Cyclocross plan with weekly race series

Racing
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I’m trying to build a plan for the rest of my cyclocross season. If I pick a “low volume” plan, I get recommended to do 2 VO2/anaerobic workouts, a sweetspot workout, and a race each week. That’s totally unsustainable. There doesn’t seem to be a way to tell TR that my Sunday races I’m programming in as race pace races are at race pace and race difficulty, so cool your jets the rest of the week.

What gives here?

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For starters, Plan Builder is not that smart to handle stuff like we would hope/expect it to do. We have to hand hold it a bit for examples like this. I can’t say for sure this will work, but:

  • Start by setting your CX races on the calendar as C races (maybe B?) which means they are low priority in the eyes of TR (despite what you think).
  • Then in Plan Builder, make sure to set one of your “hard” workout days of the week, on the same day as your C level CX races.
  • This will trigger PB to swap/substitute that race for the planned workout that would happen if you didn’t have a race scheduled.

For the rest of your schedule, keep in mind that TR is not mind reading or doing magic work here. Consider if and when to either skip or downgrade your other scheduled workouts in that week. Use the “Alternates” function as appropriate as well as fully manual swaps or even fully skip a workout. Sadly, this level of manual work is required in the current implementation.

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I built my plan a long time ago, penciling in when I thought races were going to be. The cross LV specialty phase template has 3 workouts a week, usually 2 V02 max/one anaerobic. Designating A/B/C races helps. From now until first week of December, there are only 3 weekends with no races at all, and 2/3 have races Saturday and Sunday. For weeks where there’s 2 races, there are only two workouts scheduled; if it’s a C race and only one day, there’s usually a workout on the other day but I just do what Chad suggested and change. For B races, the workout intensity is usually lower, and there’s frequently a 3rd opener scheduled. If your races are just Sundays, try labeling them all as B races.

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Hello @thefutureofamerica :slight_smile:

It looks like you’ve updated your plan to @mcneese.chad recommendations and it’s actually looking pretty good. With these many races during your weekends, they should most definitely be considered as part of your training.

You have enough recovery in between races and workouts that you should be OK, but if, for whatever reason, you are feeling fatigued going into your next scheduled TR Workout after a race weekend, consider moving the workout to the following day, skipping it entirely, choosing a Workout Alternate to lower the intensity or even picking a workout from TrainNow to spin the legs out. Ideally you’ll want to be able to maintain fresh legs from now until the end of the season, so watch your fatigue levels and rest when needed. :slight_smile:

P.S: LOVE that you’re racing Cross!!

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