I will be in my third week of Sustained Build MV next week, I have two TT races during this week, one on Wednesday a 25m TT and one on Saturday 21m on what we call in the UK a ‘sporting course’ (lumpy and twisty). I’m expecting (hoping) that both will be under the hour and with the warm up around 90mins worth.
These are really only C races for me, hoping to peak June/July so is it better just to try and stick to the plan, which would mean 90min VO2 workout Tuesday, TT on Wednesday, Over Unders Thursday, TT Saturday, then most likely outdoor Endurance on Sunday, or swap next week for the following on the plan which is a recovery week, do the lower intensity workouts plus the TTs and then get back on the plan the week after?
I’m in a similar position (i.e., TTs interspersed into the TR Plan - SPBMV, about to begin wk5).
Assuming each TT will be around an hour, this would give 100TSS at FTP. Depending on your training history, that could be an extraordinary amount, or an average session.
For me, doing 90 min VO2 Max on Tue, followed by TT on Wed, and then O/U on Thurs would require a couple of days recovery (Fri/Sat) in order to reap the benefits of all that work. I would probably do VO2 Max on Monday (depends on previous day’s ride), Endurance Tuesday, TT Wednesday, O/U Thursday, Rest Friday, TT Saturday, Endurance Sunday.
It’s really difficult fitting races into a schedule and the reason why I tend to race one a week max.
I might have misunderstood but shouldn’t you guys sort of focus on racing? I can’t really imagine a workout being more beneficial for racing than actual racing. You can of course do all workouts and races then enjoy your rest week. But no one here can be the judge of that since we don’t know how your body copes with that kind of stress.
I guess it’s a case of focusing on the A races certainly and having a plan building towards them, but incorporating training races where possible (to get used to the demands again after winter).
My situation, Club TTs on a Tuesday evening start this week, and will run through to late August. I did a 20mile ‘sporting TT’ yesterday, and have a 10m TT (fairly flat/ fast) on Sunday coming, then a recovery week, with my next ‘real TT’ on 27 Apr.
Plan wise, today starts Week3 of SPB HV.
I’ve dialled down Tuesdays VO2 max to around 60tss, evening league TT I estimate at around 30tss, and plan to do Truuli -1 on Saturday instead of the O/U. Sunday will be the races, so I’ll miss the long SweetSpot rides from the plan.
My main question is, shall I push the Saturday and Sunday rides from the plan forward so I still get the benefits? Or should I effectively skip those workouts, and just follow the weekly plan…?
As the year goes on, this is likely to be a fairly common occurrence, so I’d appreciate the thoughts of you learned folk over here
Here’s how I’ve decided to do things. Switched the VO2 workout from the 90min one in the plan to a shorter 60min workout without the endurance section, going to do that tomorrow, race Wednesday, zone 2 Thursday or Friday outdoors, race Saturday, then will probably do the sweetspot ride on Sunday but outdoors, most likely will do a longer ride as it is the last day of a week off work.
Bumped the over/unders and supra-threshold to next week (midweek) with petite separating them, which if I’m tired I could always omit, then Z2 on the following Sat, Sun, rest Monday, test Tuesday (although after two 50min plus races I will probably have a good idea on FTP so may omit this) Z2 Wednesday then back on the plan. This way I still get some recovery time, I find I don’t need a full week and the plan stays roughly on track. Thanks for the input and advice.
The thing is, if you are a TTer in the UK you can probably do an evening 10 most days of the week, and then ride one or two 10s or 25s (or longer) on weekends. For example, I know of 3 clubs within 15 miles that organise weekly TTs (on Tues, Weds, and Thurs), plus a couple that have weekend and monthly ones.
It’s difficult to get your volume right if you just do 10 mile TTs - while they can be very hard there isn’t the total TSS available, and if you try to add it by riding out and back that’s usually mostly Zone 2 (to keep things fresh on the way out, and to recover on the way back). It’s a bit different with 25s, but they tend to be less common.
I’m on Sustained Power Build (LV) , and my plan is to do a TT on Tuesday, move the VO2 work to Thursday, and skip the Under/Over workout. Then I can do the threshold efforts on the weekend, plus whatever social/family riding. Starting next week, as this week’s Tuesday TT is a team one.
I’ve found this doing mid-week 10s. One of the reasons I don’t do them every week as I found I was always racing yet my fitness was dropping. This season if I have more than one race in a week, I’m going to avoid racing the following week to train properly and pay more attention to volume.
As I say though, it may look a lot, but it’s an easier week than was on the plan, and also the point of the thread - how to fit in effective training around a fairly busy weekly training plan?
As for 'getting specific for the 50’ - I’m doing Sustained Power Build, so I’m working towards long distance specificity, so I’m not sure how much more specific can get…
there’s a lot of food for thought there…maybe the plan is too hard. just thinking out loud. read comments about the plan you are doing, i’m sure there are some out there
That sounds like a good plan TBH GF.
