For sure. I guess I feel a little odd about randomly posting here, but if there’s interest I’ll set aside my social anxiety…I’m like the Anti-Successful Athlete right now .
I’ll give a baseline and thumbnail of my current plan:
51yr old ex-roadie snob, always found longer distances to be my thing…like my legs came alive after 60-70miles. Burned myself out eventually thinking I wanted to race crits and stopped cold 15+years ago. Married, no kids, awesome dog named Jake. I work a fairly boring management job in industrial welding supply so it’s M-F 7:30AM-5PM. Decided this gravel thing was for me, started nerding out on everything. Found the podcast and ordered my bike in May. Listened to many, many podcasts and combed the forum while waiting and waiting and waiting for my Diverge.
Got my bike 09/27/20, started TrainerRoad 09/28/20 with SSBLV1 and my first Ramp Test at a whopping FTP of 147. I’m a med/large framed 6’4", and was 252lbs on day 1. I’m now down to 235lbs with an FTP of 226 as of Jan 19th. 2.12w/kg. Aiming to be 205-210lbs by June and continued progression of my training will bring me closer to 2.5w/kg or so…hopefully (eventual goals: 190lbs and 3.5w/kg). I train after work, before dinner…I find excuses to keep hitting snooze if I try mornings. Until 3 weeks ago, I’d only been doing the 3 LV workouts a week…that’s when I started road riding with the local B group here in Valdosta GA on Saturdays, 40-50 miles. Moving forward I’ll be adding miles before and after this ride until I’m up around 70-80. In a couple weeks, I’m going to add shorter duration, gravel specific rides on Sundays once I get the second set of wheels I have coming…1-2hrs of skills work mostly. I need to reduce the cognitive load on gravel/dirt and get back some of my childhood BMX confidence.
I have 3 A events this year including Unbound Gravel. I tweaked the Build and Specialty blocks in Plan Builder to suit each event that I’m leading up to…First is the 74mi Gravel Battle of Sumter Forest in Clinton SC which is March 13th, so I’m currently in Rolling Road Race LV (after General Build LV) leading towards that race. Second A race is Unbound on June 5th, but I am going with Sustained Power Build LV and then Century LV leading to that. Last A is the 3 day Hellhole Gravel Grind stage race in Cordesville SC Sep 24-26 and I’m using Sustained Power Build LV followed by Rolling Road Race LV as I am hoping to get into UnPAved in Pennsylvania as a B event on Oct 10th.
Between now and May 8th, I have 5 additional gravel events of 60-100miles and 2 road centuries. These will all be C events, used for training, experimenting and nailing my nutrition/hydration. I’ve been very conservative to date, trying to make sure I don’t get any strains or overuse injuries…going to keep that thought process while still adding quite a bit of TSS to get me where I need to be. Sleep and recovery, feed the workouts, listen to my body.
That’s the plan as of now. Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome and I can’t begin to express how much I’ve taken away from this forum/community. The support and overall good vibes are just awesome.
Cheers.