Is it possible to train for a crit and DK200 at the same time?

Training
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I am planning to train for the state championship crit on may 17 and DK 200 13 days later. The state crit will be 2 races on the same day, about 70 minutes each race roughly 3 hours apart. Dk200 is 13 days later…

I ditched my coach and got a wahoo kickr. I just started my sweet spot base low volume plan to start getting warmed up to training on on trainer while still riding outside (mostly group rides with high intensity) 2 days a week and occasionally a MTB XC races on a Sunday (its currently MTB season in FL)

Do I have enough time? Is it possible to train for these 2 events that will have different demands at the same time?

Anything helps

Thanks in advance!

Renan

3

If just improving your fitness counts as training for both, I would look at doing something like SSB/base/etc → general build

It likely won’t be as specific fitness for the events, but if you improve your FTP it would improve almost all your zones, which will be possible.

4

Pick your “A” race and train for that. The other will be carry-over fitness from your A race training.

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5

We had a few people race Kanza and then travel to Tulsa Tough a week later and race well. You’ll be fine.

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…including the winner of DK200

7

This^

Colin shows up to the local crits before dk200 and then raced the fixed crit at Tulsa the following weekend.

He may or may not be riding a century before the crit though.

Just recover and eat all the foods.

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8

The issue with using high level athletes as examples is that they train with much higher volume, regardless of their specialization, and with volume comes endurance.

For someone like me who does 450-500 TSS per week in 5-6 hours, it would be tough to build sufficient endurance for DK200 while working on short power for XC and crits.

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9

Your ability to build short power is relatively fixed; ie. you can only do so much FRC/VO2max work in a week. Your biggest limiter is going to be endurance on that much training per week for DK200, so you either survive DK based on what you have, or you add lower intensity volume onto the vo2 intervals you will be doing anyway to try and build aerobic/endurance base.
Ex. go do your crit workouts, then add 30/60/75min whatever you can spare on afterwards at tempo zone. You should see some good adaptions from that which should carry over.
And then make sure you are getting at least one long ride (4hrs) per week at endurance zone just to keep that engine going.

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Over the summer my training gave me an increase in short power where all my training had been for rolling road race, granted I spent a fair amount in the hills leading to my A race. It was a flat race but I wanted to increase my absolute power.
The crit I wanted to race was cancelled but anecdotally I felt far stronger than last year over both one hour and 6 hours and feel I would have had a good showing.

In answer to your question can you do both - well lots of riders here do all of the above, mtb, road and crit and the fast guys are generally fast in all events.
XC MTB is broadly very similar to a crit from an effort point of view as in its flat out from the start till the end.
DK I haven’t done but it’s on my bucket list but I assume the endurance required is huge and I’d also imagine if you are doing ultra events at x% then you can do shorter events at x+%, I will admit this comes down to individual ability.

Edit: I reluctantly also skipped my main xc race as it was 7 days after my A race and I have spent no time on the mtb so my skills were way off, apart from that, fitness wise I was up for it