Yup - overdone it again and got injured. In the middle of the Allroad plan.
What would be great is to have the ability to time out the training plan so that you can restart when all is well again, pushing all the workouts back from the point of restart. Any chance of this?
Would be good for people who are injured, have to miss a week for work, holidays etc
@Hawk Two thoughts: (1) you can always delete and then restart the plan using an end date you choose. The workouts you have completed will remain on the calendar even if you delete the plan. (2) not sure what you mean by “overdone and got injured” but maybe certain aspects of your plan were not a good fit - perhaps too much volume or not enough time stretching, warming up or strengthening some of those muscles that help stabilize the core? Perhaps during your break try to think about what could be improved or done differently so you don’t get into the same situation again.
No - the injury came from an Audax not the plan. Had a crash.
As to you point about restarting a plan, I’m just saying that it’d be a lot easier if there was a plan pause option. I just think it’d be good to make it easier.
If you’ve been injured and had to take a break here’s advice I’ve gleened from the coaches:
Less than two weeks AND the injury was minor: Carry on from where you left off (you basically should not have lost any fitness.)
More than two weeks OR the injury was major (like me in January): Recovery week and then retest. Then RESTART your training plan. You WILL lose fitness or will have reduced capacity.
I was off the bike for six weeks due to a broken collarbone. Did the above AFTER consulting with my medical team. Do not try to be the Local Hero. Too soon, too much and you will be off the bike very quick and your stay in Injurylandria will certainly be extended.
There are also Blog posts and Forum posts on returning from Injury that are way more detailed than this.
WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU CAN’T DO THE WORKOUTS AS PRESCRIBED
1. IF YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME FOR THE FULL WORKOUT
If you’re short for time, then the most important thing is to get the listed intervals for a workout completed. That means you should do all the intervals but reduce any lower intensity work as much as possible (without compromising your recovery between intervals). So, for example, if you have a 2-hour endurance session scheduled with 5 high-intensity intervals, you can reduce the endurance part as much as needed as long as you keep the five intervals. If you do that and still don’t have enough time, it’s okay to remove a few intervals if it means you can still get some intensity work in.
Alternatively, you can swap the day’s session with a shorter session from the day before (if you’re planning in advance) or tomorrow’s workout assuming one of those sessions is an easier, low-intensity session.
2. IF YOU CAN’T HIT YOUR NUMBERS
Sometimes you don’t feel great during a workout and you’re really struggling to do the intervals. When that’s the case, here is how to handle your workout.
3. IF YOU GET SICK
If the symptoms are only above the neck (e.g., sinus pressure, runny nose, sore throat), then it’s okay to do low-intensity exercise (i.e. a recovery ride or a recovery yoga session). Easy physical activity can actually boost your immune system.
If the symptoms are below the neck (e.g., chest cough, any GI distress, breathing issues), then take all the time you usually spend on training to get more sleep! And make sure you stay on top of your fluid intake.
It’s often better to take several days fully off and get back to 100% in 3 days rather than limp along at 75% for a full week.
4. IF YOU MISS A WORKOUT
Don’t worry — everything you need to know about that is right here.
5. IF YOU’RE TOO TIRED TO FINISH A HARD TRAINING BLOCK
It’s always okay to start a rest week early! This is where paying attention to trends in heart rate can be valuable. A heart rate that is slow to rise does not go as high as normal, and is then slow to drop down are sure signs of deep fatigue. Though fatigue is a necessary part of training, it’s also a sign that you will need to take a few days easy soon. If you have one or two workouts left before a rest week you can see about pushing through using RPE. If you still have a full week of training left to go and just can’t bear it, then you will be better off taking a few days fully off and then finish off the last bit of your block.
When you do get this fatigued, it’s worthwhile looking at why it’s happened. If family or life stress has been higher than normal, or your nutrition and sleep quality have taken a dive, those can be culprits. Sometimes you can do something about those issues and other times you can’t. Just remember, all stress is stress—so be mentally prepared for your on-the-bike performance to take a bit of a hit if things in other areas of life get extra stressful. This is not the time to panic and add MORE stress to your life because training isn’t going perfectly. Work on improving/changing/fixing whatever you can in other areas of your life to reduce stress and the good feelings on the bike will return.
6. IF YOU MISS A WEEK OR MORE
What do to in this situation depends on why you missed so much time.
- Life/work stress or sickness? Just dive back in wherever you are now supposed to be.
- Did you ride but didn’t follow the plan? Then pick up the plan as it is unless this was during a recovery week and you went hard instead. In that case, you need to do a rest week and then get back on the plan wherever it is on the schedule.
From here:
That tends to work if you missed a week or two. Go any longer than that and you realistically should restart. I know from experience due to an injury that kept me off the bike, completely, for six weeks earlier this year. Mostly broken bones or ripped muscles/tendons/ligaments. One cannot and should not restart at a previous level and under NO circumstances be on the bike without clearance from their medical team (you may feel ok, but still be injured enough that even one ride will set you back weeks.)
Sir J - thanks for the sentiment and taking time to reply. But I’m a medical doctor and I wasn’t looking for that kind of advice. All I am saying is that it would be good if there was a function on the app that permits the pausing of training plans. If you only need a week, it makes no sense to have to start again or to have to go through the rigmarole of deleting a plan and having to restart it from the end point. I’m just saying that it would be good for people who need a short break (injury/holiday/family commitments etc) to be able to pause for a week but to shunt the rest of the plan forward.
So it was a tech request not a training request. And it’s directed at the Minions (if they still exist). Many thanks, best wishes and happy suffering to all.
If you want to move everything back a week - I believe you could delete the plan as mentioned previously, then resubscribe with a one week later end date. Same result as pausing one week.
The delete and reapply with a later end date is a (fairly well known) workaround/hack. Whether a far simpler solution gets added to the app will, at least in part, depend on what the coaches think about doing this and based on Coach Rupert’s reply and reference they don’t appear to think it’s the thing to do (I read it as stick to the scheduled plan even if you miss some of it). Not an uncommon request though.
Sturm - if you read what I wrote, you’ll see that I’m aware of that but am saying that it is a Pfaff that a simple software change could make easier. That’s my point.
Sir J - yes, it’s an odd one but in the modern world a bit of flexibility wouldn’t be a bad thing to build into the calendar options.
All the best with the suffering guys.
Agreed. It’s never as simple as “a simple software change” for even the most seemingly simple of simple things but I’m pretty sure a bit of flexibility is at least on their radar.
(I’ve changed your topic category from none to Feature Request. No idea if that affects the radar but seems to be a suitable home for it)
Didn’t get that from your initial request. Yes, this should be a feature of the program as Sir @tinball JamesT pointed out there is a workaround this issue, for now.
I’ll just chime in here so this gets more traction as it must surely be a thing on lots of peoples minds.
I’d suggest to change the topic from Injury breaks to “pause a plan” or “pause a plan due to injury”, it might help if people search for it.
With Christmas coming up, I’d want to pause a plan, due to me travelling for 2 weeks, but I also won’t have one during this period, cause I choose a plan based around these major events. Maybe it hasn’t been included because it stops people pausing/restarting too many times, reducing the overall effectiveness of a plan? (some people just get trigger happy…) Perhaps the onus is on you to only start a 3 month plan if you’re going through with it. And to be fair, a major injury kind of torpedos the plan anyway.
Good point - will make that change now