sufferlandia theme somewhat annoying. However I suspect that their bike program might be more effective because at first glance it has less overall volume with long intense intervals, allowing for more appropriate training load and a higher chance of recovery and super compensation.

This is not TR bashing at all, I will likely stick with TR as I like their overall concept and style a lot. However I must say that Brian’s points above (especially poor program design, too many intervals) seem to be correct for this specific plan. In the ideal world I wish Chad and the team could pay attention to this thread and make some changes. Or alternatively explain why my take is wrong.

Dimm

FTP doesn't vary, PE does

OP here........... I had to sleep 9 hours a night and some afternoons but I made gains.

This fall I was excited to jump back in and see what progress I could make throughout the winter. I quickly dug myself into a deep pit of fatigue and got very sick despite trying to sleep those same 9 hours.