Creating custom plan

2011-11-17 10:10 AM

Subject: Creating custom plan

Bluntly I'm torn. This year has sucked for me. The last three/four years have been great and I've used the free and silver level plans to get me to the finish line for multiple HIMs and B2B full as well as quite a few shorter distances.

This year training got cut right at start and I've just gotten back into a mind set of wanting/needing to train at least daily. I'm taking it easy this month but then going to get back into a formal plan probably early Dec.

Where I'm torn:

I like BT. I really like everything, the way its laid out, the people, etc. I'm a silver member but with next year's early races I'm already signed up for I believe I need a more tailored plan than one of the generics. Specifically I'm going

White Lake HIM 5 May
Total 200 Double Century 30 June
then on to Nation's Tri, a couple more centuries and B2B HIM to close out the season.

I was seriously considering one of Coach Troy's training associate coaches for the season if only for the training plan being personalized. Unfortunately that would mean changing all my data over to Training Peaks and trying to upload a lot of archived data for support of that. All my training and Garmin uploads have been to here since 2008 or so.

I guess my question is do these build your own training plans go to a double century and can I tack that onto a HIM based plan? I'm leaning towards using BT because y'all have gotten me this far.

I'm not looking for podium, I doubt I'll ever get there. I just want 7 hour HIM times and something like 20 MPH average bike for the centuries. Those both are well within what I've been doing but need a bit of a poke to get going and stay going on it.

Oh, odds are I'm going to end up with a Quarq by the end of the year. Is it possible to shift the plan to power after I have some baseline weeks/months?

Thanks
DanH

2011-11-17 1:54 PM

in reply to: #3905615

Champion

13323

Gold member

Subject: RE: Creating custom plan

I have a few questions for you first...training for the double and other centuries...are they metric or miles?

Do you have a plan for the centuries or are you asking if the custom plan creator would make one?

2011-11-17 2:39 PM

in reply to: #3906075

Subject: RE: Creating custom plan

Ron - 2011-11-17 2:54 PM

I have a few questions for you first...training for the double and other centuries...are they metric or miles?

Do you have a plan for the centuries or are you asking if the custom plan creator would make one?

Miles. I might throw in a 65 miler (metric century) but the double is 200 miles and the Century rides are 100 miles (+/-).

I've mostly followed IM and HIM plans for the past few years. The occasional 5 hour ride isn't out of whack even for HIM plans.

I'm asking if the custom plan creator has the 200 mile ride as one of the options. I'm thinking an IM plan for my HIM and then continue on with 5 hour rides each Sat and Sun for a few weeks leading up to the ride. I've got about 6 weeks between the HIM and the double century.

There are century ride plans all over the place, including here, if I'm not mistaken. If it's just a matter of adding another long ride the other weekend day, that's great but I have no idea how to go about it if it isn't.

2011-11-17 2:55 PM

in reply to: #3906142

Champion

13323

Gold member

Subject: RE: Creating custom plan

Also, what has sucked for you this year? Personal stuff affecting your training, injury or plan-related?

I don't need details on the former, but any insight would help.

2011-11-17 3:39 PM

in reply to: #3906170

Subject: RE: Creating custom plan

Ron - 2011-11-17 3:55 PM

Also, what has sucked for you this year? Personal stuff affecting your training, injury or plan-related?

I don't need details on the former, but any insight would help.

Went over my handlebars at about 35 when a "lady" cut me off. Took out my shoulder for a couple weeks with that one. Right as that was getting better, death in the family where I was a primary planner for the whole deal.

Doesn't work when that takes out a month somewhere near 3 weeks before an A race. That set up a really bad chain of events culminating with my first two DNFs. As I said, this year sucked

Not plan related. Never been let down by one of your plans if I follow it even to the 80-90% letter of the plan. I think I've used five different ones and they've all been pretty darn close to what I wanted/needed.

2011-11-20 12:31 PM

in reply to: #3906261

Champion

13323

Gold member

Subject: RE: Creating custom plan

If you configure a IM plan with the custom training plan creator, you can enter up to 135 miles. But that is the thing, even if we upped the limit to 200 miles, it would still force you with a medium and or small bike ride that will end up having significant mileage themselves.

I do not really know how most people train for a 200 miler... I would assume it's 1-2 'short' rides on the weekdays, then a 'very long ride' on the weekends where you slowly build mileage until you hit about 70-80% of your target volume (for a 200 miler do you need to train to 200 miles before the race?)

So with that said, I would recommend using the gold custom training plan creator to do something like this:

Setup a Int/Adv HIM plan for up to 28 weeks long to lead you to White Lake HIM on May 5. You may have to post-adjust your long bike volumes up in expectation of the dbl cent.
May 5 to about June 30th (2 months). Create a 8 week Oly plan for Nations...modify the long bike post-import to keep building your 'long' bikes to whatever your target is for the double century. Keep your swim/runs oly-distance for a break as your bikes will be huge.
From July 1 to Nov 3 setup a 5 month Int/Adv HIM/IM for B2B. Long bikes can be adjusted up after import as needed...your prior dbl century volume could hold you for the remaining misc centuries.

So essentially, you would create 3 plans bracketing the 3 'periods' - take the bike distance as default. You would have to go back into your planned training to post modify your long bikes to help meet your dbl century training.

Using the custom plan creator will give you the option of putting the workouts on the days you can do them and customizing the start/end dates.

2011-11-22 3:29 AM

in reply to: #3905615

Subject: RE: Creating custom plan

I just upped to Gold. I'm going with a BT create your own plan.

Could I ask you to raise the upper limit of biking to 150 miles, please? Of all the various canned plans for a double that seems to be an almost universal long bike distance. Only one out of the two dozen or so I've looked at has rides over 150 miles prior to the ride day. Everything I'm reading, including on here, has consistency and weekly volume as more of a factor than long ride distances. Just gotta get used to being in the saddle for 8 hours or so, though, so I can do it for close to 12 that day.

Thanks. Crossing my fingers

2011-11-23 12:46 PM

in reply to: #3911088

Champion

13323

Gold member

Subject: RE: Creating custom plan

Allright, you should be able to put 150 miles in. Let me know how it goes and if you have anymore questions.

2011-11-23 5:40 PM

in reply to: #3905615

Subject: RE: Creating custom plan

Just put it together. It's funny to see a recovery week with a 91 mile bike ride

Now let's see if I survive this.

2011-11-24 9:06 AM

in reply to: #3913609

Champion

13323

Gold member

Subject: RE: Creating custom plan

Yeah, that is one thing about this. There is a fixed % of total volume alloted for small, med and long rides for the IM distance...so those 'would' go up if you did the 150 miles...you will definitely want to further refine the small and medium bikes for your purposes...refine down.