What to do between the end of the programme and my A race

My plan finishes 1 week before my A race. So I have the taper week at the end of the plan, then stop and 7 days later hit my A race. Any suggestions how I should fill the gap? I’m not going to be doing Spanish Needles, but a few <60 min VO2 max sessions early in the week then taper again? TIA…

Repeat the last week of your plan before the taper week. Or add an extra week of base now depending on where you are in your plans.

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Where are you currently in your training? If we can understand this, we can find the best place in the remainder of your plan to tack on an extra week :slight_smile:

If by “plan” you mean Specialty Plan, simply push the entire Specialty Plan by 1 week so your taper week leads into your “A” race as intended. Specialty generally has a 2 week taper so you’d want to line that up perfectly into your “A” race.

Ideally you would plan your calendar working backwards from your “A” race and if you have “too much time” (extra weeks) you’d add that into your Base training.

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Hi, I started Sustained Power Build - High Vol on Monday 4 Feb 19 and my A race is 7th April. So I’d have the taper week and then a “nul” week. Previously I’ve just done a few 30-60min leg looseners with a few sprints thrown in to keep the higher end from slipping away, but that was before I was a fully paid up TR fanboy.

The race is a very competitive Sportive here’s the link to Strava’s route. I’ve done competitve Sportive’s before but here no-one on the start line had a body fat %age of any significance terrifying, lean, wirey northern hardmen/women.

I did it last year and it broke me - I completed it but suffered like a dog. I’ve been riding for 2+ years average 6-8k miles/year so I have a reasonable base level and wanted to up my sustained power for this specifically as it is just so ********* hard, cobbles up, cobbles down, no respite and about 6-8 miles of flat along the entire route honestly.

Thanks for responding.

Rather than waiting until the week before your race to add an extra filler week, I would recommend adding an additional week between Build and Specialty. The nature of this week will depend on how you are feeling at the time.

  1. If you are feeling pretty fatigued at the conclusion of the Build Phase:
    You could add a week of filler between Build and Specialty. Maybe that is just a week of Traditional Base to allow your fatigue to drop and really ready you for the Specialty Phase, or maybe a period of time where you ride outside for fun. This extra unloading can be beneficial for your ability to nail all of the workouts in Specialty :+1: .

  2. If you’re feeling really good at the end of Build Week 7:
    Then go ahead and give yourself an extra work week before starting your Week 8 Rest Week. You could simply repeat Week 7, or if that is a little too hard, maybe Week 6.

By doing it this way, the final weeks leading up to your race will be completely optimized, and that will lead to a more optimized race performance :boom:

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Cheers Bryce, I’ll wait and see how my legs feel.

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