Macrocycle plans: the basics

What a macrocycle is

A macrocycle is the long-range training plan that spans 4 to 12 months and anchors to one or more A races. Inside the macrocycle sit mesocycles (3 to 6 week blocks) and microcycles (one week each).

The two kinds of macrocycle plan in the Hub

The MacrocyclePlan model supports two ownership modes:

• Team template (is_template=True, team set, athlete blank). A master plan attached to a team. Designed to be cascaded down to every athlete on the team.
• Individual plan (athlete set, team blank). A plan attached to a single athlete. Can be created from scratch or derived from a team template (the parent_template link).

A plan can be in three states: draft, active, or archived.

Where the planner lives

Macrocycle plan creation and editing currently happens inside the Django admin at /admin/core/macrocycleplan/. The plan configuration is stored as JSON (config_json) so the structure can hold complex ATP builder state without a fixed schema.

Listing and JSON access also live in the API at /api/macrocycle-plans/. A frontend planner UI is on the roadmap; today the admin form and the API are the main editing surfaces.

What a plan holds

• Identity: name, season (spring / summer / fall / winter), season year, status (draft / active / archived).
• Ownership: either a team (for templates) or an athlete (for individual plans), never both.
• Template lineage: parent_template link if the plan was derived from a team template.
• Plan configuration (config_json): the full builder state including dates, phases, weekly volume targets, and any per-week overrides.

Deploying a plan

Team templates are deployed to cascade their structure to every athlete on the team. See Deploying a macrocycle. Individual plans take effect when status is set to active and the configured dates fall within the current calendar window.

Re-planning

Re-plan when:

• A goal race is added, removed, or moved.
• The athlete is injured or sick for more than a week.
• Threshold metrics shifted enough that the prescription is wrong (e.g. FTP up 15 percent unexpectedly).

Re-planning is done by editing the active plan's JSON config (or re-deriving from an updated team template). Previous versions remain in history because the plan record itself is preserved; only the config evolves.