Two weeks (not including week of) between B race and A race. Legs have fully recovered finally from my B race. Since I have gone through my progression,(XC Marathon) thinking of doing 2 workouts in the 3 weeks that maintain my sustained power, my question is I am thinking all the other rides just doing Tempo/SS to maintain and even build on a little for endurance and 20-30 minute climbing power. It’s a 65 mile race and climbing is about 10,500 ft. Podcast recently @Jonathan mentioned this leading up to Leadville for him. Thoughts??
Mike
I’m not getting the greatest of picture from what you’re asking. I gather both the B and A race are XC Marathon and that you hit the end of your BBS cycle by the B race. I’d suggest you work backwards from week 8 of specialty ending with your A race.
So that’d be doing week 7 and 8 leaving you with high quality fitness for your race. If you do know that you recover quicker from TSS, one might suggest doing week 6 and 7 (or repeating week 7 twice).
Also don’t know which volume plan your doing… Unless your doing low volume longer endurance rides are written into the plans. With low volume maybe just extend the longest ride of the week (those workouts also feature longer sustained sweetspot work).
So I meant I did my A race. Doing another race but it was a late add. It’s my B race. I was thinking just maintain my current fitness since the B race has way more climbing in it than my A race did. Don’t really want to go back into any of the plans. Just want to be as fresh as possible. That’s why I was looking at mainly SS work with just 2 intensive threshold/Vo2 sessions tossed in to maintain my Top end power. I was even thinking of cutting 1 session a week out. So 4 total workouts with 2 SS, 1 threshold, and 1 Vo2 max as an example of my week. Week of back off TSS with some opener workouts.
I see… definitely would still recommend doing those taper weeks in the plans. Keeps the volume low and intensity right where you need. A second benefit of those is because the workout TSS drops it should take relatively less mental strength to get through workouts as you probably are wiped out from a whole cycle.
Again like you said it is a B event… You are coming in with a high level of fitness, don’t underestimate yourself.
To summary, I’d suggest doing the taper weeks and maybe throw in a longer race duration (or demands) soul ride kinda thing during the weekend.