Hi, I want to run the Gigante de Piedra race in Spain in 2027. It’s 200 km with 6500 meters of elevation gain, and the maximum time limit is 17 hours. I want to create a training plan, and I’ve put this race as option A. Shorter but more demanding races in my area, around 40 km with 1000 meters of elevation gain, are listed as option C. I plan to do three 1-hour indoor cycling sessions per week, with the option of outdoor rides when I have more time, plus one weekend ride with my mountain biking group. My question is about choosing the training intensity: where to select “moderate,” “tempo,” “uncomfortable,” “hard,” “very hard,” etc. I chose option 6, “Uncomfortable,” but I’m not sure if I made the right choice. The race prioritizes endurance over high intensity. Could someone help me with this? Thanks.
None of them. Ride outside and do some hills. It’s MTB, the trainer won’t help with skills nor technical climbing. Just ride your MTB back-to-back multiple long days.
I will say that indoor sessions will immensely benefit your endurance. technical skills will enable your endurance. Are you new to the structured training? If you are , even lower balanced or moderate approach will have best result. I would add some strength and core training, it is so much important for MTB. As others say do not kill your great endurance and fitness with “meh” technical skills. If you are new to structured training you can gain a lot of watts.
Read through Leadville threads you should find more training tips.
Yes, I’m new to this type of training; I only do mountain biking. I have no problems with technique, but I lack the stamina to be on the bike for so many hours with that distance and accumulated elevation gain. With two small children, I’ve had to set up a trainer and I’m using the Zwift app, plus the TrainerRoad workouts.
With the limited training time during the week, I’d definitely try to make all 3 of those trainer sessions has “heavy” as possible. If just starting your season, I’d start with the 3 short sweet spot sessions per week for base, then shift to sweet spot/vo2max mix for build 1 and then to threshold/sweet spot for build 2 (at that point, it’s really 2 hard threshold workouts and the 1 hour of sweet spot should feel like an easy day by then). And obviously push that weekend ride as long as possible, but try not to make it a smash fest. Ideally, that long ride would mimic a steady race effort (as similar to the event as possible) and you can also use it to test fueling. And as fun as group rides can be, you might consider breaking off and doing some long solo efforts if your group ride doesn’t align with good training structure. That’s how I’d structure a plan for a race like that, but TR will lay something out that may or may not be similar. Regardless of whether you take the TR recommended workouts exactly or modify some of the workouts, the biggest difference in results will be just doing the work and being consistent. As already mentioned in another post, you should see a big improvement in power/endurance if you are new to structured training.
If you are talking about the intensity of the race when you put it on your calendar, I’d say it doesn’t matter that much (particularly for a race that long). I think it just uses that to guestimate the TSS for the event. And a 17 hour event certainly won’t be raced above endurance for most of it, so I’d probably mark it “moderate”.
Consistency is your best friend. As father myself i understand you. If you have the recovery and sleep do harder workouts, i had great success with 2x sweet spot and 1 threshold doing this for months ended up burned out /not only from bike related reasons/, i should have followed masters plan. You have plenty of time to train until next year. During this period you would learn more about yourself and what works for you. I would love an update.
Hey @I.M !! The Gigante de Piedra sounds exciting!
Definitely get on structured training, aka, a training plan 
You will need to strengthen the energy systems needed for these type of events, and the most efficient way is through structured work. That said, you will want to also work on skills and throw in your occasional long endurance rides to test out the bike, gear, nutrition and hydration.
I like what you have set up right now for a training plan, + dynamic endurance will gradually build you up to longer rides. Since you have quite a bit of time to build up towards your A Event, you can always use the Check Volume feature to see about adding more volume.
As far as this bit goes, do you mean how to rate the race effort? I would probably say a 17 hours XC-Marathon is pretty uncomfortable, haha
My question is about choosing the training intensity: where to select “moderate,” “tempo,” “uncomfortable,” “hard,” “very hard,” etc. I chose option 6, “Uncomfortable,” but I’m not sure if I made the right choice.
Yes, I meant that when creating the training plan, I was hesitating between using the app’s “moderate,” “tempo,” “uncomfortable,” “hard,” and “very hard” options for preparing for such a long race, and I couldn’t find any section on TrainerRoad explaining what each one meant. The goal is to finish within the maximum time allowed, which is 17 hours (obviously, I’d like to finish in 15 and not push it so hard, haha). In the end, I’ve set it as “uncomfortable”: three one-hour indoor cycling sessions (when I’m home with the kids) plus a group ride on the weekend, which are quite long and intense. Then, on days when I can, I’ll replace an indoor cycling session with a long ride in Zone 2 or a solo mountain bike ride. I’ll have to push hard.
Thanks to everyone for replying.
Ever the empiricist, I’d just try all the different options and see what difference (if any) it makes to the resulting plan. 