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Season planning where training volume is fixed (by time)
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Hi everyone

As the post suggest, Im interested in everyone's opinions on how to plan a season where time (hrs / week) is essentially fixed all year.

Typically season plans will assume time per week (or per month, same same) can change in order to increase training volume without too drastically changing the distribution of intensity.

However, for example, if one was working on a ~80/20 model, how do you vary training volume over the season if you have say, 10hrs/week to train?

One option might be to say increase the proportion of high/higher intensity work, thus increasing the training load. But we may not want to stray too far from a specific intensity distribution. Or, perhaps earlier in the season you could do LESS volume than is possible, in order to have room to increase the volume later. This of course seems wasteful. I have a number of training books, and all seem to assume a model where training time can be manipulated quite drastically during the year. So i am not very aware of good thinking on this top.

In my case, I am looking to target a race in late September. I could probably find a spot here and there closer to the race to find some extra time, but with family & work it is unlikely that i can ever plan to find more time in general. So I am interested to hear how anyone here thinks about this question.

Thanks!! Look forward to hearing your thoughts.
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Re: Season planning where training volume is fixed (by time) [pnoble] [ In reply to ]
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What distance is your race?
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Re: Season planning where training volume is fixed (by time) [pnoble] [ In reply to ]
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I think, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, that 80/20 is the intensity distribution over an entire year, not necessarily a week-by-week thing. So, early in the season it might be something like 0-5% and later in the season it might be something like 25-30%. If it were me, this is what I would do...

Step 1 - Do 10 hours a week for at least a couple of weeks. How many weeks would depend on fitness history. I would say do it long enough that 10 hours is no big deal.

Step 2 - Push those 10 hour time cap and see if it's actually higher. A lot of times when you try to extend that time you'll find that you have more time available than you realized.

Step 3 - Once you find your actual hard time limit, start adding the intensity.
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Re: Season planning where training volume is fixed (by time) [pnoble] [ In reply to ]
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I think that you or your coach needs to be paying lots of attention to changes in your fitness, and you would make adjustments to both your intensity distribution and what that intensity looks like over the course of the season. For example, maybe early on you are doing very little intensity (95/5), where the 5% is all really high, vo2max+ kind of work, and then when you see improvements in that start to plateau, you switch it up and either add a little more intensity and see what happens, or change what that 5% is made up of, go from vo2max+ down to threshold kind of work. Keep playing with the intensity make up in both time and how intense the work is. That would allow for lots of changing to the program over the course of the season, and allow you to build a pretty strong, well developed aerobic engine for your key race at the end of the season. By that point, maybe your workload is that 80/20, where the 20% is all "race pace" type of work. In my head, for that to work, you need a good understanding of power profiling, understanding how you respond to different types of training stimuli, what your limiters are, and how different types of training affect those things.

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Re: Season planning where training volume is fixed (by time) [pnoble] [ In reply to ]
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What is the race distance? And what is the amount of time you have?

In general, your training should go from least specific to most specific for your target race. And if you have something like 10 hours a week to train, I would use all 10 hours every week and vary the intensity prescription throughout the year.

What is your starting point as well? If you've been doing 4 hours a week, you would want to gradually build up to your max volume.
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Re: Season planning where training volume is fixed (by time) [pnoble] [ In reply to ]
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pnoble wrote:
Hi everyone

As the post suggest, Im interested in everyone's opinions on how to plan a season where time (hrs / week) is essentially fixed all year.

Typically season plans will assume time per week (or per month, same same) can change in order to increase training volume without too drastically changing the distribution of intensity.

However, for example, if one was working on a ~80/20 model, how do you vary training volume over the season if you have say, 10hrs/week to train?

One option might be to say increase the proportion of high/higher intensity work, thus increasing the training load. But we may not want to stray too far from a specific intensity distribution. Or, perhaps earlier in the season you could do LESS volume than is possible, in order to have room to increase the volume later. This of course seems wasteful. I have a number of training books, and all seem to assume a model where training time can be manipulated quite drastically during the year. So i am not very aware of good thinking on this top.

In my case, I am looking to target a race in late September. I could probably find a spot here and there closer to the race to find some extra time, but with family & work it is unlikely that i can ever plan to find more time in general. So I am interested to hear how anyone here thinks about this question.

Thanks!! Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Is the 10 hours in a fixed distribution or do you have flexibility in how you divide up the 10? There are way more limitations if you have 10 x 1 hour sessions, as opposed to being able to cut the 10 into 1,1,1,1,2,4 (for example). If your 10 hours is kind of fixed then that will determine what you can do with the time and you will have to manipulate just intensity; if you are able to divide the 10 up in different ways then you would still be able to progress the volume of a key workout each week, for example by taking a race simulation brick workout from 1:30 to 4 hours as you get nearer your race.
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Re: Season planning where training volume is fixed (by time) [pnoble] [ In reply to ]
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I have this same dilemma, but have only recently gotten close to my self-prescribed weekly hourly cap at the end of 2022 and expect to hit/stay at the cap through my build in early 2023.

Put succinctly, I have from 4-6am and one hour at lunch on weekdays, 3-6am on Saturday, and 4-6am with a mid-morning 30 minute swim with my family on Sunday. For me, this equates to about 15 hours per week of effort if work doesn't get in the way of my lunch workouts.

I started with probably a 95/5 ratio with sprints/strides and sweetspot/tempo and have recently moved closer to 90/10 with the introduction of threshold workouts and elongated sweetspot/tempo workouts. As I get closer to race season, I plan to move under 80/20 with the introduction of longer race paced workouts on the weekend and VO2 Max work during the week.

As I said before, this is my first crack at formulating an annual plan to progress my fitness while being maxed out on time so I know there are holes here, but I figured I'd share my perspective because I had the same questions as you not too long ago.

https://www.strava.com/athletes/5905139
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Re: Season planning where training volume is fixed (by time) [JBalady2] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks everyone. Really interesting information.

In my specific case, it will be a 70.3, and I dont really have the option to take the time I can find in any combination I like. So my situation sounds like @JBalady2, except with less hours (9-10 is most realistic).

It sounds like @JBalady you have gone with keeping time fixed and slowly increasing the portion at higher intensities. This sounds like one of the two viable options. The second is to keep both time and the distribution fixed, and just hope that output at the same intensity increases. So I set up my sessions with some intensity distribution, and watch as my output increases. For example, i have X hrs of zone 2 bike at 180w, and as the season progresses and fitness improves, that same X hrs of zone 2 bike is at 200w.

In my head I can see pros and cons of both, and if anything, perhaps some combination of the two is optimal?
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