Hi Tim,

The program looks great.  Thanks for putting this together!  Some newbie questions here: 

1.  Sometimes there are two workouts on the same day.  Looks like the additional workout is in consideration of a race.  If I am not racing that week I assume it's fine to delete the workout, correct?  Would like to see an accurate count of the weekly hours scheduled for training. 

2. Is there a simple way for me to drop the workouts into my Garmin device, or will I need to build those myself in Garmin Connect?

Thanks!
Eric 

Thanks:

1.  Correct
2.  No, these are not structured workouts. 

Tim I signed up for the rest of the year training plan.  Do I need to upgrade my Training Peaks account to premium?  Is there any benefit to this with the plans?
sorry if the question has been answered or redundant...
Yack

This doesn't belong here but I'm betting @TimCusick is following this and has an opinion.

https://sportsscientists.com/2017/05/sub-2-hour-marathon-attempt-pacing-strategy/

(moderators feel free to punt it over to sandbox)

twoyacks said:

Tim I signed up for the rest of the year training plan.  Do I need to upgrade my Training Peaks account to premium?  Is there any benefit to this with the plans?
sorry if the question has been answered or redundant...
Yack

No "need" to upgrade unless you want to see the super cool graphs on the phone. Premium has a few bells and whistles, but you should be able to do what you need to do with basic. 

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/feature-compare.html

I have premium Training Peaks.  I like the features.

Premium is nice, more analytics and ways to view the data, PMC is key to tracking your training load and race performance "indicators" but it is not needed, the basic account works fine.

@TimCusick can you explain these NP sprints on the 4/5 plan for tomorrow? Small/middle/big - don't think any of us are running triple chainrings

Ben. If you read through the description it says about what gearing to use with a 53/39. 

Correct, the idea is three types of sprints over three distances.  The short sprints are light gear, lower speed, short distance.  These really help jump (typically get best 1 sec here) and high speed cadence.  The next set longer, bigger gear and shift, then third longer and bigger yet.  Simple to do but really, really focus on form and max!  Form will break down as you go.  Engage your core!!

For those riding compact 50/34 chainrings such as come on the Giant TCR, I used the gear ratio calculator at bikecalc.com to make the following conversions:

39:16=34:14
53:17=50:16
53:16=50:15

Apparently my Shimano 105 11-28t 11sp cassette doesn't have 16t cog, so I'll use 50:17 instead of 50:16. 34:11 is actually a closer ratio, but that's some goofy cross-chaining.

Any gearing geeks out there want to challenge, check or confirm my work? I'm no Sheldon Brown...

Sweet!  That is good enough, doesn't have to be exact.  An interesting note, the 16 is a VERY used gear for typical rider, i always make sure i have it....

Tim/team, is there an easy way to view which training stage we're at in the overall program - Build 1, Build 2, etc? Thanks. 

I attached the original presentation.  Somewhere there is a link to the recorded webinar.  This has been tweaked and adjusted a tad as we progressed but generally on track.

On a plane, upload a struggle, think loaded this time 

Hey Tim, upload did not make it.

EricSteffen said:

Tim/team, is there an easy way to view which training stage we're at in the overall program - Build 1, Build 2, etc? Thanks. 

Eric, I was looking on the forum as well.  Look on this page, you should find a downloadable spreadsheet along with Tim's presentation from last fall.

https://kissenacycling.vanillaforums.com/discussion/1201/kissena-coaching-program-wko4-velocious/p29 

Here is the presentation...I hope:  

Timothy Cusick
TrainingPeaks WKO4 Product Leader
tim@wko4.com

And here is the annual planner file!

Great. Thanks @TimCusick, @debimartin and @Scott Kuhlke. 

Good Morning!  Posted next cycle of workouts for everyone.  Just a quick heads up, I am updating all my workouts and libraries to new structured workouts and starting next cycle, everything will be in the structured format.  This will help those doing the work on smart trainers or using Garmin head units to execute workouts.  If you use the Garmin workout system, TrainingPeaks has a simple IQ app to load the whole plan for you, let me know if you want info.

Check your plans and make sure everything is correct.

Tim, do the structured workouts sync directly to my smart trainer?  If so, is there a link to a tutorial that can hort this out for me? Right now I take the build the workouts one-by-one into Zwift, usually a 3- 4 minute process.  If there's a way that I don't have to do this in Zwift or if hter eis a button to push, that would be quite helpful.

Thank you!

Tim, question regarding Microbursts workout.  What % FTP should I peg the 15 sec ON?  I did approx. 155% of FTP on my Wahoo and I felt I could have gone a bit harder.  I want to increase the effort, but not blow up halfway through the workout.

Below the workout:

Microbursts. You are going to complete 3 blocks, each 10 minutes in length. The 10 minute efforts are comprised of ON and OFF sections. You will do 15 seconds ON at Anaerobic Capacity (Power Z6, HR Z6, RPE >7), 15 seconds OFF at Active Recovery (Power Z1, HR Z1, RPE <2) continually for 10 minutes. Ride at Endurance (Power Z2, HR Z2, RPE 2-3) for 5 minutes between blocks.

Thank you

150-180% is the norm, but don't over think it....go hard, then easy, push the limit of what you can do, the body tends to regulate. 

Scott Kuhlke said:

Tim, question regarding Microbursts workout.  What % FTP should I peg the 15 sec ON?  I did approx. 155% of FTP on my Wahoo and I felt I could have gone a bit harder.  I want to increase the effort, but not blow up halfway through the workout.

Below the workout:

Microbursts. You are going to complete 3 blocks, each 10 minutes in length. The 10 minute efforts are comprised of ON and OFF sections. You will do 15 seconds ON at Anaerobic Capacity (Power Z6, HR Z6, RPE >7), 15 seconds OFF at Active Recovery (Power Z1, HR Z1, RPE <2) continually for 10 minutes. Ride at Endurance (Power Z2, HR Z2, RPE 2-3) for 5 minutes between blocks.

Thank you

Discussed a little while ago:

https://kissenacycling.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/90746#Comment_90746

As stated by Tim, basic gist: go supah hard for 15 seconds, easy for 15 seconds, repeat for 10 minutes. Check numbers later. If you are doing them right, you wont be able to even see the computer. 

^ Thanks Eloy.  My issue was with the Wahoo.  Setting the 15 on/15 off with a specific watt setting didn't provide the workout I was looking for because either a) my "on" setting was too low, and/or b) there is a bit of lag time between fully on and off.  I can try next time to set the "on" at a higher % of ftp and see how that goes.

Anyone else try to do these workouts on an ERG trainer?  Or perhaps is it best to set the on/off session with a 10 minute Free Ride, and then temper the workout during that time frame?

Hey @TimCusick, I have a question about shifting the phases of my Cat 4/5 training plan. If I'm reading the Annual Planner correctly, it looks like we're headed for two weeks of rest, beginning on June 19. I've already raced nineteen times this season, taking the line at least one day every weekend (but three) since March 4. I don't feel burnt out, but I do feel some race fatigue (maybe even mental more than physical). Factor in a busy next few weeks in the rest of my life, and I'm wondering whether or not I shouldn't start those two weeks of rest right now. What do you think?

And if I could or should do that, what are the rest-week workouts? I notice that they're not yet loaded into TrainingPeaks. And then should I change the training plan for the rest of the summer as a result, keeping in mind that at some point in September or early October I'll want to start racing cyclocross? 

This is a great discussion to have.  First things first, it is good to have a "summer rest" and important to extending performance.

When writing a plan for a "team or club" it is so hard when to tell people to rest and rebuild.  I was going to basically load next plans with a note suggesting people consider taking at least 5-7 days off bike and then an additional 3-5 days of easy riding to get rolling again.  The issue is that people are in different "phases" of their schedule and it is hard to "coordinate" this.  I was going to write a full plan with NO rest but suggest that people pick their 1-2 weeks of rest where it fits and then supply a 14 day base rebuild plan to use to "ramp back into" the normal plan.  

Does that make sense?  Answer your question?

Scott - I try to never do this in an smart  / Ergmode of a trainer as there is almost no way to exactly predict watts.  I use the trainer in resistance mode and knock it out old school.