Hopeful first time MTB racer:
I want to create a plan for Chequamegon 40, which option is best for the race type: enduro, cross country marathon, or cross country Olympic.
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I’m also racing Chequamegon this year! I did last year as well using TR. Both years I’ve used cross country marathon. I will say that Chequamegon is a bit unique in that it is so full of short punchy climbs (easily 50+ climbs of 15 sec to 2 mins). Definitely make sure you’re getting lots of VO2 work, especially 30/30s or 40/20s. We’ll see what TR does this year with the new AI engine, but in my experience last year I wish I had gotten more of this work in before the race.
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You may want to switch from marathon to Olympic. Marathon is more sustained power and Olympic is more of that short punch repeatability. I would make sure you add in a dynamic endurance ride to get the time in the saddle you need for the distance.
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As someone who prepared using the marathon plan, please go ahead and change that now to the Olympic plan. There are very few sections of the course where you’re going to be putting out steady power. It’s a ton of short punchy efforts, repeating for around 3 hours. You’re much better off just hammering VO2 max than any sweet spot/threshold, assuming you have some sort of fitness already built up.
That said, very fun race and was also my first race. It’s the only one I do every single year.
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I would do XCO if that was the only race I was training for, or was my A event.
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Instead of an XC plan I would look at Rolling Road Race. I find it fits the course pretty well. The speciality phase is all Anaerobic and vo2 which is what you need.