Background:
Competitive age group triathlete 2006-20012. KQ and raced Kona 2011. I rode mostly indoors, but always did 2 key workouts outdoors, my weekly long ride, and my mid-week mid distance tempo ride. I hardly ever rode easy, as I tried to balance my tri-lifestyle by training hard all the time. This worked ok for me in my 30’s. I was a Computrainer nerd and absolutely loved it. I used TrainerRoad as my software of choice and always enjoyed it. My highest recorded FTP was 336watts from a 2x20 trainer test. I ‘retired’ from triathlon end of season 2012.
3 years ago:
I got back into riding for fun and worked to get my FTP up. I used TrainerRoad and had good success. The Base-Builder allowed me to make some good gains during the ‘off-season’. the Build phase always left me tired and unable to complete a full week of workouts. I got my FTP up to 309watts and did a couple competitive fondo’s and other Cat-5 races. Blah.
Today:
I’ve been riding and running for fitness, and began working on my bike fitness in June of 2022. I watched tons of podcasts and interviews that all supported the 80/20 training method. I decided to switch my TainerRoad plans to the Polarized Plan, and I have ABSOLUTELY loved it. I ride 2 hard rides, and 4 Zone 2 rides each week. I am able to easily see my gains as I often test for FTP and observe my HR during Z2 workouts.
Anyway, not rying to make this long, just sharing some fun over the year. Attached is a pic of my FTP stretched target of 340W by 1/1/23. I didn’t hit that goal, but hit 327, which is ok for now.
I’m reevaluating the FTP goal for this year and will put a new piece of paper above my TV in the training area in my garage. Cheers and happy new years.
Good job, sounds like you’re making solid gains.
Is 80/20 a new option or a dedicated plan on TrainerRoad or are you simply going 2 hard rides + 4 easy ones as pick your own workouts from the library? What’s the total volume in terms of hours and how much is Z2 vs hard rides?
TR has a Polarized Plan that you can select on the website. It’s not in the usual selection options.TR prescribes the rides for me based on my requested training volume. I’m riding 9-11 hours a week and 2-3 hours are workouts with VO2 max or threshold intervals. The total intensity is not the full 2-3 hours, but rather the total workout to include WU/CD and rest in-between intervals.
After my fall break, I thought I would start with the Low Volume polarized plan and see how it worked. I think I built some OK base fitness and I raised my L2-ish endurance power without raising my heart rate or cardiac drift. AI FTP detection gave me a 3 watt bump after 6 weeks, but I totally failed on the FTP ramp test and lost 15 watts. The low volume plan is only one hard-ish workout a week, so my guess is that I would need to do the mid-volume plan to see improvement.
Nice work. Were you riding 9-11 hours/week from 2006-2012? What about 3 years ago? I’m curious if the polarized distribution has enabled you to train more hours or if you are just distributing the same 9-11 hours differently.
Also curious about the nature of the hard rides. Are the efforts all above FTP? Are you spending NO time between 75% and 100% FTP in training? Besides what appears to be something threshold-like every few weeks for a test?
my 9-11 hours a week has been since I started this journey to get back in shape back ion July. I really started at 6-8 hours and built up to my current in about 2 months. I’ve been ‘retired’ from training since 2012 but have run and lifted to stay slim and strong. the current workouts are either 50-75% of FTP or 100-110% of FTP. So my Z2 days are around 230-245 watts, my VO2 max days are 4 min intervals at 387 watts, then my threshold workouts are 8-16 minutes at 327-333 watts. Easy days are easy and the hard days are hard. ZERO time between easy and hard. As I approach the tri season, I will incorporate some tempo rides and longer threshold stuff to mirror race pace. I’ve been testing every couple weeks, mainly bc I’ve been experiencing gains and that’s huge motivation.
again, just wanted to share my experience doing TR’s version of 80/20 training. So far so good.
Good question. Depends on my fitness level for each discipline. If my running is really strong and my cycling volume is high, then I would ride at a pretty high wattage. If either is not where I want it to be, then I would back off.
How fast? hard to say. Too many variables. Hopefully pretty fast.
Not on TR, but am doing similar training via 80/20 endurance. It’s the stuff. Feel fresh and not beat up, easy rides are truly easy, and the hard rides get you where you need to be. My FTP has been on a steady rise all year. I know what it feels like to just go out and destroy yourself nearly every bike ride, requiring a day or two of recovery before you feel normal again, and the 80/20 method is so much better. Volume is key and doing these polarized or 80/20 plans will allow you to squeeze in as much volume as one can without burning out.
This is cool, looks much more manageable then other plans and a little easier to integrate outside rides.
As far as I can tell there isn’t really a way to make the Plan Builder use polarized. How would you structure a 6 month season with the polarized base, build, and probably some other specialty phase?
Well, I’ve made many mistakes in half and full races by riding too hard. This upcoming season, I’m thinking I’ll be riding 290 for a half and 260 for a full. But that’s only if I reach my goals of a 340 FTP.
I’ll reply since my numbers are similar- FTP ~330 when in shape, and for my KQ races, I was ~240-250w for the bike (HR ~140-145), and 270-280w (HR 155-160) for a 70.3. 6’1’', 180 lbs.
