I recently had a buddy of mine ask me about how to structure his triathlon training week and I thought up a pretty simple way to explain how to incorporate stress and recovery within his training. When I am creating a weekly sequence for either myself or other athletes I typically use a color coded model to be able to visually see the level of stress that each workout and/or day puts on the body. My simple approach to the color coding is as follows. The distances and intensities would vary based on the athlete's history and current fitness level but this is what I use for myself. As you can see I tend to lean on the cautious side.
RED:
* High effort that needs 1-2 recovery days afterwards
* Steady State workouts (70.3 intensity :: LT minus 10-15 bpm) longer than 20 mins in duration
* Lactate Threshold workouts of any duration
* Speed workouts (VO2 max intervals, long hill repeats w/ short rest)
* Sprint workouts (Short hill repeats w/ long rest, Economy workouts)
* Endurance run sessions over 14 miles
* Endurance bike sessions at or over 4:00
ORANGE:
* Moderate effort and distance that could be completed day after day
* Bike rides at Ironman effort (LT minus 20-25 bpm) or lower for durations at or below 3 hrs
* Run sessions at Ironman effort (LT minus 20-25 bpm) or lower for durations at or below 12 miles
BLUE:
* Super easy recovery day
* Easy spin at HR levels of Lactate Threshold minus 50 bpm or below for 20-40 miles
* Easy run at HR levels of Lactate Threshold minus 50 bpm or below for 4-6 miles
* Easy swim workout
The idea is to schedule a recovery day after a session that either overly damages the muscles, depletes glycogen stores, or depletes fluid stores. Typically hard workouts and long workouts both tend to do this so each would deserve a recovery day (BLUE) after that particular hard day (RED). Taking a BLUE day gives your body the chance to repair the damage and store more glycogen and fluids so you are ready for another RED or ORANGE session. An ORANGE session is a session that could be completed every day while allowing your body to recover between each workout. It's neither too hard nor too long and is mainly used for building a solid foundation and maintaining your aerobic system. An instance where I elect to take two BLUE days after a RED day is when I combine a long and hard workout. For instance, if I do a 4 hr bike session with 2 X 30 mins at 70.3 intensity then I would be best off taking two BLUE days afterwards to ensure that my body is recovered from such a session. I've found that combining long and hard workouts tends to take my body longer to recovery from especially if you are doing part of your work towards the tail end of the session when your muscles are tired and your body is low on glycogen and fluids. I've learned to use these workouts sparingly.
Here is an example of a weekly sequence for a foundation building week. The bulk of the week is geared towards building a solid aerobic foundation while getting in some primer workouts that will set you up nicely for the real work to come in the race specific period.
Monday: ORANGE
Tuesday: RED (Steady or Hills)
Wednesday: BLUE
Thursday: ORANGE
Friday: ORANGE
Saturday: RED (Endurance)
Sunday: BLUE
Here is an example of a weekly sequence for a race specific week. For these weeks you are either doing tougher sessions that are very specific to your goal race, resting from those workouts, or maintaining your aerobic system. The actual workouts themselves would differ depending on what your goal race was.
Monday: ORANGE
Tuesday: RED (LT)
Wednesday: BLUE
Thursday: RED (VO2)
Friday: BLUE
Saturday: RED (Endurance)
Sunday: BLUE
This was a fairly simplified explanation of how to set up stress and recovery within your triathlon weekly schedule. Hopefully it will get you pointed in the right direction for creating a weekly sequence that fits your schedule and allows for enough stress and recovery to reach your goals.