AI is awesome. No, AI is terrible. Whatever it is, it is powerful and I enjoy playing with it. No, I’m not about to hop on the bandwagon and shift my career to it; I was forced to re-path my career two months ago and I’m just beginning to feel settled.

I digress. August 26. Race day. Rebecca and I are signed up for Vermont Overland and we both want to go fast, not simply finish.

It’s too early to have focused training or consider paying for a real live coach, but I’d still like to have some organization. I could spend a whole bunch of time building a plan on physical paper, but I could also chat with an AI for roughly fifteen minutes and not do that sweaty work (it is sweaty to me… I don’t know) so I gave it a shot. I first tried ChatGPT, came up with something decent, then tried Bard, it was kind of terrible, and revisited ChatGPT the next morning to dial things in a bit more after having a few hours to ponder the details.

The interaction was pretty solid given I included many details:

  • Start the plan around 8 hours
  • Never exceed 12 hours in a week
  • Include two Zwift races (~60 minutes at threshold power) twice a week
  • Always have one of those races occur on Tuesday
  • Include 15 minutes of strength training twice a week
  • It had me going pretty long on Wednesdays, which seemed too hard a block (race, long, race) so I had it give more time to Mondays and Fridays

It handled the details mostly well, but from time to time would forget one. I’d have to remind it “Remember, xyz,” to which it would apologize and reincorporate the detail.

The following is what it came up with, which I think is pretty darned outstanding, and which I will be following until the next training phase:

Week 1:
Monday - 1 hour Z2
Tuesday - 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Wednesday - Rest day
Thursday - 1 hour Z2 + 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Friday - 1.5 hours Z2
Saturday - 1 hour Z2 + 15 minutes strength training
Sunday - 1 hour Z2

Total: 8.25 hours

Week 2:
Monday - 1 hour Z2
Tuesday - 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Wednesday - Rest day
Thursday - 1 hour Z2 + 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Friday - 1.5 hours Z2
Saturday - 1 hour Z2 + 15 minutes strength training
Sunday - 1 hour Z2

Total: 8.25 hours

Week 3:
Monday - 1 hour Z2
Tuesday - 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Wednesday - Rest day
Thursday - 1 hour Z2 + 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Friday - 2 hours Z2
Saturday - 1 hour Z2 + 15 minutes strength training
Sunday - 1 hour Z2

Total: 9.25 hours

Week 4:
Monday - 1 hour Z2
Tuesday - 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Wednesday - Rest day
Thursday - 1 hour Z2 + 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Friday - 2 hours Z2
Saturday - 1 hour Z2 + 15 minutes strength training
Sunday - 1 hour Z2

Total: 9.25 hours

Week 5:
Monday - 1 hour Z2
Tuesday - 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Wednesday - Rest day
Thursday - 1 hour Z2 + 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Friday - 2.5 hours Z2
Saturday - 1 hour Z2 + 15 minutes strength training
Sunday - 1 hour Z2

Total: 10 hours

Week 6:
Monday - 1 hour Z2
Tuesday - 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Wednesday - Rest day
Thursday - 1 hour Z2 + 60-minute Zwift race at threshold
Friday - 2.5 hours Z2
Saturday - 1 hour Z2 + 15 minutes strength training
Sunday - 1 hour Z2

Total: 10 hours

Note: Remember to properly adjust the training load according to your personal fitness level and make sure to properly recover between workouts.

Stay tuned for updates / the next phase in May!