I have subbed in some standardized and repeated workouts that I can adjust once I’m actually in the season. I find that any sort of progression or ramp rate stalls once September hits and my primary goal is to race once per weekend, do a HIT ride or Tuesday night CX race early in the week, and then work in some FTP work occasionally.
My biggest enemy is my willingness to do too much intensity. I’ve never been guilty of doing too little intensity.
Ok, I’m around 310w and can hold FTP for 50-55min. I don’t know what your TTE is, I know I don’t need to do too much FTP maintenance in-season. I like one big SS or FTP workout once ever other week. For me that’s 3x20, 2x30, 6x12, etc.
I could definitely work on my ftp. I’ve been a lazy bum for a couple of years and just roamed the countryside. I’m capable of 320w if I put some effort in.
I like your combination of threshold and SS workouts. Look scary hard though!
Well, I just did 307 avg /322 normalized for 47 min and it was tough, but if I back that down to ~295-300w I think 60-75 min of work is totally accomplishable.
Inspired by this, how about SSBHV 2 for 6 weeks prior to the season? Seems like HV gives true sweetspot and I could make 2 of the workouts key sessions with one optional or swapped for an LSD.
From Sept I could sub in a threshold workout and keep a SS. Those two plus a race and a cx group session would be plenty to continue building.
Hold on! I’m going down a rabbit hole here! I mustn’t forget that I train by how I’m feeling day to day these days. Need to listen to my body.
However there are key points raised:
Do we all generally agree that working on aerobic conditioning prior to and during the season is the smartest thing to do? Making the assumption that we’ll be doing at least one race or hard cx session each week.
Would we think that SS, Threshold or a combination of the two is the safest way to achieve this?
3 sessions a week prior to the season, 2 during, 1 on important race weeks? Nice and simple.
Bit of bike porn for you: Team bike from 2013/14 season. Ridley x night SL. Has Tom M stickered onto the frame.
It’s my dry grass bike with file treads then I’ll switch over to Baby Limus later in the season.
Haha I did a swig of fireball at the start line of a gravel race, and it was either the smartest or dumbest decision I’ve made in a while. A little liquid courage had me cornering on sketchy bits at speeds a bit outside my usual comfort zone.
I deffo have to work on sweetspot/FTP, it’s my weakness more than short power. However, before the season, three sessions like that will be too much for me, and I’d also like to do at least one with cross-specific effort (starts, banks).
If I’d manage one 2x20 etc sessions, one cx workout, and then probably one club ride and one chaingang ride (which is basically over unders for me) , then I’d be happy. Need to actually do that though!
Inspired by last night’s conversation, I got up at 4am and did a 1hr SS workout on the turbo. Nice to get it done before breakfast whilst it is cool and my energy levels are good.
Got me second guessing myself now, is there any reason not to just work through SS Base / Short Power Build / Cyclocross speciality per the standard TR progression? Are people finding this to not be the best approach or am I misunderstanding?
I’m taking this approach, think I posted above I’m in week 6 of short power HV and today I did a good workout of 45sec on at 123%, 45sec off in recovery, repeated 14 times per set. Definitely feel like i’m getting the right type of training. I think some folks felt burned out by prior iterations of plans. I’m doing AT so I’m getting good workouts that are a good balance of work and not beyond my current capabilities. I don’t plan on doing specialty throughout the whole season, mainly through Sept, because I think you don’t want to overwork during the week and underperform at the races. But I think short power and CX specialty will prepare us for the demands of a race.
I’d much rather do cx-specific work outdoors that involves actually riding my bike and also getting in some run-training. This is something you cannot accomplish with a TR plan. I cannot over-state this.
With regard to the TR CX Specialty plan, I cannot imagine doing 8-weeks of Anaerobic/VO2 work coming into a CX season, assuming I’m going to have 5-7 race weeks following. That would introduce an UNREAL amount of fatigue. Even on low-volume there would have to be a point where you’d want to touch up your threshold after doing so much high-end work. I don’t know, just doesn’t seem like a well thought out approach.
From my experience I’m very wary of burnout during cx season. From Sept to Feb in a normal year in the UK there’s a potential 18 regional races, 5 National Trophy and a Nat Champs. To make it to the end as the weather gets harder and harder, you need to come into it raring to go rather than already tired from 6 weeks of short power build or cx specialty.
I appreciate everyone’s different though
I started weekly skills sessions back in May. Helps that I organise them for our club. We build a course, taped and everything, utilising some wickedly steep banks as well as flatter grassy areas.
At the beginning of the session no one can ride the crux features but then after many goes one of the kids will manage it and unlock the key to it. By the end of the session most will have ridden it and then we do a relay race with two teams.
It’s brilliant fun and really pushes you.
Great thread. I realized that the “A” crit I had based my plan on isn’t happening this year, so I redid it based on making the first weekend of CX my new A. It’s got me in the middle of short power build, which feels about right. Got a lot of VO2max work coming up in the next two weeks. I’ll try to do as much of it outside as possible.
