Sorry for the long post, really enjoying the plan so far and hoping to sign up once my free trial is done this week.
For context, I’ve moved from running regularly (following various training plans for races up to Marathon distance) to triathlons. I’ve just done my first (test) week on a low volume middle distance training plan and am looking ahead at the rest of the plan towards a 70.3 race in April.
My question is around the run workouts during the week (not including the brick run and then long run at the weekend). I only seem to have 2 different types of them - strength endurance at L2 over undulating terrain and a HIIT workout. Whilst I appreciate that these are key workouts that should be done - doing them every week is a little boring, especially when I know there are a range of workouts I can do from other training plans that will benefit me (including workouts with longer intervals at 5k/10k/HM pace etc).
I guess I know I can swap out these other workouts for the ones in my plan, creating them manually, but is there anything I should be aware of when doing this? Should I keep the “load” of the workout the same as the prescribed load - and if so is there any way to see this before creating/saving the workout to the plan.
I think it is similar to the bike workouts as well (swimming I have never trained to a plan before so I am happy with this) so would be interesting to know what people’s thoughts are?
Hi Andrew (@jockefc23), DavidM is right with the Workout Wizard offering you different options for that day, including if you’re injured. In general, especially when you’re at the start of a training block, I try to keep the workouts for my clients the same, but changing in duration and/or intensity, depending on the workout. Plus if they’re key workouts, we might keep them the same throughout several blocks!
For example, the L2 run is a pretty standard workout that we’ll keep throughout but adjust the duration and intensity.
And yes, you can add your workouts in place of the assigned workout and Athletica will adjust training load for future work. If you’re creating your own particular workout, the load won’t show up, as far as I understand, until after you’re done. But then you’ll know the load for subsequent sessions.
Thanks, and let us know if there are more questions for you!
Thanks both, certainly seems some good options there.
On a slightly separate note; I’m a bit confused by the Strength Endurance workout instructions, mainly the part -
lifting the body up a gradient and over uneven terrain, as well as gaining the eccentric contractions during downhill segments
I don’t have decent trails where I live really so hilly segments are normally done on normal paths/roads. Is this going to have the same effect or do I need to try and go “off-road” to get the full benefit of this?
Other options for your flat terrain situation could include strength training (gym work). These are available in the mid and high volume plans only. You can get to these on your plan by trying out a mid volume plan. Then save an S&C session to your library. Then insert this session back into your low volume plan from your library. Then do this session once or twice per week to get at the adaptations you highlighted above and just run the SE run session on the flat as you don’t really have a choice. Of course you could also simulate a bit with a treadmill but not as good and always better to be outside when you can.
