Should I repeat Sustained Power Build?

Hello everyone, I have a question around next steps with my training plan. I come from a running background and whilst I know that doesn’t completely translate to cycling my aerobic engine is pretty good. I was running at least 10km five days a week and recreational riding on the weekends weather and wife permitting.

I have scaled back my runs to twice a week and complete my TR plan the other three days. This still gives me a training session Monday through Friday. I try to reserve the weekends for family time and or a comfortable outdoor rides i.e just for fun, usually around 50-100km.

At present I’m currently halfway through my sustained power build plan (low volume) and unfortunately got Bronchitis. This didn’t stop me from cycling but I couldn’t run. Having said that for a week my TR workouts suffered. I ended up adjusting my plan and completed the week again. Picked up running last week, it hurts but getting back into form.

I just completed another ramp test and wasn’t impressed with the results, no real gain so my FTP has only increased 5 points since starting Sweet Spot Base, no improvement since starting build.

Now I am hoping the following assumptions are correct and wanted some insight from more experience cyclists.

  1. Given my level of fitness was already pretty good when I started would this be a factor in a slight increase? I’m sure Bronchitis impacted my last test, I hope so anyway.

  2. Because I train (my legs) five days in a row I’m always in a state of fatigue. Is this another factor that is limiting my growth? I wouldn’t have thought so given I am only doing a low volume plan.

My watts per kilo is 2.99, so close to 3 just in case you need to know.

Now I’m not training for anything in particular however my aim is a 160km US century (100 mile) ride, with a respectable time of course. I think I can do that now, 100km isn’t a problem and my biggest weakness is lack of fueling. That’s a work in progress.

So with the above in mind should I repeat my build plan to try and push up my FTP a bit more or should I progress to the Speciality phase? If so, would you recommend the century plan? I was thinking of trying the ‘climbing road race’ plan, not to race but to give me more confidence when tackling hills. They intimidate me and I tend to grind up them rather than attack.

Thoughts and insight is greatly appreciated.
Cheers

There is a lot going on here, but I will try to help. Being sick and being off the bike will affect your training and your affective training will affect your FTP. Coming back from illness I would assume you would need to ease yourself back into your training plan and not expect to pick up where you left off. You have plenty of base training so there’s no reason to repeat that. Once you have recovered from illness, I would start over your build with your new FTP.

Regarding your running and riding only you will know if it’s too much. But your body doesn’t build during training, your training is realized during rest. So you will have to make sure you are getting enough rest to allow the benefits of your hard training. You will know if you are not rested enough if you were unable to do the workouts as Prescribed without shortening the duration or lowering the intensity.

Since you’re not training for a specific event, after you rebuild coming off an illness, you can simply choose the specialty plan that most interest you. But the century plan looks like a good choice.

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Thanks for taking the time to respond. All sounds logical. Cheers.

Bronchitis is definitely a pain and I’ve dealt with it before and always throws a wrench in the plan. For me, I would take at least a week or two of easier transition type workouts after I feel better then I would jump back into where I left off in my build plan. I’m pretty sure coach Chad suggests that if you miss workouts due to illness or such that you should just jump back in (when healthy) to where you left off and not worry about the missed workouts.

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