Submit your Question (for the Podcast) for a chance to win a FasCat T-shirt!

Submit your training, racing, & coaching questions here before Wednesday April 1st, 5pm MST.

We will pick 3 lucky winners from the submissions , answer your question on the podcast and ship you a FREE FasCat T-Shirt!

Any question is fair game : sweet spot training, the corona plan, timing, winning in the kitchen, #FtFP’ing, training with power, gravel racing, ask away its all good!

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I’m sure nobody else will ask this :joy: but … what, if any, adjustments are people making to their plans right now? I just somewhat nervously completed a hard week and am in regen week now. There are no races coming up, but man I feel fit and that’s motivation enough to #FTFP but I’ve heard other people are dialing things down. Thoughts?

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Another ?: I finish my 18 week plan in May and want to keep going with another plan. I’m primarily a mt biker. Any thoughts on a good ‘keep fit’ plan to get through a possible summer of zero races?

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Thoughts on using this time to add more weight/cross training?

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yes but it depends on what you are training for and when - that will help us answer, thanks!

Right now it’s tough to have anything set as a target. Looking at the possibility of late August events or CX. Should this time be treated as a typical offseason build?

Thanks for cyclocrosses - nothing has changed - you should still be training for Aug/Sept and be on our Cyclocross OFF Season training plan. You will just need to adopt an at home routine for the squats.

Our off season CX plan includes running to answer your question.

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Will be moving from Arkansas to Colorado at some point this year. So far this year I have had great improvements in my FTP going from 228 (2.66 w/kg) watts to 267 watts (3.15 w/kg). What is a realistic expectation time wise and fitness wise to adjust to the altitude? I am currently close to sea level. In what ways should I look to train if at all when going through the adjustment period. Thanks for the awesome podcast guys.

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A question I suspect many have (or, unfortunately, will have). I’ve missed the last 3-4 weeks of training due to illness. I was on Week 8 of the CX off season 24 week plan. At least I got the bulk of my lifting done before gyms closed…

What I’ve done is write off weeks 8-10 (again, no gym access) and shift week 11 (regeneration and test week) one week later to give me an additional week to recover. My CTL is pretty much shot, and I suspect that the FTP testing reveals will be so low that I’m not in too much danger of hitting it too hard too soon during the sweetspot phase of training.

Is this a good strategy? In almost 20 years of structured training, I’ve never missed this much time due to illness, so I’m really at a loss as to how to approach this.

Focus is obviously 'cross… hoping we have a season.

I am looking for “added sugar-free” and “natural/organic” alternatives for chews, blocks, and bars for a 100 mile bike ride (Lutsen 99er). What recommendations do you have?

Thanks for your question @jeffmbush - what is ‘added sugar-free’? Do you mean no added sugars?

This is a good question and begs the discussion of one handed nutrition and two handed nutrition. I.e the amount of hands it takes to physically put the nutrition choice in your mouth.

I love the rice cakes but have found unwrapping them to be two handed and taking both hands off the bar is not always possible. Thus this takes us back to Gu’s > Chews > bars bc you can manage your nutrition one handed for the whole race. Of course if you stop at an aid station you can use your two handed nutrition.

What are the pros/cons of doing an FTP test indoors (trainer/Zwift) versus outdoors, and which is preferable and most accurate or broadly applicable to real-world training and racing?

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@FRANK , by referencing “added sugar”-free, I was hoping to get your recommendations for nutrients that don’t included “added sugar” or only contain natural sugars, like apples and bananas. Munk Pack used to make an all-natural oatmeal with fruit packet that was easy to consume one-handed on the bike, but they are no longer making it. 33Shake makes a product. Any other suggestions?

Hey guys hope all is well. I have been thinking about this question for quite sometime. Just basically not to name drop but how apps like sufferfest use more than just FTP to determine plans and strategies. Not a huge deal but just wanted to hear you guys possibly talk about it, and if FTP needs to evolve. Thanks for the great content and making me feel normal through these crazy times.
Jared W.

Ah yes, ‘no added sugar’ I gotcha. Let’s page @Jackson for this one.

We like and use and are partnered with GU Energy Labs - I like them because a) it works and b) they are a science based company.

I have not searched around but I think you’ll be hard pressed to find an energy food brand that doesn’t add maltodextrin or honey to their products.

Thus, now you are talking about ‘real food’ which is advantageous, rice cakes, panani’s, PB&J’s , etc… I’ll carry a bananna for a training ride.

Maybe Jackson or someone else in the group can share what they do & recommend

Love it @jaredwright04 - great question and topic - give this a read and a listen:

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@FRANK and @jeffmbush -

I can go into more depth on the podcast, but sugar is a double edged sword for athletes. Obviously we want to avoid the stuff when we’re not training, but it’s a really useful thing when we’re riding or racing hard, as it’s a quick and accessible (and preferable) form of energy during exercise, particularly at high intensities. If you’re just going out for a short and/or easy ride under 2 hours, you will be fine with “real” food, but once you start getting out there for longer and harder workouts, eating stuff with added sugar in the form of maltodextrin, glucose, fructose, etc is beneficial, and are just simple and easy to digest and absorb forms of carbohydrates. Processed, added sugar is rightfully demonized for the majority of people on the planet and has caused a lot of fear around the words “sugar” and “carbohydrate”, but for athletes it’s a different story, and depending on your goals as an athlete, there’s a lot of benefits to “practicing how you want to play” when it comes to training with the stuff on normal rides so your gut can adapt to handling high carbohydrate intake so that come race day, you will be less likely to run into GI distress which is so common in endurance athletes since it’s common to avoid refined sugar while training for health reasons but then when the race happens, you slam gels and blocks and sports drinks which is foreign for the gut in high concentrations. Eating apples and bananas is great, but also those foods are high in fiber and the main sugar in there is fructose - which can cause GI issues while exercising, while a lot of these products like GU Roctane or the blocks are designed to utilize a mix of transportable carbohydrate sources to better absorb across the intestinal membrane to facilitate better digestion.

In my opinion, the best of both worlds is to practice eating those products on harder interval days where you’ll be burning lots of glucose and also mimicking race intensity, but then rely on whole, real foods on endurance rides, with plenty of experimentation in the mix. There’s a time and place for both gels and bananas.

First time questioner, long time listener. I have a question for you. Is it ideal to go for a KOM I’ve been eyeing during one of my big Amex rides. Can you explain how you would find the appropriate pacing for a KOM attempt? The one I’m after is mostly flat and the guy who has it did it in a time of 34 minutes. It’s from one town to the next. Should I use wattage targets? Speed targets? How does Big Phil Gaimon approach this stuff?

I have a unique diet in that I do not have a stomach (had a total gastrectomy in 2018), so my small intestine is not able to process “added sugar” and therefore I am limited to consuming minimal amounts of sugar. For examples, bananas have too much sugar for me to consume on a ride. Any suggestions for carbs that have less than 10g of sugar would be helpful!

Thanks once the kids are asleep ahah I will have a look!!! Much appreciated.