Coaches,
We all know what is going on, so looking for a plan suggestion between now and when I plan to start the climbing plan. I am hoping my 4 July event goes off which is a 60 mile event with 8k’ of climbing. This is an interim goal as my A-Race is still BWR 2020.
I heve applied the climbing plan on 18 May to coincide with the event, but what should I be doing between now and then? A portion of SS1/2/3? Which portion?
As always, thanks for the help!
Sweet spot 2. Just want to continue with base training. It’s going to be a long year with BWR now being in November! So after your race in July you may need a little break before ramping back up.
With your first race now in July its almost like the training calendar has been reset to January. So many ways to go about this. Right now you really just want to focus on maintenance first. You don’t want to lose too much of what you have built. But you also don’t want to continue to build too much to where you are fading by the time you start racing. So have to find that balance. Sweet spot 2 is really good for this. Continue to get in some great aerobic work which will go a long way.
Coach Jake,
Your assessment was floating around in my mind also. The choice between maintenance, base build, race rebuild, etc. I’ll adjust TP for SS2.
In the event the July race is canx, would that change your answer because then it becomes “what to do between now and Nov”. Luckily you are in the same boat so you’ve contemplated this already.
No, I would still do sweet spot 2. I would do the same build up as if there was race. Still have to keep your season and training normal. The more you let fitness go, even anaerobic power, the harder it would be to get back where you were.
It really just comes down to holding and maintaining a comfortable amount of workload. Half a year off of training would take a full year to rebound. Sweet spot is just going to be some of the best training right now. You get those great physiological adaptations all the while being able to recover and not feel like burning out.
Its going to be about planning out the best time for a little break. Best way to is to work backs. Put in the plans you would want to complete. Make sure your CTL hits the point you want before the event. Give yourself enough time after a week or two of short zone riding. This maybe more important than any other year as you will be training full go till November. But also the work you put in now and up till BWR will really put you ahead of the game and ready for 2021.
Yeah a lot of us are in this boat. I had just switched from base to race over the last 4 weeks. But now I am going back to just sweet spot riding. Back to what I was doing in December and January and looking to avoid too much time over zone 4 at the moment. I got really fit by doing this. Then just a few weeks of intensity and I haven’t felt this good in a. while. So Im just going back to that point where I am really fit with a ton of sweet spot riding and as the racing approaches I will flip that switch do some higher intensity and I will be more than ready.
Still I will most likely mix in a few more simulation rides, which are typically in the other plans, just to get that race like feel a few times and long rides that I normally can’t get in during the winter months. So that really plays in my favor. Best time would be the weekends before regeneration weeks. Give a bit of a boost to the training.
Coach Jake,
As I guessed in April, the July 4th hill climb race is indeed cancelled. I am scheduled to start the hill climb plan this week for that race build but now with the cancellation what do you suggest? BWR is still the goal and if you go into my TP you’ll see I have done one simulation ride to assess where I’m at currently. That ride more or less coincided with the date BWR was supposed to have been held. So, more SS, stick the climbing plan, or something else?
Hey Kip!
Well there is 24 weeks between now and BWR. I would just stick with the plan you have laid out. Instead of the race do a segment or hill climb that is similar to test yourself. It will be beneficial to get in some intensity right now. You don’t want to go basically all year with all base. Good to train your other systems.
Plus if you do your hill climb plan now when you finish it there will still be 18 weeks till BWR. I would recommend a week of very easy riding, like a midseason break. Then start back up with sweet spot training before gravel grinder plan into BWR. You will want to build your CTL back up to where you had it at your summer peak. That shouldn’t be too hard to do. When we get close I can put in a midseason break week and plug in the part of the sweet spot plan you should start with.
Looking at your Performance Manager Chart your CTL will still go up over the next several weeks! So by doing the climbing interval plan you are not going to be losing any fitness. It still has an upward trend.
You had a great simulation ride! Wow a 118 mile, 12,000ft of climbing and 9 hours! It would be great to repeat that type of effort over the summer. These are the type of rides that will really help you prepare. Then you should have another one about 3 - 4 weeks out. But we can plan those in your plan as we get close. Seems you didn’t start off too hard which is good! Sometimes you roll out too hard with lots of tempo and sweet spot and really crack at the end. Yes power was lower at the end but you were still able to finish the ride. You don’t really know these things until you complete these type of rides. Your first 4.5 hours was mostly uphill and you did .63 intensity factor while in the last 4.5 hours you did .52 so you know how much even just easy zone 2 riding can take out of you.
One thing I would recommend is maybe pushing the pace a bit more on your weekend sweet s pot rides. So looking at the ride on May 9th it was a 4.5 hour ride yet you spent nearly 2 hours of it in zone 1. Try to get a bit more zone 3/4 time in the ride, 83 - 97% of your FTP. This would really help your aerobic engine on long races / rides. Start pushing the pace with the 3 hour rides were you know you can get through. Then work up to pushing hard for the 4 hour and 5 hour ones. For the most part you are hitting TSS marks so that is good! But try getting them in the planned duration. So you instead of doing around 50 TSS per hour try getting up to 60 TSS per hour on these Sweet spot group rides.
Not sure if you made notes about what you ate, drank, when, how much, pacing and etc but that is important so you remember. This way you can make changes, tweak or repeat if it worked. Putting them in TrainingPeaks is usually a good spot.
