I’m looking for some input and perspective after my recent experience at Sea Otter Fuego XL.
This year I came in with a higher FTP than last year and, for the first time, followed structured training consistently. Based on that, I expected to perform better but I ended up finishing about 10 minutes slower, I felt less wrecked than last year, but slower. What stood out even more was that I lost my ability to produce power on the second lap. It felt like a clear durability issue rather than a top end fitness problem.
Over the past couple of months, I had already started noticing something was off. My workouts felt manageable, but I wasn’t developing the ability to sustain efforts deep into long rides. Because of that, I began adding longer rides (4+ hours) on my own to build durability.
What concerns me is how the system responded. After these longer rides, I noticed that the following prescribed workouts would often decrease in intensity. It feels like the adjustments are biasing toward keeping me “fresh” rather than pushing adaptation. Since the rollout of AI driven training, it seems like my overall intensity has trended downward even though my goal is to build race level durability, not just complete workouts successfully.
Fuego XL was meant to be a benchmark for Leadville, and right now I’m concerned. My goal isn’t just to finish Leadville I want to race it competitively and I don’t feel like my current trajectory is preparing me for that.
So I’m trying to figure out:
Am I interpreting these adaptations correctly?
Is the system underestimating the need for long duration fatigue resistance?
Should I be overriding adaptations or structuring things differently to prioritize durability?
How are others balancing AI training recommendations with the demands of long MTB races like Leadville?
Any insights would be appreciated, especially from those who’ve successfully built durability for long events using TrainerRoad.
Gonna lead with you should share your calendar or post screenshots of your last couple months. People often describe a situation and problems, when there is often some nuance that could be effecting the situation. Outside opinions from a coaching perspective can often shed some ideas or new light. BUT… I have seen your same change/effects with long rides. Even down regulating an endurance ride on a sunday cuz it was a ‘yellow day’… when a recovery week is the next day! lol
My only thought or wonder - what was your Garmin Training Status or Strava ‘form’ going into Sea Otter? Peaking? Did you have a three or two week taper? One week? With the attempt to add more volume/duration… just curious how cooked you might have been going into it, which would drastically effect your effort in the second half of race.
There’s a ton of factors that may be at play here. Second that you really have to share your calendar if we’re going to be able to diagnose what happened. First thought was nutrition, was it consistent year over year? What was the hour before the race and first hour during like? Did you carb load?
That said, I do think there’s a little pushback with the RLGL/AI adaptations that are quite effective that no one’s going to really say. I’ve put back workouts AI tried to remove and added volume it wanted to drop me back. I went from 300-320 TSS a week to now consistently 450+. Less Yellow days too.
You’re definitely going to want to share your calendar and also add some further details. What was your NP over the span of the race compared to last year? You said you felt better at the end, but then were 10 minutes slower so, that would make sense to me. You had more in the tank maybe.
Races come down to a lot more than just ftp, and the psychology is a big piece of how you perform on any given day. Sounds like you have doubts about your training plan which, in my experience, can lead to poorer results.
Lets see some of your data and maybe get a better picture of what’s going on.
TR will ask that you share your calendar or screenshots.
However, I have found that a few types of workouts have helped me sustain the efforts of these demanding gravel events or longer road races.
Long endurance rides, scattering efforts throughout these long rides (like 3x20 at ftp through a 4hr ride) and of course the usual race specific efforts (for instance if you have very steep punches doing torque work for those etc)
Just chiming in to say that year to year comparison can be tricky as course conditions out here vary a lot. Within the week it went from super fast post rain dirt (Monday) to a sand pit by race day (Saturday). Just the sandy stretch alone on 69 can be a decent chunk of time (depending if it rained and/or you had to hike it or not). Then there’s traffic and if you had someone to pace with, etc. Soooo many factors.
That’s said I do agree with you regarding the long rides and the way the systems seems to emphasize freshness. Hopefully you can get some feedback looking at your calendar. But it just might be that it was different course conditions on a different day.
Have you compared your files from last year and this year? What were the differences in AP and NP? If you have decent estimations of CP and W’ on intervals.icu or mFTP and FRC in WKO5, look to see if you went deep in the red this year moreso than last year. For me at least, that will affect my ability to put out power later in the race. Is there a longer climb late in the race that you can compare year over year?
At least make sure you’re doing a thorough comparison of your performance before you second guess your training.
Looking back, you’ve done a pretty good job with your training! Really nice work!
You had good length base, build, and specialty phases, so you likely had enough time with sustained work in the first two-thirds of your plan.
Your six-week average for TSS was in the upper 400s for the last 5-6 weeks leading up to Sea Otter, which is really solid. Maybe it’s not as much as last year, but this year’s training looks much steadier and consistent.
You were getting plenty of long rides in, especially during the final few weeks before your peak.
On top of all that, your FTP is the highest it’s ever been by a pretty long shot, and your calendar is littered with trophies representing new power PRs (1-2 a week going back well into 2025).
It’s hard to say what exactly went wrong during race day. Looking at the power curve, it appears that you had good restraint, paced things well, and had a pretty steady effort throughout.
Where did you feel the struggle during the race? Sea Otter is a hilly course, which can take it out of you.. How was your fueling leading up to the race and then during? Starting to crack late in a race is a fueling issue way more often than people think. You can only train with so many long rides, and fuel is most people’s safety net that stops the bleeding during those long, hard efforts.
Let me know your thoughts on this. I’d be happy to dig in a bit more, but from a training perspective, you did a lot right leading up to the race. You should feel good about that.
What about power over longer time periods? Depending on the course I see most gravel stuff rewarding sustained power a bit below FTP + course specific selection durations.
Post the stats (avg power, NP, IF, avg speed, distance) for last year and this year.
I just did a race where I finished in 2:19 this year vs 1:59 last year. At first I was bummed because I felt like my training was better this year. But then I thought about how much race conditions affected that. When I looked at my power numbers, I averaged 10 more watts this year. So I was indeed more fit and the slower time is just the wind and mud slowing everyone down this year (most finishing times were slower).
Unless you’re racing a solo event on an indoor velodrome, you can’t just compare finishing times. There’s too many variables in race conditions, group dynamics, drafting, equipment, etc. Looking at power year vs year will better tell you how your fitness compared. But there’s still caveats about fueling, freshness, pacing, etc.
I didn’t have a power meter last year, so its hard to compare. Despite the slower time, this year I felt less wrecked. I could have gone out on Sunday and done another lap.
