I’m looking for a workout that will help me prep for an upcoming mass start hill climb finish. The race effort will be something like 1-2 min @ 150% FTP then settling into ~110% FTP for a further 15 min. Total race time 16-17 min. Total ride will be about 90 min with first hour in Z2 ramping into Z3 before finaL hill climb
The hard start threshold workouts are too short at 15-30 seconds and then the threshold portion is typically at 95-100% I could just create my own workout but thought there might be something TR already offers
For the hill/race part, maybe Suprathreshold intervals would be good to train on, and switching off ERG if you wanted to simulate the initial 150% spike. Intensity can also be adjusted over 100%.
Race simulation sounds like a lot of training fatigue! Would probably not want to do a full simulation too close to race day or a hard workout.
You might want to reconsider how much that tactic will affect your ability to hold 110% FTP for a further 15 min. And if you can hold 110% ftp for 15mins at all, whether your threshold is what you think it is.
Appreciate you’re aiming for race day perfection here, but maybe shave that down for your first sim to 120% and 105%
And yes I think custom is the way to go for a sim rather than fitness gains
I’ve always thought race day type efforts belong on race days, and bringing them into your training is probably not serving a benefit - and maybe more of a detriment in fatigue cost.
Assuming the big 150% spike is just the rider hitting a huge gradient and unavoidable due to the laws of physics. 110% ftp for 15 minutes on a big climb is probably obtainable, but definitely the kind of effort that will wipe a rider and take a good amount of recovery.
FTP is ~290. Looking to do some efforts that are some thing like 350-400 for 1-2 min, then settle into 310-320w for 5 or 6 min min. x 3.
Could be something like 400w 1 min, 320w 4-5 min (6 min total) long rest, repeat.
I do this race every year. It’s effectively a 16-17 min effort pending on how long you can hang onto the front group. Past efforts I’ve avg 320w for 17 min. It always starts with a surge from the front group for about 2 min, if you can hang on then you get a bit of a free ride for the middle section. By free ride I mean you’re still doing 300-320w but you’re going 5mph faster.
Not looking to emulate the entire race effort. Just some hard starts that are longer that 15-30 seconds. It is not unreasonable to train 5 min efforts where the first 1-2 min is a surge.
Not knowing the course profile, that difficult of a start seems to me like it would make you slower overall for a hillclimb. You may be better off trying a bit more of an iTT style approach if the gradients are 6% and up.