Here’s my HR from the last XC mtb race I did. I haven’t done a trainerroad workout that keeps HR up in zone 4 and out of zone 1 and 2 for that amount of time.
I struggle mentally with a lot of trainerroad workouts, but I’m able to push myself much harder in a race.
I confirm that. One certainly can.
While interval work does prepare you for racing, no timed intervals can simulate racing. The hard part about racing is that while it is kind of like an over-under workout with some VO2max work thrown in, you never know how long any of the work or rest intervals are going to be. Any particular stretch might be easy, it might be hard, the challenge comes both from not knowing and being mentally able to endure and have blind faith that others will crack before you do.
This.
/thread
Also the exact same race can be totally different depending on who shows up, what they plan to do, how you feel, how your competitors feel, what teams show up, how well they work together, etc, etc, etc. Some races are relatively easy until you sprint your brains out for the last 2 min. Others are an FTP test and people just slowly fall off as they fail to hang with the group. It’s hard to know how you’ll do in a race until you race and its hard to know even how a particular race will play out until you are in the middle of it.
Exactly. Also echoed here:
Similar pain but different power profile depending on the race. A crit, for example, can be much spikier.
Back to the original question - a race is not like Mary Austin.
But if you can complete Mary Austin, especially the mental/not quitting part you cite, you won’t embarrass yourself in a race (assuming you have some pack riding skills). So, give it a go!
I’d just like to pop in and say that racing per se is not all about ftp so Don’t gauge your race entry on that.
And there’s different formats of course, not everything’s a crit and not all of us are suited to them. Welcome to worm hole…
Reflecting back I certainly remember how bad some of my trainerroad workouts felt but when I’m done with a race I only seem to remember the racing aspect of racing. It definitely hurts but it’s also expected and it is what it is because it’s a race. A workout that destroys you is just mentally harder because you are just doing it as a workout and perhaps to challenge yourself. A race you are (hopefully) doing it to win and the motivation to suffer is just there. Power numbers for me in a race are usually more impressive than a workout like MA but I will remember the workout for being the harder of the two physically.
Tour de Nez is pretty good for race feel. the spikes aren’t nearly as hard as real life but the effort is there.
8DC Stage 1 is also pretty good, especially the last part if you want to get your teeth kicked in
This for sure 
Mary Austin was brutal therefore I was dreading Leconte yesterday which is supposed to be harder, but absolutely smashed it. I don’t know why it felt so much easier than Mary Austin.
I guess this is what some of you mean when you say racing is hard but doesn’t feel like work. Can’t wait to try it, thanks all 
I have never done a workout that really simulated the feelings of racing. There’s just so much going on, so much stimuli during a race that there’s really no way to simulate it in my opinion.
Power wise, unless you’re in a breakaway, it’s often like an on/off switch. You’re pedaling really hard for a little bit, and then you’re sitting in and coasting, and repeat until the end.
Here’s two power profile comparisons for you (ignore the w/kg, as my weight in TP was inaccurate until recently):
I feel like these two profiles give a pretty decent example of what racing is power wise. Like I said, I’ve never run across a workout in the ~6ish years I’ve been doing structured training that has simulated what a race feels like. The closest you can come to a race feeling ride would be to find a group ride where everyone is faster than you, and try to hold on as long as possible. That’s pretty close, except sometimes you do stuff right, and end up on the podium.
This summer I was doing 2x20’s broken down to 20 seconds at 115% and 40 seconds at 92%. That’s some race stuff there when you’re trying to hold on.
This is key point #1. Race profile really matters. Perhaps if you piece together various TR workouts you could generally mimic the profile of particular type of race.
Point #2: The mental demands of racing are N X greater than any workout. How many workouts do you need to worry about a sloppy rider taking you out like in a Cat 5 crit, for example?
I heard when Pete was learning to do intervals on rollers he took some things out with him along the way but otherwise you make a good point 
I find the traditional 2 or 3x20’s mentally challenging because I get bored but things like you suggest are great ways to break it up and make the time pass.
2 x 20s with 20sec at 115% and 40sec at 92% can be a different workout than planned, particularly if you go above FTHR during the 115 spurts (presuming the target is an SS workout).
A slightly modified approach to make the ride interesting is to create a “castle” workout (using Workout Creator) to vary the intensity WITHIN the target zone (e.g. 2min at 88%, 2mins at 94%, repeat 5x). The total is 20min SS TiZ (time in zone). The repeat 2 or 3x with appropriate RI. A simplified variation is 1x20@ 88, 1x20 at 94, etc.
I use this approach for threshold workouts (96-100) as well with the goal being TiZ for the particular zone being targeted.
I love those too, good call. For whatever reason I dread the solid line for 20 minutes type workout and it has everything to do with my head, not my legs.
