Custom HIM vs other HIM plans

Awesome that the oly custom plan worked for you.

As far as the HIM plans, I generated 2 plans similar to what you created. Yes you are correct, the longer you make the plan, the more 'base' building you will be doing.   Even with our questionnaire, we can't exactly pinpoint if an athlete can easily handle volume X starting at Week 1 of any training plan.  So for longer plans, we just extend the 'base' period like you have seen.  For intermediate plans, we do have 'build' phases before the race.  This starts the plan out at a higher volume as it assumes you are more seasoned.  

If that is still not enough volume to start for a longer plan, make it a shorter plan.  For our custom plan creator, going with a 16 week plan minimum, will create 1 base, 2 builds and then the taper/race part.  Those plans will start off at even more volume.  THEN what you do is create a sport focused plan or a maintenance plans for 10 weeks ahead of the 16 week plan - just making sure the volumes transition nicely.

In a nutshell, yes, long plans will have more 'base' so starting volumes will be lower.  Instead, create a shorter plan (though needs to be 16 weeks+, AND intermediate in level) and put a sport focused or maintenance plan in front of it to fill in the rest of the weeks.

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Thanks Ron - the pics really help to explain and I see how this works now.

How about the strength and other workouts that are added into the HIMs? They don't show up in the custom plan.

Is there any way to put these into the plan too? I'm concerned about two things happening if I try to overlay a workout plan on top of my custom plan

1. I will erase my custom plan as per the warning
2. it will not be the same strength training that is in the 20wk HIMs

You should be able to import any Silver HIM strength plans on top of the Custom HIM's - when you import a 'silver' plan with the strength you want, deselect everything but strength in the import box so your custom plan won't be overridden.

As of now, custom plans don't include strength.

Thanks for the info on how to incorporate the strength workouts into my custom plan. I will give it a try.

The other thing I am noticing - and I noticed this in my previous Oly plan as well - for the runs, there is no other detail for each run at any point in the training plan (unless I am missing it) other than: 

Warmup: x minutes /x miles 

HR Zone: 1RPE: 3-4 
Warmup at a slow and easy pace. 

Main Set:xm /x miles 

Set #1 xm / x miles 
Endurance 
HR Zone: 1-2 RPE: 5-6 
This is an endurance run on a course that is flat or with gentle rolling hills. 

Only 'x' changes and increases with the increased volume per week.

There are no intervals, hill repeats, etc. When looking at the 20wk HIM, each workout has different workouts. I can't imagine that doing the same exact slow burn for every run is going to get me where I want to be in the run. In fact, it's my weakest event, and I'm really looking to step it up this year and would appreciate the added details and varied run workouts.

Am I missing something and is there something that I can do