So I sign up for a plan but it all falls apart fast. It will be a rest day, but I’ll be watching a soccer match on TV and will do a Zwift ride while I’m watching because I feel guilty about sitting on my ass doing nothing. Or it will be a day with a workout scheduled and my wife will want to go for a long hike or go kayaking so I’ll do that and then won’t have energy for the scheduled workout. There should be a plan called “It all falls apart” for people like me with “do this workout or do something else” scheduled for most days.
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I know that feeling. It’s hard. Best advice I can give you is ti do the first few modules of the Mental Toughness Program.
2nd best advice I can give you is to get the family to prioritise your training time. There will need to be a compromise tho…e.g. you might have to get up and do it early. If they see the benefits too, then they will also prioritise it. In my case, no bike equates to grumpy mum.
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@DameLisa @NormtheChelseaboy Solid advice - also change your phrasing. Instead of I can’t - I didn’t today but am committed for tomorrow. We can’t change the past but we can create the future - we just have to work at it.
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You mentioned two issues:
1. The rest day
2. Family conflicts
Actually, the rest day is the most productive day. The rest day is the day in which the body repairs the “damage” done by the exercise. The repair overcompensates and you get stronger. If you do not rest to recover, you will not get stronger.
As for family conflicts, I believe the coaches have said that the plans assume that compliance might fall to 80%, so if you miss a work out it is basically OK.
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Neither can I. I love the idea of following a plan, but between randomly playing soccer, group rides, friends wanting to ride, mountain biking, wanting to do big epic rides, races, etc., it’s just too hard to stay on a plan. I suppose it’s an issue of priorities. For me, it’s just too hard to justify staying indoors and doing a workout versus going outdoors and riding with friends or a group.
As an example, last Thursday I had the Chores on the plan or a 2.5 hour smashfest group ride. I really couldn’t decide until last minute and I chose the group ride. Of course I over-did it and went way too hard and deep. But it was still really fun. Trade-offs I guess…
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If a rigid plan doesn’t work for you I’d suggest a self made flexible plan inspired by the Suf Plan you are looking to follow. Try to do the same volume over each week with a similar mix of intensities. I’ve been finding this working quite well for me. I can move around the sessions according to what is happening in life but still feel I’ve achieved a training goal for the week.
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Yes I think this is the way for me to go. That way I don’t feel like I have failed when I do some other physical activity instead of the scheduled SUF workout.
But I do need to chill and take rest days without feeling guilty.
For rest days, i feel your pain. i have two ways of handling this.
Sometimes i am so tired that i actually want to take a rest.
if not, i’ll do something like yoga, stretching, easy core exercises, anything like that as long as it’s not too demanding. You get to be active, you get to do something that will help your overall athleticism and you get new skills to work on and progress (some of the yoga poses are hard). It’s a win/win/win.
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I move workouts around within a week…If for example I have a rest day but time, I just take a workout from later in the week and so free up another day. Like this I have a « joker » in case work or family needs more attention. Works pretty well for me so far. Now I look forward to new SUF calendar features where I can just drag and drop 
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This is one of the reasons I do my workouts at 4 or 5am. If I do them after everyone is awake or anytime thereafter, there are always a million things that can go wrong to stop a planned workout from happening. But if I wake up before anyone else, the only person who can stop me from working out is me. And 95% of the time that’s enough. The other 5% are the times I’m exhausted or didn’t get enough sleep or have a sick kid. Life happens. The SUF coaches know we won’t be 100% on-plan. So, just take the day off and pick it up the next day.
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I’m the same. My wife said I can ride as much as I like as long as it doesn’t take time away from her and the kids which is fair enough. My long training rides on the indoor bike mean I’m in bed at 8pm and up at 2am to finish before 7:30am. It’s a good trade off. But as they see the benefits, they are increasingly more and more flexible. Now, if there are no plans for Saturday morning, I can get up at a normal time and do my long rides and they are happy knowing where I am so they can come and talk to me anytime they like. Sometimes, plans change, and if I start late and things come up, I just have to get off, shower and go do “Dad/Husband” things. So I tend to get up early even on weekends just in case.
Consistency of working out is key. I think if you are doing other exercise, then you are still consistently exercising. A soccer match may not make you a better cyclist, but if your goal is just to keep fit, then it’s equally as good of a work out.
And rest… definitely take rest days. I focus as much on my rest days as my workout days. I consider it a perk of structured training.
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This is me as well.
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wait a minute you’re doing 5 hr rides on the indoor trainer!?!
Starting at 2 AM?!?!
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Yes. Does that make me odd?
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Just about everyone in Sufferlandira is a little odd, don’t you think? 
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Not “odd” in any kind of negative-connotation sense.
But definitely very, very special. I personally am nowhere near tough enough. I’d get up early to do a lights-required, dawn-patrol MTB but never could spend that much time on the trainer.
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Yeah me too. 2 hours is my max indoors. Respect to Fezzek!
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I do long rides on my trainer as well. I just did a 4 hour indoor ride on Saturday. The longest SUF video is a no-vid Tempo 2x25 workout. I turned it into a Tempo 4x25 workout. 72.3 SUF miles without going anywhere. I’ve previously done Endurance+ or ISLTA and keep rewinding.
It definitely takes a lot of “extra”. There’s no rest. No coasting on the downhills. Just hours and hours of continuous riding. I don’t even get off my trainer if I can help it.
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i think the mental discomfort would break me much, much sooner than the physical (not discounting the physical)
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@devolikewhoa Agreed - what I like about the platform is the choice of many workouts that are just around an hour and often the intensity gets you more work than you would be able to do outside. For longer rides I generally take it outside and try to do an equivalent. However, if I had to commit to indoor workouts only I think that @emacdoug has the right approach - start early and just keep going.
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