Ive sporadically raced the seniors in NWCCA over the last 3 years and can’t imagine the effort needed to get your results in the vets, that some seriously good riding 
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Helpful, thank you 
From the end of last season I did Traditional Base, Sweet Spot Build then I’ve been alternating intervals; SS (now only up to 10 min), Threshold (up to 6 mins) and VO2 max with a gym or CX skills/endurance/easy ride day in between. My FTP has gone from 179 to 236 in that year @ 57kg.
I have cut out a long weekend ride as not specific enough. This rotation isn’t on a weekly basis though - I just rotate in as many days as I need and gives me enough rest to ensure I complete the workouts as best as I can.
Our races vary between Sat and Sun which is slightly annoying but can’t be helped. It is better if they’re on a Sat as I can do an endurance ride off the back of a race but not the other way round.
I definitely feel rested coming into the season. My weekly TSS isn’t actually that high now with the spread of workouts (compared to e.g. the SS build). I think there’s some trepidation that I want to come into the season as fresh as I can although I know that I tend to get better results towards the end (a mixture of confidence, slightly smaller field and MUD - my preferred terrain!). Once the season gets underway maybe I would feel more comfortable pushing to 3 hard sessions per week.
How do you decide what those sessions should look like? The race puts me in HR Threshold and above (I don’t have a power meter on my race bike) but I doubt I’m actually putting down extended durations of power so I’m learning towards continuing to build threshold. Would you keep any SS in there? Apologies - questions galore!
The race puts you in threshold HR zone (although you should be pushing to anaerobic zone for crucial moments or first lap/last lap) but you are doing repeated anaerobic efforts that eventually deplete that system and push you to aerobic. So with that said, anaerobic capacity workouts, VO2, and over/unders. I would skip the SS work, your muscles should be ready to go after these harder efforts and the races are doing enough. You could substitute SS if you don’t want to do an endurance ride, but I think it is important to do a long endurance ride every couple weeks to keep that maintenance deep into the season, even if it doesn’t seem specific.
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This is what I struggle with as well.
It totally depends on how much load you can handle, but for myself (racing age is 34) I need 2 days of recovery after a 45 min race before I can handle another bout of intensity. I generally race on Saturday, so Sunday is always a full rest day, Monday is an easy ride or commute to and from work. By Tuesday my body is usually game for a tough workout, usually VO2, Wednesday is an easy day. Then confusion sets in on Thursday and I’m always asking myself, can/should I do a threshold workout today? Will it cook me for Saturday knowing Friday should be an opener workout? Looking back at last season I almost never did a hard day Thursday and didn’t do a single opener day. Kind of surprised by this looking back. It seems I played it more conservatively during the week so I could be fresh going into the weekend.
I do know that following CX speciality in-season would be completely off the table—outside of the low volume, I’m not sure how anyone would ever integrate mid or high volume into the season.
For this year I want to be more judicious about having a bike on the trainer so I can do at least one mid-week interval session and then an opener workout. Still want to see if I can get a threshold workout in on Thursday and feel good come race day Saturday/Sunday.
Curious how others plan their weeks when the season is underway.
Well, I tabled some higher end training this week, the legs aren’t feeling it, did Dans on Tuesday, tried a number of different things yesterday and just cut myself off, and today I could already tell the legs weren’t there so I went for a super chill ride outside at about 100w. I’m not gonna gain anything to race both days this weekend and I’d rather have the legs for the races.
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I’ll give a quick rundown of my background before detailing how I am setting up my season (too much information, I know):
I was a long time triathlete (long course full/half ironman stuff). No dirt at all, and hardly any road, just tri bike. I got burned out on that, quit tri and dived into CX. Never expected to like it so much. That was in 2011. CX focus 2012-2016. During that time I progressed from getting lapped in the cat4 field to being reasonable competitive in Cat3 35+. In 2017 I got back into tri (casually), and thus did some running in the first half of the year (before putting it aside to focus on CX in the fall, stopped running in August). At that point, 2017 was my best season of CX, and I partially attributed that to the running.
In 2018 I did tri a little more seriously, and I ran A LOT more (honestly I didn’t run that much in 2017). I decided to keep the running going and, rather than cutting it out completely, continued maintenance running throughout the year (including doing 2-4 mile runs as my warmup before CX races, rather than riding the trainer or noodling around the parking lot). 2018 was my best cross season to date.
That brings us to now. This year I did ironman again for the first time since 2011. I separated my year into three seasons: Tri in the winter/spring (IM Texas as at the end of April), summer was reserved for intervals and fun/skills on the MTB, and now it’s cross time. Again I’ve been keeping my running very consistent and will continue through the end of the year. My normal week is going to be a lot like last year:
Monday: Core and easy spin (Obelisk)
Tuesday: 4 mile easy run and intervals (will be outdoors on gravel on the CX bike for as long as possible, usually something like 3x10)
Wednesday: 4 mile easy run and Wednesday night CX practice. When the weather gets bad and practice flames out, I’ll do something like Sleeping Beauty+1 or +2 or +3.
Thursday: 4 mile easy run and Pettit
Friday: 4 mile Easy run and Pettit
Saturday: 4 mile easy run and openers (usually Truuli)
Sunday: Depending on timing, I’ll usually try to get a couple of laps on the course, then do my run (usually run out of time and it ends up being 2-3 miles rather than four) then line up.
I’ll continue with short riprow sessions 3-4 times per week for both strength and flexibility.
On double weekends I keep it much the same, effectively using the Saturday race as an opener for Sunday. I have found that if I do openers on Friday and then try to go all out on Saturday and Sunday, then my Sunday race definitely suffers.
It worked last year so fingers crossed it works again! I’m upgrading this year, so I’m mainly hoping to not make a fool of myself in the elite masters field. The big series combined their two masters elite fields (35+ and 45+) into one this year, the other series is still separate 35+ and 45+ (I’m racing age 43 now).
First race this weekend!
Matt Hill was my coach for five years. He’s a genius and a wizard. Anyone considering it should hire him.
@redlude97 cool that you’re in the Seattle area too. Going to Lake Samm on Sunday?
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I like this approach and it makes sense (half the battle is understanding the work you are doing and therefore feeling committed to it and the results).
My max HR is 205 and racing puts me at average 190-195 for 45 mins. So even though that seems high it’s still just into my threshold zone.
For these anaerobic efforts are you looking to get into that (for me >198) HR zone rather than concentrating on hitting the power targets? It seems that if you drop HR you are basically repeating the work you did at the race? I know which workouts do this for me and I can work on increasing the interval length. Is there a maximum? I’m guess we’re looking at 30s - 2 mins?
No no I’m talking about Power targets and was just referring to your threshold hr results during a race. Always think of these workouts in power output.
Yea 30 seconds to 2 minutes for anaerobic efforts.
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Well, CX is officially on, did Truuli -2 for openers today, hopefully it does the job. I haven’t done an actual FTP effort in a while, so it was kind of a relief getting through 2x3min at 310w. Hopefully I’ll be dishing out some pain tomorrow and Sunday in addition to kicking my own butt
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Yeah, it’s Colin. Do we secretly know each other? I can’t parse ‘redlude97’ to any known person. 
I believe that CX season basically is the specialty plan. Hard race on the weekend, a set of openers, and a set of intervals and/or CX practice during the week. I would only follow the specialty plan if I only had a few races on the calendar. It’s just too much for those of us racing from Sept to Dec (my opinion).
Hey Hai! Cool that you’re on here. See you on Sunday!
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Last season (my second) I decided to do some pre-season running and found that it really helped in the races. I’m battling a tender Achilles tendon so I have only attempted one run prior to the start of this season—should be interesting to see how the runups go. I’m not too worried though.
I’m kind of amazed at how much running you do in a given week, impressive. Best of luck this season.
hey i’m doin harlow platts too! good luck!
First race, of my first cx season tomorrow. Been pretty dry down here, and expect it will be a warm day, so not typical cross conditions just yet
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I had a mountain bike crash and now a shoulder separation from this morning’s ride. So much for CX season. Ugh.
Fucking hell. Sorry Rozzle, hope you’re pain free soon. 
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Ooh, surprise thunderstorm here in the Pacific Northwest, should make tomorrow’s race a bit spicy!
For those that don’t know the area: we don’t get t-storms here. Rain, yes, but not thunder and lightning. I don’t know the exact statistics, but I would be shocked if we get a storm like this more than once every two or three years. Too bad I took my mud tires off…
So, lets say you are in my shoes…CX is the only racing you do, was going in the right direction with training with decent base fitness and starting anerobic stuff, season just started, and I separated my shoulder yesterday and going to be out 4-8 weeks.
Do I go with the model of VO2, z2, rest, repeat? Do I get much from that aerobic work and if I’m not feeling the intensity, do I stack z2 days up? Is there any hope of using this time on the trainer to my advantage and if so, how should I do that? Should I make this a different thread?