Next Saturday, gonna visit friend 200km further up. Thought could go by bike: wind and temps seem perfect. It’s the end of first half of MV build. But… how can I best shuffle my trainings around to fit it in? Any recommendations?
I would definitely skip Elephants, not worth going into a big ride like that on tired legs and maybe drop the Thursday workout down to a “-“ version that is an hour long.
It really depends on how much experience you have doing long rides, if not much it’s better to err on the side of being recovered for it if you don’t know how your body does at those distances.
My approach would be to do it in place of the Saturday workout and if you need the recovery ditch the Sunday one. I wouldn’t overthink it.
Do on sunday an endurance ride and drop elephants
Thanks for all the input! What would be more important in terms of build: carpathian or elephants. So I’ll do one of those on Thursday, take Friday off, and do my 200km on Saturday, and perhaps an easier Sunday workout depending on RPE and stats after my Sat ride.
It’s my specialty. But… I don’t do this DURING build. Even though IF is low, it’s still a lot of TSS.
I’d move the Sat and Sun workouts to Mon and Tue. On Sunday schedule an easy 1 hour recovery spin. I was out on a 200km ride yesterday. Enjoy.
My suggestion would be to drop Elephants, shift Pettit to Sunday as a recovery ride, cut Carpathian Peak and Tray Mountain to the minus variants (45-60 minutes) and shuffle them to Wednesday and Thursday.
If 200k is a stretch for you do a full taper for it. The big ride will be enough stimulus for you.
As I’m training for ultra-endurance events, I often find myself doing long rides on the week-ends. What I found worked the best: the previous day I do an easy, endurance/recovery ride or (even better) I go for a run; the following day is either rest (since I feel I would not be enjoying the turbo trainer) or a recovery ride outside. After big week-ends (2 days of 150+km) I often feel like I need 2 rest days, the second one often with a run.
I usually don’t ponder too much about which workout(s) I’ll drop, as I figure that a 200+km ride is as good as any workout. The only thing is that I make sure I still have 2 intensity workouts during the week (usually Tue and Thu).
What @HLaB said…ditch Elephants in Saturday and replace with the 200km ride. If needed take Sunday as a recovery day.
It is perfectly OK to substitute a long endurance ride in place of a shorter, intense weekend ride…even advisable in many cases. Don’t feel like you need to “make up” that particular ride. Just do the endurance ride as a substitute.
Possible bad advice here, but I’d do the hard workout on the Saturday, then the 200 on the Sunday! You don’t really need fresh legs to go at sensible 200 pace and I do ‘hard Sat, easy longer Sun’ as a general rule on the weekends anyway (side note, this seems to be an ideal recipe for a mega successful FTP test the following Tuesday…)
If it’s your first 200 and/or very tough probably ignore the above though, this is my ‘it’s only a 200’ perspective having done multiple RTTY rides and SR series - makes a 200 essentially the equivalent of what Plan Builder would call a ‘C race’.
Also a reasonable scenario…especially since Monday is likely a recovery day anyway.
Only thing I don’t see discussed here is how cooked are you from all the previous weeks of Build? Many report loads of fatigue from these programmes and 3-4 hard sessions per week and it ADDS UP!
If you feel good then I wouldn’t overthink it and maybe just dial down Carpathian a little, but if the previous weeks have been building a lot fo fatigue for you then maybe a little more rest before and after.
Again it also depends on how you plan to ride the 200km? If you plan to do 6hrs its a very different ride than doing 9hrs…
Thanks for all the input, it always amazes me how supportive people are around here.
I tried to do 200km rides (training for 350) every Sunday in Build, since Monday is off (on mid volume plan). Was just a bit to tough for me, so I haven’t done long Z2 rides for the last three weeks (first half of build).
Yeah, that’s also what I do then. Always afraid I am not doing enough work to grow my FTP.
I think this may be the best way forward. Plus, I can add some intensity on top at the end. I typically try to accelerate a bit and go for Zone 3-4 (Tempo // Threshold) when I am halfway through my endurance ride when it’s a one-off event.
Fatigue definitely adds up, but I have very good neuromuscular endurance. So however hard I train, I seem to always have some room left for Z2 rides. But I cannot keep doing 3x threshold/vo2 workouts per week for weeks on end. I really need my recovery week in-between.
About 6-7 hours excluding 3 breaks, aiming for 25-27 km/h average (about 130-170 watts NP).
Did my 200km (29.8kmh, 6h43, 169W NP, FTP 237 but before retesting after first half of build so probably bit higher) yesterday instead of Elephants + 4. Finished Carpathian Peak +1 on Thursday, and took whole Friday off and did some carb loading. Went perfectly fine, felt fresh even after 200km. Finished today with a 65km ride instead of Tray Mountain to recover (mostly zone 2, bit zone 3 or tempo/sweet spot, but HR not much above 135-138, which is recovery for me).
Thanks for all the great advice!
Well done. How many TSS was that, about 275 ?
A bit more… intervals says it’s 346.
Wow super flat.
True, welcome to the Netherlands 
However… it also means headwinds are REALLY strong here.
Or strong tailwinds 
