Most cycling training plans on the internet are written by people who train cycling for a living, then handed to people who don't. That's the core failure. A plan that prescribes 12 hours when you have 8, or stacks intensity on Tuesday and Thursday when those are your two longest meeting days, isn't a bad plan — it's a plan for someone else. The right plan for a full-time worker starts from the constraints, not the ambition.
The shape that consistently works for the working amateur — and what Anthony has watched the masters cohort inside Not Done Yet run to good effect — is built around 6-8 hours, four to five days. Two midweek sessions of 45-75 minutes, both indoor or short-loop outdoors, where one is a true zone 2 endurance ride and the other is the week's quality session (threshold or VO2max intervals). One strength session — squats, deadlifts, single-leg work — lasting 45 minutes. One longer weekend zone 2 ride of 2-3 hours. One mixed-intensity weekend ride: warm-up, group ride or sweet spot, cool-down. That's it.
The non-obvious part of programming around a job is the deload. A working amateur who hits 8 quality hours every week for six straight weeks is heading for a fatigue wall around week seven, regardless of how strong the plan looked on paper. The Wakefield prescription Anthony has talked through on the podcast is to build for three weeks, deload one — drop volume by 30-40%, keep one quality session at intensity. It's the difference between a plan that lifts FTP for a year and a plan that breaks you in 10 weeks.
Two practical rules from the Roadman coaching community for the time-crunched cyclist. First, intensity stays sacred. If you can only protect one session a week, protect the threshold or VO2max work — that's where the FTP gains come from. Skip the long ride before you skip the intervals. Second, recovery has to be programmed, not hoped for. Sleep, fuelling and one full rest day a week are non-negotiable. The plans that actually move the number assume you'll defend those — not just on the easy weeks, but on the hard ones too.