Getting jittery about a planned easy week

I did that plan last summer for my first triathlon.  It worked out great for me.  Rest weeks are called rest weeks because you are suppose to give your body more:  rest!!  I think these weeks were extremely key in my not following my normal pattern of loving my training and then getting some injury that knocks me off my schedule.  There is probably parts of your body that might need rest more than you think so don't cheat by doing more work than your schedule.  As far as intensity, I am less qualified to answer that one but I don't think you need to dial it back but I also think killing yourself because you are training less minutes isn't a brilliant idea either. 

Be patient, the program ramps up as time goes on and by the end it had me plenty ready to complete my first Olympic.  Good luck!!!

Yes, rest weeks should be in both volume and intensity.  If you bump up the intensity, then you're really not achieving the effect of rebuilding and regrouping as your total power output goes back up by adding intensity.  If anything, your higher intensity sessions should be saved for your short/medium workouts of your 'build' weeks.

When I built these plans it was expressly to overcome my own desires to just keep adding volume week-after-week, therefor always getting injured.

Relax and by the end of next week you will be rested and chomping-at-the-bit.  This is the desired effect of the rest week.

I'm following a Half ironman plan (from my coach) and we are on a four week cycle too.  3 weeks of training followed by a rest adn recovery week.   I find that when I'm in the 3 week part Im dying for the rest week to come up.  But when I'm in the rest week I'm chomping at the bit to get out and doo more exercise.

I have def felt the benefits of a proper rest week though the first week after the rest week I feel rested and fantastic chomping at the bit! 

Stick with the plan I say!

Jackie - In general you should use the rest weeks for recovery, however every person is different and you are going to have to experiment what works best for you. For instance, athletes might be able to recover fairly quickly by just reducing the volume but not the intensity. Others might respond to the opposite and yet other might need both. Our bodies respond different to the adaptation for training and pretty much the only way to find out is to test it.

Online plans are NOT design to fit your specific training needs; hence they are designed on the conservative side in terms of volume, intensity and recovery time. Finally, working out at higher intensities might be a tricky business. If your muscles haven’t adapted to the stress impose by high intense training you might be risking injury. Also high intensity workouts even though tend to be short in duration might induce more fatigue and it will take you longer to recover…

I LOVE MY REST WEEKS!  Every time I come off one, I come back much stronger.  I learned the hard way about overtraining, so the active-rest weeks are very important to me, especially when I'm on a 26-week training plan.

I do listen to my body, and sometimes that means I have to back off during a build phase, and sometimes I can do more.  The big thing I've learned to watch is how my HR responds.  If it is shooting right up and not recovering quickly, time to back off.  If you spend a lot of time in Zone 3 or break into zone 5 at all, your body really needs time to recover.

Good luck!