As someone new to HV plans I thought it would be nice to have a place where people can share their strategies for attacking those long trainer rides and tough weeks.
Feel free to share:
IMO the most important factor of a HV plan is not the training but the rest and nutrition (and time) required to support the training.
Eat a LOT.
Sleep a LOT.
Nail these two, in addition to reducing all other stressors (physical mostly), and you should be able to complete a HV plan.
I am also new to HV and agree with @Captain_Doughnutman. I eat a ton of carbs (steel cut oats, brown rice, beans are staples).
Focus on micro-nutrients from spirulina, leafy greens, quinoa, etc.
Supplement with vitamins (D, C, magnesium, calcium, zinc, bcaa).
A couple times I could feel myself getting a little run down and possibly getting sick and would follow this emergency protocol…
#preach
not a TR user, but I’ve been getting ~15hrs/week this fall – most of it on the trainer.
what has been said:
Secret weapon 
You have WAY more mental strength than I do…or want! 
I did HV last year, and stopped midway through the build. During sweet spot base I found I just needed to make sure that I was eating lots of carbs. Weekend breakfast would be something like a box of Ego waffles (6 of those bad boys), then made sure I was drinking maybe 3 20oz bottles of gatorade on the bike, and then an EFS Ultragen shake after the workout.
I found that I felt great throughout SSB doing that, but the hard thing to me was there was nothing that went above SS during the HV base, so when the build started I couldn’t do the intervals that were above 100%, especially with how long they wanted them to be. After about 6 weeks of the build and feeling worse I went back to individualized coaching.
Had I not done that it would have probably been okay for me to mid volume and just add volume to keep the hours up. Build or speciality would have been too hard for me to complete but SSB was totally fine.
I’m about to end week 3 of SSBHV1, 53 years old and have been cycling for circa 30 years. I’ve not done HV before and what I’m finding is that I’m going into some of the higher TSS sessions with a feeling of dread as my legs are feeling pretty sore but once I’m actually into the sessions I am finishing them, I have 100% compliance so far which I’m very pleased with. I fuel for every workout bar Pettit and following a recent smart trainer purchase I’m riding at over 90rpm virtually all of the time. On my old dumb trainer I’d be considerably lower than this, maybe this is contributing to the soreness. Other than this it’s going well, no illness, sleeping well etc.
110% this
I’m just about to finish HV1 and this is a real concern for me. I’m still planning on starting HV2 since I need to have faith in Chad, but would be interested if anyone else has had the same issue when they moved into build
Are you young? An ex-pro? Or did you under test your FTP? 
Yes and no.
My progression was SSBL/MV > SPBHV > SSBHV. I found going from a Threshold plan back into SSB that the intervals were definitely not long enough. I effectively had to quit the TR HV plan and devise my own SSBHV plan. If you are going to repeat the Base-Build phases just be aware that HV might make you stronger than you thought possible and some plan adjustments may have to occur.
That said, doing 12 weeks of only sub-105% workouts definitely left my high end power flat. The last few minutes of the ramp test were a disgrace.
If you feel like this is the case, and you have the time, you can always take 2 weeks and do Coach Chad’s VO2max primer progression to get your engine fired up. Or just endure the first few weeks of the build plan.
Aside from that, this seems to be (naturally?) turning into a SSBHV thread. Has anyone started/completed a HV Specialty plan? 
Are you young? An ex-pro? Or did you under test your FTP?
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I’m atleast not an ex-pro and i usually overestimate. I have the same feeling as Joey. Used a few years build up to and +250TSS above SSBHV weekly TSS with increased SST and Z2. But when i see people who has been training allot longer and strugle with HV plans i think its individual how much load you can absorb, also consistansy with high load over time with no big down time is important… I’m not a good sleeper when i see people get 8h+ (my avg for big plans has been down to 6h with days way below 5).
I do try to be a “100% athlete” with eating before/during/after and going to bed at same time every day all days which has increased my sleep time some.
All workouts before work.
Also no alcohol.
Nothing? No podcasts? Books? This blows my mind! Without some kind of entertainment I doubt I could do more than 1 hour indoors a couple of times a week. And I always think of myself as fairly mentally strong, I’m normally the one still pushing the pace or keen for one last extra climb at the end of a long ride when others are flagging.
So you sleep five hours a night, eat a meal a day during the week, train fasted, have high life stress, and have been riding since February?
I would guess either that A) you are missing your genetic potential to an almost hilarious degree or B) your FTP guess based on no testing isn’t nearly as good as you think it is, and you’re doing all your training at like 20% lower intensity than listed. Because all of that together would massively undercut even what TrainerRoad themselves have said about the plan.
Why not do a couple of FTP tests in the next few weeks? Ramp test and one of the longer ones, and really dial it in?
I quite enjoy the longer rides, I’ll always have headphones in with either podcasts or music on.
Because I’m on a dumb trainer I need to watch the power and cadence quite closely to stay on track, otherwise as my mind drifts so will my output. However a big thing that helps for me is to break long efforts down into 30s chunks when I’ll usually change position, even just going from the hoods to the drops - so simple but the time goes in pretty quickly
Tip of the hat mate, but I think a few weeks of that schedule on the training plan would break most people, you are a machine
Okay, so I’m not an expert. I only did TB HV1 before I started on SSB MV1 this year, but the one thing I will say is that it blew my mind how much quicker the time passes if instead of TV or music or podcasts, you find a way to read a novel. Seriously, try it. It’s insane. I realize that that only works for low intensity, but that’s what I found. Hardcover book could be quite easily balanced on my handlebars + garmin front mount.