I follow a very similar approach, long tempo rides around .75IF with a ton of climbing are my bread and butter leading into leadville. Translates to high endurance/low temp on the flats and high tempo/low sweet spot on the climbs (very similar to leadville). .75IF is also right around my target for the race (adjusted for altitude).
Also, I’d agree with the comments from @BCM on the recovery weeks and keep the TSS below ~50% of your typical week.
On the volume question, my biggest concern about the ~130 CTL right now would be how high you intend to peak. If you intend to peak at 140, Id say you are coming in too hot and probably need to step back. If you intend to keep ramping CTL for another 3+ months, you could end up a bit too close to the sun if it’s not very gradual. If you know you can easily carry 130+ for a long time, maybe not an issue. But at some point you risk going into the death zone. You can build fitness there, but not for too long and it’s risky. Ideally, you want a gradual build to the top (and then time to come down a bit prior to the race). There is no big benefit to just “hanging out” at a high CTL, the goal should be to keep building or coming down a bit to shed fatigue.
Last year, I felt like I was over-reaching a bit in April, hitting ~140 CTL by the end of April. And that was kind of the plan, I extended my last build block by an extra week and had a stage race to cap it off. And then I allowed CTL to drop all the way to ~120 going into Unbound. It always stresses me out when I back off for that long before a race, but it’s served me really well at Unbound the last 2 years. But that is a different kind of race compared to Leadville since it requires more punch for the first 4+ hours and then settles into endurance for another 7-8 hours. Anyways, that’s what has worked for me and it all comes back to waling the line of overreaching and potentially overtraining and also just the potential burnout from trying to ramp for 6+ months.
Here’s my high level ramp for the last 12 months, basically building to ~140ctl, taper to ~120 for Unbound. A couple easy weeks and build back up to ~130 for Leadville and then taper back to ~120 for leadville (which is actually hard to quantify because I’m in leadville at altitude for 2 weeks prior).
I can generally carry 130 no problem and maintain this level. My goal is to hit 175 in July right before Silver Rush and drop it back to about 155 for Leadville - maybe that’s asking too much. I’ve always read that it’s better to be 10% undertrained than 1% overtrained so I’m going to pay close attention over the next month to the ramp and see how I respond and reassess.
I think I’ll probably drop my iF down for the first half of Leadville and see how I feel at the turnaround and hopefully pick it up on the way back into town.
I’m in Leadville for close to 3 weeks prior so intensity will naturally drop but I still plan to drive down lower and do my intense sessions down there and sleep back up in town..
If you race Gravel and have any interest in Unbound, consider joining me at Unbound next year. Big volume pays big dividends at that race in my experience. Lots of folks with big FTP’s tend to fade pretty bad at that race due to the length. Gives the old diesels like me a shot.
That is some impressive load! I know I can’t handle nearly that much but we are all different. I do strongly second what BCM said, make sure you are recovering on your recovery weeks.
Right now I do 3 weeks on 1 week off with a 2 on 1 off if life/work/training has comboed to effect me more than expected. My recovery weeks are approximately 60% normal in terms of time on bike and 40% in terms of TSS. I went ‘big’ on the off season and have slowly been gaining fitness. Hovering around 70 CTL now and thinking I’ll peak around 90 if I could guess pre race.
Did anyone have crew last year that moved between Outward Bound and Twin Lakes via the shuttle? Here’s my question:
Assuming I am on a sub 10 hr pace, is it possible for a buddy to be at Outward Bound on my outbound leg, catch the shuttle and beat me to Twin Lakes? Same on the return? I have heard in some dated podcasts that it is doubtful but I’ve heard nothing definitive from people who have tried it. With the shuttles now having two years of wrinkles removed, I’m interested in the likelihood.
Not looking for advice like “use neutral aid” or “prep a plan b”. I got all that. Just looking for some ground truth from people who have tried it last year.
Damn, reading about some of you guys is intimidating. I’ve been doing 9-10 hour weeks so far, but planning on ramping up to 10-12. Most of that time is on the trainer indoors (only 1-2 outdoor rides/week) due to family/kids/etc.
This thread can be a little discouraging when you hear how much others are able to train. Realize you do not need a crazy CTL to do well at LT100. My first year I trained about the same as what you listed and my CTL peaked at 90. I did taper too much and it dropped to 72 but still came in under 9 hours with lots of issues during the race. Last year I trained more and it peaked at 110 and tapered to 98 with a sub-8 time.
I do think you want to shoot to be over 80 CTL before Leadville but lots of riders come in below 100 CTL and do really well. There are benefits when getting over 100 but I think the gains start to shrink the higher you get, plus risk of burnout and injury increase.
I can see why it’s discouraging. Behind all the exceptional athletes here are people who want to help you succeed. And you get to define what success looks like.
So use this thread as a valuable database for how people prepare for this race. There isn’t a better resource on the internet for this.
Agreed to all that has been said. No better resource out there for a wide variety of Leadville experiences and expertise to be shared.
I don’t even use Trainerroad but come to these forums just for this thread each year.
My wife will be targeting a buckle (11:59 for her is the same as 10:59). Some advice based on her experiences is that pre riding the course is invaluable. She did Stage Race a couple of years ago and that gave her the confidence that a 1 day is possible. Time, and most importantly energy, saved by being familiar on the descents goes a long way.
If I could guess, she’ll likely top out at around 70 CTL with normal training weeks being 9-10 hours and the occasional stretch weeks in the 12-13 hour range. Tomorrow will be a beautiful day and we’ll be doing her first 5 hour ride of the year on gravel together. Taking off work!
Late response but just seeing this. I have 5 of the 150ml hydraflasks that I put 110g carbs in each. I also have a couple of their 350ml flasks that I put two hours of gel in each (220g).
Let’s push all the trAI complaints down the page (although I really think the solution there is simple, maybe one day I’ll chime in on another thread).
How is everyone’s training coming along? What are you planning on focusing on in the next 4-6 weeks?
Still build phase for me. I’m hitting Threshold and Over/Under work now for another week. Then a week off followed by long threshold / sweet spot work through the end of May. Then Camp and race fitness / specialty work through the end of July.
Not sure my FTPis quite back to where I was last year yet, but getting close and my endurance pace is faster and CTL higher for this time of year, so feeling optimistic I may be faster.
My Leadville training is basically my leftover fitness from my Unbound training (plus a little tune up in late June/july). Unbound training is going well. I intentionally ramped up training a little slower this year, kind of felt like I peaked a few weeks early last year. I’m starting to hit similar numbers to last year, but doing it a little later and feeling less burnt out. I’m doing a final big push right now with an extra week thrown onto the end of my last build block. For the month until Unbound, it’s a reduction in a volume and one final tune up race in mid May (Rule of 3). I’m also doubling down on last year’s experiment of throwing a bunch of 30/30’s into my final few weeks. Unbound is a long race with similar demands to Leadville, but the first few hours are like a crit or road race as groups get established. Hope to flying in a month.
After Unbound, a couple weeks rest, some time at altitude, and then a single block with a bunch of climbing and tempo/sweet spot work heading into leadville. And we will be up in Leadville for a few weeks prior this year and just riding the course a bunch. I’m not sure it’s the best training for results, but it beats training at home in the Texas heat. Oh, and I’m about 8lbs lighter than I was this time last year and expect to carry that forward, so I’m hoping that translates to at least 10 minutes of “free” time at leadville this year.
I had a bit of a wrench thrown into my training two weeks back when I realized my pedals were over-reporting power.
Root cause: ID-10T error (I have never been in the habit of calibrating them… ever). My cue was a 10W FTP bump and just tearing through 4x20min SS and 50 min O/U work. I bumped again and marked my O/Us as “moderate.” All the lights were flashing red that something was wrong.
Fix: I calibrated my pedals.
Result: I started getting my ass handed to me by workouts again, haha!
I pushed my ftp down to 345, and now TR is zeroing in on the proper workouts. I’m looking forward to the next recommended aiFTP suggestion to pull the last prediction (407) back towards reality.
I’m so thankful to have discovered this now instead of cracking on the course trying to push the wrong power percentages. I still feel stronger than ever (just more grounded!), and I’m looking forward to the next few months!
My watt numbers are similar to last year, maybe a little higher. Hit some 3 minute and 5 minute PBs (390 and 354) and ftp is sitting right around 300 plus or minus (more likely minus).
More importantly, I feel like I’m on track for the longer sustained power. A couple of weeks ago I did a 5:15 ride and just based off of HR was able to really push on 1 x 40 around sweet spot and 2 x 20 around threshold. Was pretty toast after that ride but have been feeling stronger after a little recovery.
I have a couple back to back weekends of 6 hour gravel races on tap the next couple weekends as one more shock to the system.
Only down side so far is my weight management. The big challenge for me with food and soda is when I’m working long days and unfortunately the last couple months have been long/high stress days. Started some things today to hopefully get me back on track and drop ~10 pounds in the next 8 weeks (goal is to be no more than 5 pounds over Leadville goal weight for Lutsen).
Still building here for me also - was doing some longer SweetSpot and Tempo rides, great 3 and 6 minute improvements but oddly 12 minute was off, maybe just a bad day. Had an event 2 weeks ago, 145 miles, 12,000’ of climbing and managed to stay around .74 for the day so was really quite happy with that. My FTP is not where I wanted it to be and I don’t think I’ll get any significant increase before Leadville but my endurance feels great right now. My preference is for big long days in the saddle anyway so I’ll have to try not give into the temptation to joining too many group rides before Leadville.
Took a week off and now meant to be starting a new block with some longer Sweet Spot, Tempo, late stage efforts and a lot of climbing.
But in between all of this - I managed to get diagnosed with EBV (epstein barr virus) and we’re on the last week of testing with that. I was feeling kind of flat on higher end work and not recovering as quick as in the past and put some of that down to being older but turns out there’s a lot of overlap with EBV and what I’ve been feeling. Hoping it’s just a minor setback and will find out more next week - so for now, taking it quite easy and using the time to visit family and not look at TP numbers drop like a rock
I get to Colorado in June and will be working/riding in Fort Collins for 6 weeks - do Silver Rush in July and plan on being in Leadville from the beginning of August to acclimate, pre-ride and just get a feel for how I react this high. It will be by far the highest I’ve pedaled a bike by maybe a mile!!
I’ve done the Whiskey 50 in the past and just looked at some of the times from this years race and it was crazy fast for Masters - I feel like I would have been an hour off the winners times.
