Hilly Road Race - Plan Builder

Evening All,
I am based in Australia and as you know things are looking better here and we are able to ride now in groups outside. There has been an event released last week which will occur in 6 months which is a 135km ride with 2770m of climbing.
I want to use trainerroad to prepare me for it. I have entered the ride as an A Event in the calendar, nominated Mid Volume 6-9 hrs per week , Intermediate experience and the specialty as rolling road race mid volume.
This event is going to take me in excess of 6 hrs, so what i would like to know is that since the longest trainerroad workout is 2 hrs, do i need to also do some long rides prior to the race to prepare myself for the long ride. I think of doing 4 - 6 long rides replacing one of the workout in trainer road closer to the event ie last 2 months.
I am confident i will get an increase in FTP, and develop good endurance through the trainerroad plan but I am concerned if i just stick to the TR plan i will fall short because of the time on the bike required to finish the ride.

Thanks Shane

Hi Shane
I think that for these kind of length, you might be better served by the century plan.
Adding extra long rides should help, too, but it’s not an absolute necessity.
There are plenty of threads on the forum that address this exact point:

Are all examples of people going through similar thought processes.

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Hi

Every event that i do is 200km + with 2500m of climbing. I Follow the century plans, Base sweet spot training mainly. Although i do the build stuff too. After 12 weeks of following the plan, I add 1 to 2 50 mile rides per week swapping out TR session. Pacing for the hills will be the main thing get used to riding at 80% and not cooking it. Have fun , get a song ( My song for riding just now is, We did’nt start the Fire, since the worlds been turning :-))

Thanks C10oky,
Very good points i will swap out to the century plan. I have a hills playlist on spotify and allows me to switch off.

Safe riding

Thanks Holybinch. I will definitely change the specialty to century.

Safe riding

Definitely a good idea to do some 4+ hour rides in the build-up.

Due to lockdown I’ve been doing quite high volume training, but not many individual rides over 2 hours. Yesterday, with measures relaxed a little, I did 4 hours for the first time in a while, and it was quite a shock how hard it was. It isn’t just the muscular endurance in your legs that suffers - it’s your core, your back, your arms, your comfort on the saddle, how well-fitted your shoes and cleats are, your fuelling, your hydration. The TR plans can definitely get you fit enough but I’m not sure they can totally prepare you for the other challenges of long rides.

Assuming you do the longer ride on the weekend, you’ll want to swap out the other weekend workout for something easier and/or shorter.

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Thanks Martinheadon, i will swap out the longer rides for TR workout for the saturday or sunday.