Just wondering if anyone has any real success doing back to back quality/hard days?
Reason I ask is because my current schedule looks like this;
m- bike (easy)
t- run (hard/intervals)
w- bike (hard/intervals)
t- run (easy)
f- bike (quality)
s- Long Run
s- Long ride
Im thinking of switching it up so that my interval days are separated a little more. And also I require more recovery after a hard run day. Recovery after biking isn’t as bad;
m- run easy
t- bike (hard/intervals)
w- bike (quality)
t- run (hard/intervals)
f- bike (easy)
s- run long
s- bike long
Out of the two possible schedules, does anyone do anything remotely similar and what were your experiences as such?
Or any suggestions on a variation of any of the above? Thanks in advance.
Doing interval sessions 2 days apart is better than doing them on consecutive days, so second schedule looks better. Timing of your sessions is also a huge factor - an evening run followed by a bike the next morning may give you <12 hours recovery, whereas a morning run followed by a bike the next evening may give you >36 hours recovery.
If back to back interval days becomes unavoidable then in my experience they can still be done, but aim for at least 24 hours between sessions, and it really does depend on how hard and long you’re going and how well you recover. I’ve had some success in using resting HR (tracked by my Fitbit) and Garmin Recovery Advisor to add extra insight into how I’m recovering, if you have any of that sort of data available it may help. YMMV.
I had heaps of success doing 3x days of intervals (cyclist only) in a row. It is very tough but works amazing. You have to prioritize recovery and the EZ days are truely easy.
The key problem with your plan as outlined is that the long run and long bike are essentially quality/tough workouts. So you are essentially doing 5 hard workouts a week and planning on recovering with EZ running. Doesn’t seem feasible. You’ll eventually be unable to make the hard workouts hard enough.
I dont mind doing back-to-back interval days, provided certain conditions, at least 23 hours between interval sessions, morning run followed by afternoon bike the next day is always nice, followed by easy day. always run intervals followed by bike intervals next day. If not back to back then you probably want 2 or more days between interval sessions. maybe something like this:
m- run (easy)
t- run (hard/intervals)
w- bike (hard/intervals)
t- bike (easy)
f- run (easy)
s- Long Run
s- Long ride
if you dont like to run on back to back days, you’re easy isnt easy enough.
also as someone else noted, you have a lot of quality in that schedule. long = quality. … wait a second… no swim??? also is this the time of year for interval work? maybe you’re southern hemisphere.
Apologies for the late reply, been an extended weekend over here in Melbourne!
Agreed, Long=Quality, so I may just get rid of the ‘mid-week’ quality ride. I’ve a habit of letting myself go harder than the usual ‘easy’, hence if i put an easy run at the beginning of the week, its not so detrimental than if i do it day before a long run.
Which pretty much answers your question ‘your easy might not be easy enough’. So cycling day before is a good fall back. An hours riding at a decent wattage has little or no affect to the next days workout.
Haha! Yes, southern hemisphere, hence just full out going for it. Throwing a few more swims in here and there in the evening…the only way i can get the wife out to join me in my lifestyle
One quick thought - You do not need to do a long run every week. If you could space long runs out to be every 10 to 12 days, that would open up some flexibility in your schedule.
If having a long run mid-week would be a scheduling problem, cut the long run into an am/pm run double.
This might open up for spacing out interval days to be higher quality.
Just curious. I have been reading about “block training” quite a bit lately. I am predominately only cycling right now due to a number of factors (mainly I just like riding)
What would your three day block (and rest of your week) look like?
A lot of the literature shows that Day 1 should be your shorter harder intervals and then Day 2 -3 you do longer intervals at slightly lower power?
Do you just rest the other 4 days of the week?
Thanks! Just wanted to chat with someone who has done it before.
My question would be “what does your rest week look like”? Seven straight days of activity week after week is a recipe being about as fresh as a turd. I wouldn’t do the same thing week-after-week either. I would build across three weeks by moving the hard days together and adding intensity and then the 4th week would start with 3 days of sitting on my butt and doing absolutely nothing. I bet you will find that you really benefit from the recovery, though you will feel really sluggish that first day back.
I say go for it…are you familiar with the Brooks/Hanson training plan that incorporates a difficult run before their prescribed 16 miler for marathon training?
It’s more about the quality types your doing and your recover vs 2 or 3 days in a row. I often have athletes do 2d in a row, but then there are also easy days.
That’s the problem/puzzle with triathlon. You are always planning things out trying to compromise the least to get the maximal results.
You can do back to back interval days and have some success, but I would only do it if you have a planned off period immediately afterwards. For example, you have to travel out of town for work and won’t be able to train much or at all. Overstressing the system right before is not only far safer because of the guaranteed time off afterwards, but you’ll also have a more relaxed trip because you’ll know you don’t need to work out. Folds together pretty nicely.
used a 3 day advanced block training program from hunter allen through training peaks. It was a good program but after four weeks I ended up using it as the base template and fitting the 3 day blocks into my schedule as I could manage. It probably isn’t the best plan for someone who can’t be flexible with their week schedule. Some weeks would be M-T-W ON, with 3 days rest/recovery work and then the block would start again on a Sunday. For me there were some weeks that I had to insert extra rest or L2 training so I could make the blocks fit my week schedule. I think this sometimes leads to non-optimal stress loading, too much rest.
Since I used a canned program I can’t speak much to the actual composition of the blocks and what type of work should be day 1,2,3. My recall is that generally it got shorter/harder the farther into the block, opposite of what you suggest.
My key learnings:
· When you accept the program you’ll surprise yourself how much hard work you can do in a block.· Going deep with the training stress is amazing but mentally taxing. Be prepared to be really really tired.· Recovery is paramount and recovery rides must be Z1 or lowest Z2.· Diet and sleep need to be on point.· Fixing your workout schedule to a “week†is not the best way to train and recover.· It is difficult to race during the block plan due to the rotating schedule. I had to bump blocks for mini-tapers going a race 2x during the plan. When I did this I used the race as the first day of the next block.
Here is a sample of week 4-5 with the workout details redacted. I highly recommend hunter allens plans at training peaks as he has several block plans to choose from.
Monday and Fridays are usually easier in comparison to any other days, so a solid 2 or 3 day block looks like what i’m going to be doing for a while. Everyone here has given me some great ideas, and its seams that the hardest workout (bike VO2 intervals) on a Tuesday, followed by a easier bike intervals on Wed, then track runs on a thursday might just tick the boxes.
Leaving the beginning and ends of the week something to look forward to.
Agreed, that back it off if needed, and obviously consider being flexible when life gets in the way.
@salmonsteve, the reason for 7 days is because of my Job. I can never guarantee that I will get larger blocks of time to do what i want. I dont have the luxury of being able to take my time on a run, then pop to the swim pool later. Working in IT and being on call sucks, but it pays the bills. So if i can dedicate atleast an hour with ‘time on the feet’ or arse in the saddle (easy or not), thats whats going to get me motivated for my next event.
used a 3 day advanced block training program from hunter allen through training peaks. It was a good program but after four weeks I ended up using it as the base template and fitting the 3 day blocks into my schedule as I could manage. It probably isn’t the best plan for someone who can’t be flexible with their week schedule. Some weeks would be M-T-W ON, with 3 days rest/recovery work and then the block would start again on a Sunday. For me there were some weeks that I had to insert extra rest or L2 training so I could make the blocks fit my week schedule. I think this sometimes leads to non-optimal stress loading, too much rest.
Since I used a canned program I can’t speak much to the actual composition of the blocks and what type of work should be day 1,2,3. My recall is that generally it got shorter/harder the farther into the block, opposite of what you suggest.
My key learnings:
· When you accept the program you’ll surprise yourself how much hard work you can do in a block.· Going deep with the training stress is amazing but mentally taxing. Be prepared to be really really tired.· Recovery is paramount and recovery rides must be Z1 or lowest Z2.· Diet and sleep need to be on point.· Fixing your workout schedule to a “week†is not the best way to train and recover.· It is difficult to race during the block plan due to the rotating schedule. I had to bump blocks for mini-tapers going a race 2x during the plan. When I did this I used the race as the first day of the next block.
Here is a sample of week 4-5 with the workout details redacted. I highly recommend hunter allens plans at training peaks as he has several block plans to choose from.
edit: updated picture for better resolution
I agree with most of your points but that plan is puzzling with its 2 hr Recovery workouts. Why 2 hours? Is that really recovery? I do the occasional 2hr easy spin in recovery weeks but the vast majority of recovery workouts are ~1hr, <30TSS. Of the pro cyclists I train and race with I don’t know many who use a 2hr recovery workout as standard procedure…maybe Hunter has some different ideas?
Yes, you can definitely do back to back interval days, especially if one or both of the interval days is a bike session.
It’s more risky to do the back to back run interval days, but it really depends on your running background. If you’re a total novice, you’re probably going to strain something and have to take a respite from training. However, if you’ve been running 40mpw for quite awhile, and you’re dropping down to 20mpw of running due to bike training, you could likely run 3 back to back run interval sessions in a row and get nothing but benefits from them.
I recently stepped back from HIM-volume training (10+hrs/wk) to a full block of sprint/oly focused training with fewer hours (7-10hrs/wk) but much heavier focus on speed and VO2max. I went hard on run/bike on every single workout, each being at LT or VO2max pace, on alternating days, 5 days per week. And it worked great for me - I could handle the speed without injury thanks to my prior HIM volume, and the added speed complemented my slower-twitch fibers well for a good kick to my bike/run speed.
I did almost zero easy running. The few easy running sessions I did were at the start where the beatdown of the speedwork forced me to slow it down, but once I adapted, I cranked it back up successfully. It was literally the Anti-BarryP plan, and it worked really well for me esp considering how low my training volume was.
I will say for sure however, that if you’re aiming to increasing TOTAL WEEKLY training volume in one discipline, and are really pushing past your physical boundary, it’s pretty much impossible to do it by adding fast miles. I only could run fast for all workouts because I had cut back total hours by a large amount from the prior training cycle. In contrast, I’m now training for a marathon, and the mileage rampup to 60+mpw has involved lots of 10-12 minute miles despite me running 5ks at low 19s, if not 18:xx - this isn’t out of choice, but out of the beatdown fatigue that’s forced me to run this slow until I acclimate.
My experience is that the Z1/Z2 is actually “recovery”. My FTP was 330ish and I was doing these at 140-180w avg. Even though I was tired the workouts felt like a time waste.
My interpretation was that the Z1 is to keep the aerobic base load/training signal up (although low stress) and to provide time on the bike for mental health. I’m not a coach or exercise physiologist though.
Thats interesting about the order of the workout type over the specific block. I totally understand the purpose of not have a “7 day rolling week” and as I have gotten older and further into certain type of workouts I think there is a lot of merit in ignoring the typical 7 day training week. (The only part I struggle with is being able to ride “long” on weekends with less traffic and more time.)
Just curious because I really enjoy talking/ thinking about this. Did you gravitate towards “block” training for specific reason? Do you still tend to train this way? What do you think is the biggest advantage of doing a plan like Hunter laid out here? (i.e. stacking more training stress, raw power number increases, etc.)
I got interested in block training after talking to a couple of elite riders regarding their training methods. I wouldn’t say anything other than the prospect of becoming a stronger cyclist lead me to try it out.
I only did the 12 week cycle once this year leading to my A+ race. For me doing the 12 week cycle a couple times a year would be too much mentally and schedule wise. I’d rather use it as a specific tool to come into peak form.
You should take all my comments with a dash of salt as I’ve only done this cycle once so not an expert by any means. I will be doing it again come January in preparation for age group nationals.
