Hi, I quite fancy trying that. Do you use TrainerRoad for this? If so, what do you use - Plan Builder, or do you just pick the workouts yourself? Thanks.
Currently in my second week off the bike and back to training next tuesday.
Priority is building gym strength over the next 3 months so minimum 2 gym sessions and aiming for 3.
Whilst the weather is still good will be long endurance at weekends and a single sweetspot / tempo workout during week. Loosely following a trainerday plan for the next 3 months which is old school traditional base.
Will most likely switch to TR in Jan about 5 months out from my first A event.
Not a believer in contining to bash out Vomax / threshold through base periods.
Not saying that you need to fill a week with these, but my experience is that it is best to at least touch these zones regularly throughout the year. Take 3-4 months off of any type of this work isn’t great, especially for older cyclists.
I’m on the older side but find it impossible juggle the lower body strength training with hard threshold / VOmax. For me a single quality sweetspot and plenty of endurance / tempo on the road keeps me ticking over until the new year.
I started with TR, then sort of based of the plans they had, built my own. Once you understand the basics of progressive overload and what your own body responds to, you can build a simple plan that works. I always found the TR workouts to have too much fluff, that is, a 20 minute SST interval would have undulations or small 2-3W steps. I just wanted a simple 20min block interval. There is a TR team called “More SweetSpot” that has a ton of prebuilt workouts. I used that to just increase TiZ.
I keep it simple: increase TiZ until I hit my goal, then move to next block. 3 hard workouts per week until I hit 80min TiZ, then its 2 hard workouts per week until I hit 120min.
If you want a really simple plan, you could structure an entire year just repeating: SweetSpot, VO2, Threshold. Over and over. But I usually do one iteration of this over the winter then do some specific race stuff like sprint training and anaerobic work. Then move into maintenance for the season which is usually 1 Threshold workout and 1 other (VO2 or SweetSpot alternating). If I have a race I sub that for 1 workout so its still 2 hard days per week.
Again, for me its all about simplicity. I keep it simple and easy to follow. 2 hard workouts a week, the rest easy. Weeks alternate 1 Threshold, 1 VO2 & 1 Threshold, 1 SweetSpot.
I’ve done this the past 4 years or so except this current year where I haven’t done much training at all due to some life stuff (new job, moving, etc).
I hate the end of summer because it always feels like it goes too fast. Having said that, once I give in to Mother Nature it’s an enjoyable time of year.
- October: Whatever weather allows. Segments!
- November: One or two weeks off. Some stretching (yuck) and maybe light strength work.
- December: Base work build up. Strength work 3x per week (kettle bells, body weight work like pull ups, push ups, rings, etc).
- January - Feb: Steady base & often structured training. Strength (x3 wk).
- March - April: Continued base with more focused structured training. Strength (x3 wk).
- May - Sept: All the fun stuff! Unfortunately, the strength work decreases to 2x wk down to nothing.
Personally, I just try to be all around more fit and just love riding my bike.
Every year has been a bit different, but I’ve got a good idea of what I’ll do. For background, I’m on my fourth plan of the year and my next and last A-event is in 3 weeks. I’ve been good about following the plan in my own way and I’m not burnt out. I’m still a bit excited to do workouts balanced with having fun and exploring on my mtb and gravel bikes.
After my A event in 3 weeks (mid October) I’ll get my gym membership going and start with 3 strenth sessions a week until the end of January. I’ll take two weeks (maybe mroe) of unstructured riding during the last two weeks of October and have fun mountain biking and working on skills.
November and December will be dedicated to more traditional base training with a lot of tempo and sweet spot mixed in with some fun punchy rides, figuring on 5 rides a week about 9-11 hours. There will be an emphasis on some low cadence high torque stuff to keep things interesting. I’ll be working on transferring some gym work to the bike.
January. Being that my A-event is mid April and I have a week of with my kiddo the week of New Years, I won’t drop a plan until the first week of 2027. That’ll give me 15 weeks to Base>Build>Specialize and Taper which is perfect. I get too mentally tired with more than 4 months of one plan. My available time to ride is pretty much 8-12 hour a week which Has been enough for me this year.
As far as weight loss is concerned, if I’m going to do it an anytime it will be between December and January and maybe a bit of February. If I don’t gain any weight (we’ll see) then I won’t have to lose much. I’d much rather put on some muscle which is part of my gym plan. Trying to get some tree trunk thighs for next season.
I’m not planning for anything after that.
Yeah, I definitely mix in outdoor winter riding. Where I live, we usually have snow on the ground from late Nov / early Dec until mid April. All my longer weekend rides on are the trails on my fatbike. I have been following a TR plan mainly for my weekday Z2 and harder rides - tempo/SS/Thresh.
A typical winter program for me would look like:
Monday: Off
Tues: SS on trainer
Wed: z2 on trainer or fatbike outside
thurs: O/Us on trainer
Fri: z2 on trainer or fatbike outside
Sat: long trail ride on fatbike 3-4 hours
Sun: medium trail ride on fatbike 2 -3 hours
I also focus on slow fat loss during this phase. By spring I’m at a good weight and very good base fitness. I was around 4.8 w/kg in May this year at 50 years old, so pretty solid.
Pretty solid? You would be a weapon nationally in the 50+, at least in the US, especially if you have a good sprint.
From now until January, lots of zone 2 work, strength training and some cyclocross.
Maybe TR again in January if stuff gets fixed.
Not the greatest flat sprint as I’m only 63kg at race weight, but I have a very good kick off 1-3 minutes of high power - I’m more of a puncheur
For most events it is power / cda that matters most, not power / kg.
Thanks for the insight!
Edited to shorten my question: Can you provide some insight into how you test and optimize your CdA, and what your current CdA is and how you got there?
Oh dear, did not mean to trigger a melt down 
Well you said that power / cda matters most, so I believed you could share a bit more info on how to improve it through testing and optimization, as we all do for power and weight.
There’s ton’s of info online about aero optimization, but in general, I’d try changing clothing, helmet, position, and bike components to see if you have any areas of improvement.
You can get a reasonable idea of CdA (at least relative to a baseline) using the Chung method. Or if you have money to spend, schedule some time on a track or wind tunnel with some aero experts.
Which software utilizing Chung method calculations do you find to be the most accurate and easiest to use?
I’ve never done it. But I’ve heard good things about Golden Cheetah. I think WKO5 does it as well?
I’ll try Golden Cheetah. I have WKO5 but it doesn’t look like it can build a chart using the Chung method. Thanks!
Here you go.