I’ve scheduled the transition up plan to start next week after a winter season of not doing much training load (about 120 TSS a week on average).
The plan starts at the black line on the plot above, and it looks like the first 3 weeks are pretty chill, then the last 3 weeks go pretty hard leaving me pretty consistently in the red due to doing around 200TSS per week.
I was wondering if the last 3 weeks of overreaching is a design of the training plan, or should I look into a different plan that doesn’t result in me being in the red for so long but still ramps up my training load.
Is the graph by percentage of fitness or absolute value?
I wouldn’t worry about it 200TSS is a low load especially with the Transition Up Plan scheduling less than 3hr of cycling per week.
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I would just do it, and see how your body reacts.
These models do not predict fitness, they are based on what you have given it already. If there is not much to go on, the results are not very meaningful.
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I use percentage of fitness as it seems to give me a better view on when I’m in the danger zone rather than absolute fitness.
I had to take over a month off training last year after starting a SYSTM training plan that looked like it was keeping me in the green zone:
Once I switched to percentage of fitness it was clear that I had dug myself a massive hole for 6 weeks and should have taken it much easier.
I spent all of 2023 trying to get over the impact of that overtraining patch (multiple week-long bouts of fatigue) and ended the year less fit than I started, so I’m very keen not to repeat the same mistakes of the past!!
It did seem like I’d have to increase training volume incredibly slowly to keep things in the green, so it’s good to get the extra confidence that 200 TSS shouldn’t be something to worry too much about (from pre-pandemic years I’d have been doing that on my commute alone, so that does make sense).
I think I know better know to listen to my body through those weeks to ensure I’m not going overboard rather than blindly trusting the plan like I did last year, so 
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There is an old saying, if the map and the territory disagree, believe the territory, not the map.
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