So I’ve been prepping for an event that comes up in 2.5 weeks. Been training really hard and trying to stay to the program as much as possible.
Recently (March 22-30) I decided to do a training camp since I had spring break. I ended up doing 22hrs over 9 days (two rest days). Everything went really well and I was actually surprised how good I felt at the end of it all. Last week, I did a recovery week where I rode 4 days, endurance, 7hrs, nothing crazy at all. I was feeling motivated and good about life…until last night lol.
Last night I was scheduled to do “Camas”. If you’re unfamiliar with the workout its 4 sets of short efforts lasting between 1-4 minutes at 100-123% FTP with very short, 30-second recoveries between intervals and recoveries between sets of intervals last 5 minutes each. I made it through the first set, but my legs huurrtt. I felt completely smoked. Like, imagine van der Poel in the 2019 road world championship…boom goes the dynamite. I started the next interval and decided that I was wasting my time and would be taking a step backwards if I kept pushing.
With that being said, I’m questioning whether it was just an off day or I’m still paying for the 22hr camp. My nutrition is fine. My sleep is sporadic due to have 5 month old twins (very well could be playing a part in all this). But who knows??
So where do I go from here? I’m going to attempt my scheduled Vo2 workout tomorrow (AI dialed it back a bit since I stated training fatigue was the reasoning behind my epic collapse) and see what happens. My two week taper should start next week so I really wanted to get some quality work in, but now I wondering if that is the best idea or even possible.
I know I rambled a bit, but thank you for any input. Please tell me it’s all going to be OK
At this point you should focus on the hard work you did. The hay is in the barn as they say and your body just needs time to absorb all that work. If it were me, I’d take it day by day and see how I feel for the next key workout. You’ll either feel great, ok, or not so great and just roll with it. With the amount of time left before your event, you should just focus on staying consistent. I’m sure your legs will come around.
First off, Camas is a pretty hard workout. 90 minutes at .92 IF isn’t easy, and the structure of this workout is particularly challenging in my opinion.
It looks like you’ve been in either a Build or Specialty phase since September of last year, which likely has something to do with your fatigue levels. Add in the recent training camp, and I can see why you might be a bit cooked.
It looks like sustained work in general has been pretty fatiguing for you recently, and you’ve had some cut-short workouts due to stress/intensity.
In my opinion, it might be wise to slim down a bit this week to ensure that you can enter your taper with full strength and ready for your race. You’ve got an absolutely massive workout scheduled for Friday, and I’d highly recommend replacing that with something less stressful. It might not hurt to push it off to Saturday or Sunday as well.
Regarding tomorrow’s workout, I’d wait to see how you feel in the morning, but similarly, replacing that workout with something a bit less taxing, like some 30/30s, could be a good way to keep some stimulus up without continuing to drive your energy levels down into the ground.
After your A race, I’d take at least two recovery weeks, and then when you’re ready to get back into training, start off with a Base phase. You need a break from all the hard work!
Let me know if you have any questions about this. I’d be happy to help out with anything I can!
Actually, I do have a question. You mentioned that I’ve been in build/specialty since September. I just tried building a new plan (starting May 13) for an event I’m doing in July, and it has me starting in build phase again. Is there a reason for that and how do I make it start in a base phase? attached photo for reference
EDIT: Nevermind. It appears my next goal is too close to May 13 for it to incorporate a build phase. I’m guessing that’s what happened when I created a plan back in September and then again for this upcoming event.
Don’t feel bad that is a classic insane trainerroad workout that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. It’s essentially a 13m threshold effort with 5m of rest this is not a good jumping off point for someone building up because the repeatability of threshold AND the rest interval both need to be trained and TR has this habit of progressing you through levels that have one of those elements but then assuming that you can now somehow do both.
IE you need to build the time in zone at around threshold over time so that you can handle 20m 30m 40m 50m total with greater than 1:1 rest, and then also train the ability to do this much threshold work with 1:1 rest or less.
I had a similar experience in my build where TR basically progressed me from a 4.3 called frissel +3 which is 7x9m just below FTP with 5m rest in between a few weeks later im on a 7.0 called melbreak which is about 20m straight with a fair bit of supra threshold and a 2m rest in the middle, basically way too long of an interval to repeat again with 5m of rest. It does scale down duration by 2m so the second set is around 18m of time in zone but still you need to train a lot to be doing 2x20m with 5m of rest, professional riders are doing these efforts with like 45m+ in between.
It’s a biproduct of trying to make 1 hr workout out of something that should probably be more like 3h.
Honestly what you probably should have done is retested you FTP and let that nuke your progression levels so it gives you something more realistic like 5x5m at your new FTP which is like 6w higher
Yeah, if there isn’t a ton of time between now and your next event, Plan Builder will sometimes only have enough time for some Build and Specialty training. This does depend on a few things, though, and if you ever have issues with this moving forward, let me know. There might be a few levers I can pull to get things set up how you’d like them.
@slrservice workouts like Camas are in a different category/discipline than sustained work. These types of workouts are typically found in plans with higher anaerobic focus, such as XCO and XCM. I’ve run through a progression of Threshold workouts that have worked up to Camas in the past going something like La Dama Blanca, Robion, Calhoun, and then Camas.
This was also after a build-up of specific surgey Threshold workouts like the Whiteleaf family, and similar, VO2 workouts like ones in the Mills family.
I’ve looked back at your plan, and it looks like neither of those workouts you mentioned were prescribed by a TR plan at the time. Did you hand-pick those? It looks like you have a plan in place, but you very rarely use the suggested workouts. This could be what’s causing some bumps in the road for you. Let me know if you’d like to take a closer look together!
Lastly, I definitely don’t think @daness40’s FTP is too high right now, and with them being only a couple of weeks out from their A race, I wouldn’t recommend that they perform a fitness test of update their FTP given their recent training history.
I basically did the same thing this week. I didn’t have a training camp, but I’ve been doing a lot and finished last weekend with 4 races. My A race is in a few weeks with the 2 week taper starting Monday. Did miserably on my first hard workout for this week on Tuesday. Fwiw, this prompted my coach to scrap the next hard workout in favor of endurance and wait for the weekend to push things again. She’s not worried, so I won’t be either. It will be ok. Err on the side of rest. And good luck!
Yeah, after having a couple days to process it, I think I’m going to be fine. I took @eddiegrinwald 's advice and changed my workout today from 4x5min to some 30/30s and bumped my last intensity day to Sunday. Monday will begin taper for me and I’ll just roll from there.
I think the shock factor was in the fact that I actually believed I could do it heading into the workout lol. Obviously that wasn’t the case
My mistake it’s totally possible . Feels like such a long time ago might have been me might have been train now suggestions that I pushed around. good news is the races have been going good. I do like to design my own key efforts to be more specific to races I know I will be doing/
Dont let one bad session discourage you from your goal. Set your next session to be a lower intensity, something you know you can complete.
Ive made the mistake a number of time of letting a bad day get to me, and getting into the wrong mindset can throw my riding for a week, regardless of physical condition.
