I need advice. This is my second go at a base phase. I have just started SSB mid volume part 1 this week. Earlier in the season I did SS base low 1 & 2 then raced the Whiskey 50. I took 3 weeks off and am starting up again from scratch with the goal of peaking for some big gravel events in November.
Here is my question. I have an MTB XC race every thursday night for the next 4 week. I sponsor these races and am there already so it is fun to compete in them. They are not a priority or anything although I got 4th place at the season opener (thanks TrainerRoad). I have attached a pic of my calendar and a pic of the data from one of these races from 2 weeks ago to give you an idea of the stress / power etc. Should I run my calendar as it is in the picture or should I cut out a training day to allow for the 1hr full red zone race on thursday night. If I cut a training day which should it be? What would you do? My FTP is 254 as assed on my Wahoo Kickr. I am 5ft7in and weigh about 185 to give you an idea of how hard I am working in these races. Yes, I know… Loose weight. At one point I was 210 so it is a work in progress.
Thanks in advance.
I would only cut a training day if you feel like you’re struggling with the total weekly TSS. Effectively you’re halfway between mid and high volume, but if you’re coping with it that’s fine.
I would consider moving things around a bit. As it stands you’re doing 5 hard sessions in a week, and 4 of them are on consecutive days. I find it works better to arrange the hard days in blocks of 2 and 3. And given that the MTB race is the hardest session of your week then I’d schedule your rest day or easy day on the Friday to recover from it. So something like:
Monday - easy
Tuesday and Wednesday - short SS sessions
Thursday - MTB
Friday - off
Saturday and Sunday - long SS sessions
Also, based on your MTB data, either your FTP is much higher than tested or there are some discrepancies between your indoor and outdoor PMs. No way you can put out NP of 289W for 54 minutes with an FTP of 254.
Yeah there are discrepancies with the PM’s. I have Stages L only units on my MTB and also on my Gravel Bike. I have a Pioneer two side on my Road Bike but the FTP is based on the Kickr, not a stand alone PM. I think the Stages are higher being crank based (I have read this) and I think I SUCK at FTP testing. A combination of those two perhaps?
Could well be a combo. I have a similar issue, my Vectors seem to read ~30W lower than my Kickr (when I run them both simultaneously feeding to different head units), but my outdoor FTP would seem to be ~20W higher than I test indoors. Recent indoor test result was 336W, which should translate to ~306W outdoors on the Vectors, but I recently did a 48km TT with an average of 325W. I guess I ought to run the Vectors indoors as well as out, using Power Match to control TR sessions from them instead of using the Kickr power reading. But I really can’t be bothered to keep switching the pedals between bikes, nor the much more frequent battery changes that would result. So I just live with it and do my best to account for the difference when riding outdoors.
May be worth at least doing a few sessions inside with your Pioneer and Stages PM to compete readings to the Kickr so that you can quantify the difference.
I could run the Pioneer to a head unit and the Kickr to the iPad and compare on the fly. Could do the same with the MTB just for testing purposes.
You have a crazy high FTP by the way… Congrats.
Thank you! If it helps have had big boosts from doing a very similar approach to you, SSB high volume as a starting point but with at least one race type effort per week replacing one of the scheduled workouts. In my case it’s a local midweek group ride which most of the local racers show up to and is non-stop attacks and breaks. Love the ride, do it nearly every week, and just adjust my schedule around it. Race at the weekends every 2-3 weeks as well, mix of long crits, road races and TTs or TTTs. Have overdone it a few times trying to fit in too much of the SS training in the same week as a hard race, but am getting pretty good now at knowing when I need to back off and skip a session or replace it with something like Pettit or an easy spin outdoors.
Racing is fun and (IMO) the whole point of training, your event sounds great and good on you for being a sponsor!
lots of intensity if I’m reading that correctly.
Cut one of them and go race your face off. Also, keep the intensity (above 100% ftp) to 2 times a week so that you really rock them hard.
Then hit some sweet spot or tempo.
Let us know how the races go!
