This week I am starting your 18 Weeks of Sweet Spot followed by your Gravel Plan. I have a question for you about moving workouts around. I know I shouldn’t mess with the order of them but my schedule varies week to week and I work at least one weekend day each week. What I do have is a great shop ride that starts up this week on Wednesday nights. It is a spirited group ride that goes until we change the clocks back in the spring. Usually on Wednesdays it looks like I would be doing around an hour of SS intervals followed by a Z2 ride Thursday. The gravel ride would be closer to 1.5-2hrs and can get a little spicy as group rides tend to do. (for me in the 90-110 TSS)
My question is should I skip out on these rides and not try and adjust my plan and do a morning pre work ride or should I try and shift the week so I can do this ride? If I shift it, it will mean the order is pretty screwed up and as the plan gets into phase 2/3 this might really mess with my longer TSS rides.
Your group ride can replace a workout. Ideally the harder workout if the week comes first, so you go into it fresh. Group rides tend to be more like tempo or sweet spot burst workouts. That is fine. We recommend one group ride a week. It keeps the training fun.
Here is how to sweet spot group ride.
The following day after your group ride can either be the ‘easier’ workout of the week. Tuesday’s can be zone 2. However these can flip flop based on how you feel after Wednesday’s group ride. Might be too much to follow up with another workout.
Just remember during this sweet spot phase you want time in sweet spot. Not racing around in zone 5/6. If you’re doing that you’re not following the plan.
Thanks Jake. I will see how it goes and look at my data after. My concern is exactly what you mentioned about getting into Z5/6. If it does I will not do this ride through the winter.
Thanks Frank! That helps a lot! My weekend rides are easier to manage with group rides because I am a little higher on the totem pole with those groups. But Wednesday rides can get a little competitive when certain people show up.