Hi guys, I’m new to trainerroad but not to training and intervals themselves. I’m just deciding which training plan I should be choosing for the upcoming mtb XC season here in the UK. To give you all some background, I’m fresh off a pretty successful cyclocross season and am in the sport category (cat 2 in the US). I did pretty well last year, a fair few top 10’s and a 3rd at nationals in my category. My goals for this year are to get a podium at a National Round and finish in the top 5 of the regional series. I’d also quite like to try and get my expert licence. The season starts on March 15th and there are about 2 races a month until July. What selection of plans would you guys recommend? I’m looking to peak late June/July time but reasonable consistency throughout the season is important to me too. My reckoning is that I do 8 weeks of Sweetspot, omitting the weekend workouts for either racing and openers, or mtb skills work. After that, I move into the XCO specific blocks, that should see me through? Keen to see what everyone recommends, opinions are more than welcome 
. Cheers
the very short answer of course is: use the brand new plan builder 
Use the plan builder.
Unless you’ve a lot of time each week I’d stick with the low volume plans and add to them at the weekend with outdoor rides - better mentally to complete the workouts and add stuff than continually thinking about skipping workouts. You can move the workouts around when adding the plan to your calendar to suit your own times. I do Monday, Wednesday & Friday rather than Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday for example.
Note that there’s two blocks of Sweet Spot Base each of six weeks and they are designed to run together. Again use the plan builder and it will shorten blocks to give you the best progression given the time available.
Ok nice one, cheers guys. Particularly like the idea about choosing low volume and adding to it . I’ll have a play around this evening