Hi FasCats,
I’m on Intermediate level plans and do my workouts in the morning, now. Often, I don’t have time to do a 75-120 minute ride during the week. My primary approach to getting things down to an hour is to shorten the Zone 2 time, but when I’m really crunched, is there any problem with shaving time off of the recovery intervals between SS efforts? I did it today and didn’t notice any challenges completing the workout and RPE was the same. The absolute last thing I want to reduce is the time at intensity, so I hope this is an okay approach. What say you?
Hey Kevin - which plan are you currently following? The corona plan should have 45-75 minute workouts during the week.
That said, as long as you have enough time between intervals to recover enough to execute the following interval you should be okay.
Hi Lacey,
What plan am I following is a good question! Plans are a mess these days! My next overseas assignment came in and I’m headed to Bangladesh. This means 2-3 more years of Zwift purgatory and zero events on my calendar for as far as the eye can see. At least my family can come with me this time. If there’s a cycling silver lining, our R&R destination for this assignment is Australia. Maybe I can eventually start working toward a race down under!?
Back to the question at hand. What I had done was SS Base 1 & 2 starting in January followed by the Intermediate Gravel Grinder hilly version for that race that happened during my R&R at the beginning of May. When I got back to Mali in mid-May, I started SS Polarized, because my race experience told me I didn’t have enough VO2 max under my belt. What I’ve been trying to do is shrink the weekday workouts down enough that they fit in my schedule before work in the morning, and then leave the weekend rides unchanged. With no events or races to shoot for, I’m not ashamed to say that I’m more or less just building up 5 minute power to try and grab a handful of KOMs during my home leave in August and September. :o)