Alegres is a 75’ L8.3 sweetspot workout, overall IF .89. 3×20’ @ 93%, 94%, 92%. I’m trying to imagine doing this four times in one session. Once I found very hard. 
Yeah bit out of my league atm on Master’s XCM plan there are NO Sweet Spot workouts.
Might want to consider changing that up for Leadville 
Lots of Endurance / Tempo / Sweet Spot on the day. Other than quick checks and priming intervals, I don’t think I’ll do another Threshold or VO2 workout until fall.
I just did 3x20/5 @ 90%, and I’m doing a SST 8.1 Saturday that includes 3x25 @ 90% as part of my current progression. It will end up being hard, but manageable, unless I come in not sleeping or something like that.
3 Likes
Yep, already swapping in Tempo, during the week and haven’t done a threshold in weeks as I’ve been doing long outdoor off road climbing/descending days.
Nothing tunes the brain for descending on chonk like actually descending on chonk.
3 Likes
I certainly didn’t knock threshold training off in June. My coach had me try to avoid ever hitting threshold during race, I 100% needed it in my training. Something about O/U and 6x6 threshold that makes tempo feel easy 
Threshold workouts are scheduled by TR on Saturday which is my climbing day, so I get plenty of time at threshold. Also some quality descending time.
To be honest the stretch Sweet Spot I did last week wasn’t very hard. The threshold and VO2 I’ve been doing are impacting all the other zones.
I didn’t say I didn’t do Threshold, but by June - it’s done except for what I get in my on-bike skills rides and brief check intervals. All recommended planned out by my coach, but my year was Offseason Base in the fall through early winter, followed by VO2 Block February-March. Followed by a Threshold Block, another Threshold & Over Under Block that took me through the beginning of May. Final FTP Test, and since then, Specialty / Race Specific work which is all Sweet Spot, Tempo, and Endurance working on TTE and Endurance straight through the race.
The reason behind it - goal is to be able to ride at a high percentage of your altitude adjusted FTP on the day for 8-12 hours or however long it takes you, and specialty work is what helps best with that. Raw FTP helps, but ability to “express” it for a long period of time maybe even more. Did the exact same thing last year, and it worked really well. Negative split the race by almost 45 minutes and was mostly passing people and dropping people from the base of Columbine inbound all the way to the finish. Looking to repeat that this year, except with an additional 30W of FTP…
2 Likes
Personally I think this makes a lot of sense and I’m doing this too. My coach, however, is still prescribing 5 second intervals and anaerobic capacity work. My goal is 11-12 hours with little pain so I don’t care about my high end at all. Thus, I’ve been rouge since March. Would you happen to be working with a Boundless coach?
Joe
1 Like
I still get a little bit of anaerobic / VO2 intensity too - it’s just out on the trail this time of year which matches what I’d do at Leadville - short spurts on the bike. Just not really “Prescribed”. I’m still a TrainerRoad subscriber too (like the platform and still get value from it), but working with @kurt.braeckel
I will say for me, I was coming from a place of personally being more “Anaerobic” and VO2 oriented at a much lower volume when I started (I did about a year of TR Low Volume first). I’d guess my peak power has actually gone down some in the last two and a half years, haven’t really ever done an honest on bike test, but it’s pretty easy for me to just hop on the bike and go do 100+ miles as a normal weekend ride. Normal “work” weeks of 12-14 hours I think, my guess is July will see that creep up as much as I can manage.
1 Like
I would guess your anaerobic (think 1min) power has gone up since we started. Rising tide lifts all boats and all that, plus you stay on top of your strength training. Threshold and VO2 work has a large anaerobic component. Even SST has some. Sprinting we could probably get you some big numbers if we ever did it… at all… and got you working technique.
1 Like
The area affected is a lot larger now and closed through July 15th. It includes the dam and Lost Canyon Rd. The smoke has been pretty bad too…
What does your coach say he is trying to achieve with these intervals? Even at leadville, there are plenty of spots you need quick bursts while climbing short punchy/tech stuff, but it’s such a small percentage of the overall effort. Maybe there’s some benefit of doing punchy stuff like that, but my concern is whether that’s a good trade off vs. working other types of efforts. At minimum, I’d want an explanation from a coach on why those intervals should be prioritized over stuff that is more aligned with the race efforts.
My training is pretty focused on long rides with as much climbing as possible at sweet spot and threshold and riding high Z2 to low Z3 between the climbs. I’ll work in a few v02max intervals, but not much and nothing in Z6+.
The goal time seems reasonable, but in my experience there is no way around that course without significant suffering. And the slower (longer) you go, the more you suffer in my experience. I’m in Leadville right now doing some pre-riding and it’s always a huge slap in the face the first few rides. And I’ve been riding this course for ~5 years, you’d think I’d get used to it. You can only go so easy on some of the climbs and even walking can be pretty painful at that elevation and grade. YMMV, but that’s my experience (coming from sea level with no climbs over ~10 minutes).
1 Like
Who knows? 3/5ths of her Leadville squad has gone rouge because it doesn’t make any sense. She did put on an excellent training camp tho and we all have a guaranteed entry. But the actual programming? Has not worked for me and I can’t understand why these workouts are prescribed.
Makes complete sense!!
Joe
This comes up somewhat regularly so you may already have heard this, but TR staff have said on podcasts before that they recommend the Grand Fondo event type for LT100 rather than XCM. The latter is geared towards ~3 hour events and the former is geared towards holding a steady pace on a long day which is more aligned to Leadville.
TR gives you the tools to tweak any plan to basically be what you want it to be so it’s not too big of a deal either way.
2 Likes
Yep, tweaking starting after Lutsen. Luckily, the lead up to Lutsen is a recover week that also includes packing and Travel. So doing 2 hour road rides with Pop’s on his ebike is about perfect.
The only real planned workouts I have are the two weeks I’m back in California before Tahoe Trail. the first week after that I’m in Herber City likely riding Gravel and sticking to Z2 & Tempo for the week, then I move to Copper for the 14 days before the LT100.
Edit: Looks like GF Master’s MV differences to XCM are Tuesday VO2 is Threshold and Saturday Threshold is Sweet Spot, so not grossly different, but Saturday is always climbing and about 6 hours so just changing my Tuesday to Thresh is about all I’m going to do between now and LT100.
So there’s a question for you, I’ll be partially acclimated when getting to Copper, and plan to pre-ride sections of the course. maybe multiple times?
On the list are
- Leadville to the bottom of Powerline (outbound)
- Powerline back to Leadville (Inbound)
- Columbine
Should I front load those into the week before the race and again just do them at Z2/Tempo just to get familiar with the course, and then just take it super easy the week before? I mean still do some riding to help keep the acclimation stimulus going, but obviously nothing bonkers that week.
I personally don’t see the need to ride Powerline inbound (up). I’ll do Columbine up/down Friday, Start to Pipeline then up back up to Leadville Saturday, and Pipeline to Twin Lakes and Back on the Sunday of the weekend before the race. I personally don’t do any of it at race pace - all keeping it chill. I don’t ride any of them after the Sunday of the week before though - all primers / taper and avoiding anything hard.
2 Likes
While Copper to Leadville isn’t too far, I personally wouldn’t want to be driving back and forth repeatedly over the 2 weeks. Personally I’d do Columbine early in the first week by parking at Twin Lakes and riding from there, then drive over and do Powerline inbound same day as an O&B from the fish hatchery. Not just the steep part you see in videos, the whole proper Powerline climb. My first year I rode blind and my mind blocked out that there is a lot of climbing left after the first steep section of Powerline and I wasn’t mentally prepared to keep on the pace. You get a bonus go on the full descent that way too.
I don’t find the other parts of the course to be particularly novel to the point where you need to see them before race day, but the more you see the better as long as you don’t overdo it. If you have the time you can do more, but agree with @BCM I wouldn’t be doing much pre-riding in the final week.
2 Likes
That’s one thing that Garmin Climb Pro does well in that it shows you the whole climb. All 3.64 miles of Powerline inbound. Sure those light green bits are a brake, but they shouldn’t sucker you into thinking you’re done.
2 Likes
I was there a couple weeks prior last year and will do the same this year. I’ll do a good bit of volume the first week, hitting columbine at least once and several runs from bottom of Kevin’s to bottom of powerline and back (I think it’s the most important part of the course to pre-ride). I’ll usually do all the climbs at race pace and keep it pretty chill in between. I’ll usually ride some of the stretch between powerline and twin lakes at easy pace, but I don’t prioritize it.
For the week running up to the race, I’ll do Kevin’s to bottom of powerline one day (~2 hours) and do power line up and down another day (~1hour).
1 Like
One thing I’ll add in - probably when I do my Columbine recon about 8 days out, I like to do a “Threshold Check” at altitude to try and dial in where I think FTP is. Basically 10-20 minutes feeling out where I am. Last year for me, it was ~18% reduction off of sea level, but nice to validate once you’re there and had time to get over the initial adjustment to altitude.
3 Likes