Hi there,
Until last weekend I trained for the Liege Bastogne Liege Challenge, and last Saturday I completed the 155km ride with 2600hm. I follow a plan made by the plan builder for grandfondo (or hilly race, can’t remember) to train for that.
In about 4 weeks I will go on a challenging cycling trip with some friends from my cycling club. We will ride 5 days, more than 200km per day. With quite some hm’s.
I used the planner to make a plan for a 5 days hilly stage race, but the plan is suggesting also some anaerobic efforts. Since we will not be sprinting, anaerobic effort doesn’t seem too useful, and I think I would gain more from other workouts?
What plan would you suggest to follow the coming 4 weeks? Or which type of event should I put in the plan builder to get a good training schedule for the coming 4 weeks?
Thanks for your advice!
Kind regards,
Maarten Tavernier
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Hello!
Great job on completing the Liege Bastogne Liege Challenge! That’s a course I’d love to get out and ride someday! 
Since you just finished up training for that event (and then doing the event itself), I’d recommend taking at least this week to recover. Prioritize rest and maybe do a couple of easy spins on the bike.
The upcoming trip sounds exciting! Since you’re doing over 200km per day with a lot of elevation gain and it doesn’t sound like you’ll be focusing much on anaerobic efforts, I agree that it might be better to switch to a different plan to prepare for that.
Depending on the types of climbs you’ll be doing, I think Rolling Road Race or Gran Fondo would be a good choice.
Rolling RR will feature a mix of interval sessions that will prepare you for shorter and longer climbs with plenty of punchy efforts to get you “race-ready.” Gran Fondo will focus more on sustained power and muscular endurance for longer days in the saddle.
You can compare all of our Road Plans here if you’d like to check out each one more specifically.
I’d consider what kind of efforts you’ll be doing during your upcoming trip, and then select a plan that best matches those efforts. It’s also worth mentioning that 4 weeks isn’t a lot of time to build up fitness, so I wouldn’t expect a huge bump in your FTP. That said, working the types of efforts you anticipate doing on your trip into your training can still prepare your body and mind for the kind of riding you’ll be doing soon.
Hope this helps! Feel free to let me know if you have any additional questions.
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Thanks for the reply.
I compared the plans, and selected a GranFondo plan.
Now I do get sweetspot, threshold, vo2max and endurance workouts. That matches better with what I need.
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