I would love some advice on preparing for my first stage race in June. As a rider in his early 50s, I need longer to ramp up so I am starting planning now - 7 months out from the race. Key question is whether I should set up a single Plan with long base, build and specialty periods or whether I should squeeze in two plans to avoid a long period without spending much time above FTP.
The benefit of the single plan approach is that I could ramp up strength training during base phase. I was able to get away without it so far, but age and long race durations each are now a reason to introduce strength training.
Second question is..being a strength training newbie…how much time would you spend with bodyweight training (incl stability and mobility initially), then how much time with dumbbells / kettlebells, and is there time left to move to heavier stuff? I am asking for the general approach and I know that everyone is different and that a personalized approach is best. I’m just trying to get a general feel for what can be achieved in 7 months by a 50+ year old rider with no real experience in structured strength training.
As a fellow early 50’s rider I would just put your event in Plan Builder now and follow the plan the best you can. Last year I was planning an Everesting in July. Put it in Plan Builder the beginning of November. Followed the plan and everything went great!
My A race is Chicago Grit, a 10 crit series in July. Plan Builder has me finishing base 3 this month, then a build block, then a specialty block that finally finishes in March. Then plan builder has me doing another shortened base, build, specialty sequence starting in April and ending just before the July race.
(I’m a masters athlete, but I’m still trying to do 3 hard days a week. And lose weight. And start strength training. Wait for my burnout post…)
I 'm not sure if this is going to mesh well with crit season starting in April, since I expect to be doing as many crits as possible for experience. However, I think I’m so new to this (just started getting serious last year) that any semblance of structure is going to help.
Edit: for strength, I’m working out twice a week on two of my hard days. Going pretty easy because I’m paranoid about DOMS affecting my Saturday hard intervals.
Edit 2: used AI (I know) to come up with a dumbell-based plan and a machine-based plan. The bodyweight/dumbell plan is:
I’d recommend letting TrainerRoad take care of all the work of building you a custom plan for your Stage Race. You can even set your event as a Stage Race in whatever discipline you’re racing.
It looks like you created a plan already, which is great! Is your event one day or multiple days?
You can also make it a Master’s plan so you get more recovery built into the plan! Masters Plans
