I noticed some annoying pattern in the planning algorithm. For instance, if i have a C-race on sunday, it suggests me a hiit session on saturday.
If i define the same race as a B-race, it prescribes me an opener on saturday, which is overall doable (this way i get 3 hard days in a week total, which is manageable).
4 hard days per week would be an absolute overkill for many trained people, so what is the point of these B/C categories? Should i treat a C race as a zone 2 session or what? The description says otherwise (treat it as a hard workout)
Do exactly what the algorithm says. Listen to the machines programmed by idiotic humans.
bru - dont go hard before a race! Have some fun and take an easy day the day before - shoot donât even ride the day before. Then smash the race. Even if its a C race. Racing is fun and you still want a good performance. This cultish follow the program BS is so bad for people mentally.
I wouldnât back down my training in any way for a 1 hour C race. If anything, Iâll sometimes ramp up training stress going into a low priority race. In my experience, you just end up hurting your training by trying to âsort ofâ rest/taper for low priority events. And Iâve had some surprisingly good race results carrying a lot of fatigue into races, a workout the day prior isnât going to ruin your race.
These races are strictly for practice, experience, and fun. The outcomes should carry much less emotional value, and as such, you will simply âtrain throughâ them. They should hold a similar value as a key hard workout.
Keep in mind that structured work is what makes you faster, not simply riding hard all the time, and recovery is just as important.
Since these are essentially viewed as a form of training, no taper is required, and if possible, you should schedule them in the same manner as which youâd find a really tough workout, i.e., following an easy or off day.
I can see how your schedule is somewhat problematic with those two hard efforts back-to-back. Iâll share this with the team to let them know that this can be an issue for some.
Thanks for your feedback and welcome to the forum!
" if possible, you should schedule them in the same manner as which youâd find a really tough workout, i.e., following an easy or off day."
I understand that there may be times where a C race needs to be scheduled on the day before after a hard workout, and weâre aware that this can cause issues that need to be worked around.
Hopefully this will be fixed in the future, but in the meantime, you may just have to plan ahead in those cases.
Racing on Sunday makes CX a bit tougher to plan out I think. If you were racing on Saturday, Iâd take your âCâ schedule and put the SS or a longz2 ride on Sunday. Maybe flip flop the threshold and SS day. If this just one week with this type of schedule, sure; if itâs like this every week it could be taxing.
Is the plan builder set up for three hard days? This is a lot of intensity for middle of the cx season IMO if youâre doing this every week. Two hard days with a weekend race with rest being skills/drills and endurance seems to be the norm. I go back to back with my hard days usually. Tues/Weds will be vo2 and threshold, with rest endurance and skills on the cx bike.
I had this same issue with my Wednesday training C races this season.
For a training race on Sunday I would do the workout, youâre off from training on Monday anyway.
Or do as DMC said and switch up the workouts so the harder one is in Thursday with SS on Saturday, that should open up the legs.
If you find that youâre still feeling it for your Tuesday workout I would change it up with workout alternates or make it an endurance ride.
You may surprise yourself.
IMO this is much too much intensity. But the specifics of how you might want to change it up really depends on the wider picture. Is this toward the beginning, middle, or end of your season? How are you feeling now? etc.
You might not be getting the same training stimulus from a CX race as a true VO2 workout but youâre certainly getting almost all of the fatigue and you canât just add in the VO2 workout to the week to get that stimulus because then youâre just doubling up on the fatigue.
If this were me, Iâd:
Drop the OU on the 15th. If you feel you need some openers then add some small efforts to a 90min endurance ride
drop at least the second VO2 entirely. Youâre getting a decent amount of repeatability stimulus with the CX race
Do King or 60min endurance on the 11th
Garroby on the 12th
60-90min endurance on the 13th
off or short endurance on the 14th
keep Parah on the 15th if youâre feeling fresh again
I donât race CX but I do crits throughout the summer and thatâs kinda what my schedule looks like with back to back race weekends. Youâre hitting the Z5/6 stuff in the race but youâre missing out on the aerobic aspect of SS/FTP. So you rest a bunch, do some Z3/4, Rest more, open, race.
Now if this is the super beginning of the season and youâre racing till February then maybe you do a touch more intensity but if itâs the middle/end of the season then youâre much more likely to overtrain than over recover at this point. The risk of losing much fitness is pretty low but you can certainly do too much and hurt the back end of the race season.
thats another good question. i d say it is the base period. i train for xco and xcm, the main A -events are in july and august, and i am quite baffled by the prescribed intensity that soon. The reason i decided to give it a try - plateauing for several years and stuck at 3.9 wt/kg
I meant in the context of this CX season. Iâd say itâs maybe a bit far out to be focusing on the XC stuff in the late summer. The intensity this soon is likely to address the CX races you put on the calendar and not the XC stuff 9 months from now. But not to say that intensity now is a bad thing at all. Itâs actually usually pretty good to have block of intensity over the winter so you can reap the quick gains from the high intensity while still having time to fully recover and rebuild from your (hopefully) higher level into the summer mtb races.
Do you have any other CX races youâre doing and care about or just these two? Cause the advice might be slightly different if it was just these two CX races vs if you had a full season of them that stretched into the new year.
This is my scenario of this seasonâs training races, I had four in the series with a week break after two weeks.
I was able to do it but have it been a longer training series I would have been cooked.
What I would have done differently is change Thursdayâs Vo2 workout to a SS or Endurance ride to have better legs for the Sunday race.
This is something Iâll do next season using TrainNow to pick the workouts.
If itâs only a few training races and you stick to the plan, I think youâll be ok.
no, maybe the last one will be on nov 16th. then we usually have winter XC series with one 60-min race every 2 weeks from december till march if the weather allows
