For rides and races on roads with long climbs, the final phase of training is designed to equip athletes with a well-rounded but specialized skill set. This includes endurance to last through multi-hour events, the ability to explosively surge across gaps, and especially the strength to sustain multiple near-FTP efforts up long climbs.The low-volume version of the 8-week Climbing Road Race specialty plan includes 3 workouts per week, each ranging from 60 to 90 minutes. The last 2 weeks of the plan serve as a taper, reducing volume but maintaining intensity in the final leadup to your goal event.&nbsp;To practice racecraft and pack handling skills, you can occasionally substitute practice races or tough group rides for scheduled interval workouts, but try to make sure these rides are similar in structure to (at least as challenging as) the workout you’re replacing.

Climbing Road Race - Low Volume

As per usual, your season's final&nbsp;bout of training begins with an opportunity to assess improvements in your sustainable power in order to accurately adjust your power levels. While the Ramp Test is recommended, you're welcome to use the 20 Minute FTP Test of the 8 Minute FTP Test if that's your preference.
Following your FTP reassessment, you&rsquo;ll get your first dose of sustained, suprathreshold climbing repeats where you&rsquo;ll begin to practice the art of repeated climbing surges.
Then you&rsquo;ll cap off this week with a race-fashioned workout&nbsp;that begins with some early, high-power sprints to keep your big-watts capabilities sharp while the remainder of the workout consists of&nbsp;less intense, fairly long&nbsp;muscle endurance repeats which are separated by just enough time to clear your head but perhaps not your muscles. You&rsquo;ll know if your aerobic engine is firing on all cylinders based on how ready you feel for each subsequent interval.

Week 1

This week begins with a series of varied attack &amp; recover&nbsp;intervals that ask you to bounce back and forth between hard work and all-out effort with only brief&nbsp;recoveries between these short intervals&nbsp;thereby simulating the tumultuous barrage of efforts seen during any aggressive road race.&nbsp;
Up next, you'll grow last week's performance at intensities just above FTP by adding a little more duration to each repeat and a little more volume to the workout as a whole. These efforts are bent on furthering your ability to sustain slightly supra-threshold watts and eke out any final increases in your longer-term sustainable power.
Finally, a near repeat of last week's race-like ride awaits where you'll again&nbsp;bang out some early sprint practice before settling into a handful of reasonably lengthy stretches of&nbsp;Sweet Spot &amp; Threshold training.

Week 2

This week starts with another jam-packed workout consisting of initial hard charges that dovetail into&nbsp;near-Threshold work in order&nbsp;to familiarize you with the process of doling&nbsp;out big, anaerobically inclined efforts followed immediately by some legs-don't-fail-me-now&nbsp;sustained watts. Intervals like these and last week's mixed-format efforts&nbsp;cultivate a rider resistant to shameful 'attack &amp; explode' antics. Nobody wants to be the one who jumps away from the field only to fall apart&nbsp;a minute or two later. Up next, the final duration increase in your suprathreshold efforts will ask you to stay&nbsp;a little above your FTP for the longest stretches of time yet, but master these multi-minute repeats and watch as even your most motivated competitors fall off your wheel as you hit 'em again and again. This week concludes with one more early-sprint strength-endurance&nbsp;workout to keep your sprint sharp and your ability to endure high watts fully intact.

Week 3

Recovery weeks are an opportunity to dial back the intensity, maintain your ride schedule, and heal from the previous weeks of training. Accordingly, the intensity is low for each of your rides this week with the exception of a small handful of very short sprint efforts that will keep your muscles firing on all cylinders without accumulating high amounts of counterproductive, performance-degrading stress.&nbsp;
If you feel as though you're truly rested and ready to resume your upward-performance trajectory by the weekend, feel free to do a bit of work on Saturday as long as it doesn't send you into next week carrying too much fatigue for your final round of&nbsp;high-intensity workouts.

Week 4

As you work your way toward your taper and&nbsp;race weeks, the workouts grow increasingly specific to the often brutal demands of mass-start racing on punchy, rolling&nbsp;courses.
You're welcome to use today to reassess changes in your FTP, but due to the shift from a focus on&nbsp;building fitness to one on&nbsp;honing fitness, you may not see substantial changes in your FTP during this specialized phase of training. Alternatively, you can simply add 1-3% to your FTP if you suspect a slight bump in your Functional Threshold Power.&nbsp;
If you choose to skip the FTP reassessment, your first workout is what would otherwise be a straightforward set of&nbsp;Threshold repeats except that each interval is sprinkled with very short and sharp bursts of power that serve to keep your fast-twitch fibers alert and available but also to familiarize you with the skill of surging briefly without falling off the pace afterward.
Then you'll face a more interesting, race-like round of VO2max repeats where the high-end aerobic intervals are separated by a tiny bit of recovery and a short stretch of Tempo rather than the usual recovery valleys. Grouping these max-aerobic-power efforts in this manner is in line with the demands faced when long climbs start to break up as racers move toward the summit.
Finally, your first of a few progression workouts awaits. This format lumps&nbsp;together several suprathreshold efforts separated by minimal amounts of rest keeping things similar to&nbsp;the escalating intensity of a race. They also&nbsp;pay&nbsp;due attention to the energy system responsible for rapid recovery following each above-FTP&nbsp;effort as well the system responsible for laying down big watts - your aerobic (fat burning) and anaerobic (sugar burning) engines, respectively.

Week 5

This week begins a soon-to-be-familiar pattern of work as each workout remains the same in nature but decreases substantially in volume, starting with your first workout of the week and its&nbsp;surge &amp; attack efforts. The goal with each interval is to give it nearly everything you have as the effort required only ascends reaching a brief crescendo of all-out misery. Think anyone else is working this hard?&nbsp;
Then things get toned down closer to your FTP while still including a fair amount of work done near your VO2max. What's more, the oh-so-short recoveries between each interval will keep your heart, lungs, and muscles primed and ready for the next effort thereby taking full advantage of the robust aerobic system you've built over weeks and weeks of hard work.
Your weekend serves up a near repeat of last weekend's progression format, only this time the recovery valleys are slightly shorter placing a greater reliance on your aerobic system's ability to clear the junk and process the usable excesses.

Week 6

Time to dial things back and let any further fitness buried underneath your fatigue begin to rise to the surface. We&rsquo;ll keep the intensity, cut the volume way back, and start to gradually taper things down to a bare minimum that finds you as fresh as possible in about 2 weeks' time.
Both weekday workouts are trimmed down versions of what you saw last week aiming to keep your muscles and mind attuned to the intensity while reducing the overall training load in order to recover some freshness without sacrificing any fitness in the process.&nbsp;
Your weekend workout also sees a reduction in volume but retains its necessary intensity as you're guided through another mounting round of efforts that address nearly every form of fitness&nbsp;you'll employ come raceday.
This week can serve as a taper for any week leading into a B-priority weekend, so feel free to repeat this schedule anytime you want a bit more stress than next week's race-week format. Consider including an&nbsp;openers&nbsp;workout the day prior to your race, something&nbsp;like Truuli or its shorter versions.

Week 7

Entering what&rsquo;s likely to be your first of many Race weeks to come (assuming you&rsquo;re not already racing), you&rsquo;ll need to decide&nbsp;which workouts will take place indoors and which will be skipped in lieu of training races or higher-priority events.
You&rsquo;ll also have to decide on the number of weeks that you&rsquo;re looking to maintain your peak fitness since it typically begins to decline after 4-5 weeks for most riders. Some riders can hold this fitness for longer periods, some for less. But in most cases, this race-week taper structure&nbsp;can be repeated quite often with only minor tweaking depending on your race schedule.
A weekday&nbsp;training race plus one of the scheduled weekday workouts&nbsp;or simply the&nbsp;two reduced-volume workouts&nbsp;slated before Friday&nbsp;will work well for most riders looking to shed a little more fatigue and stay sharp leading into the weekend. There's also the option of an openers workout scheduled the day prior to your event, and this can require a bit of rearrangement each week such that you don't carry any residual fatigue into your important events.
Whatever you decide, try to allow for a day of rest following each day of training -&nbsp;the single exception is an openers workout since a race will always fall on the following day.
OK, you&rsquo;ve done the work, you have the fitness, now go out there with confidence knowing that you&rsquo;ve done everything necessary to get the job done. Good luck!

Week 8

Races and rides with big climbs require many of the same skills as other terrain—endurance, a strong sprint, and the ability to attack above threshold. But long ascents place a unique focus on sustained power, and the Climbing Road Race plans are specially designed to develop this ability. These plans include plenty of above-threshold work that benefits every roadie, but add an additional emphasis on the sustained near-threshold power that you’ll need to drop the pack on long climbs, especially after hours of challenging racing. If your goal events include long uphill efforts, this is the plan for you.

Climbing Road Race

For rides and races on roads with long climbs, the final phase of training is designed to equip athletes with a well-rounded but specialized skill set. This includes endurance to last through multi-hour events, the ability to explosively surge across gaps, and especially the strength to sustain multiple near-FTP efforts up long climbs.The mid-volume version of the 8-week Climbing Road Race specialty plan includes 5 workouts per week, each ranging from 60 to 90 minutes. The last 2 weeks of the plan serve as a taper, reducing volume but maintaining intensity in the final leadup to your goal event.&nbsp;To practice racecraft and pack handling skills, you can occasionally substitute practice races or tough group rides for scheduled interval workouts, but try to make sure these rides are similar in structure to (at least as challenging as) the workout you’re replacing.

Climbing Road Race - Mid Volume

For rides and races on roads with long climbs, the final phase of training is designed to equip athletes with a well-rounded but specialized skill set. This includes endurance to last through multi-hour events, the ability to explosively surge across gaps, and especially the strength to sustain multiple near-FTP efforts up long climbs.The high-volume version of the 8-week Climbing Road Race specialty plan includes 6 workouts per week, each ranging from 60 to 120 minutes. The last 2 weeks of the plan serve as a taper, reducing volume but maintaining intensity in the final leadup to your goal event.&nbsp;To practice racecraft and pack handling skills, you can occasionally substitute practice races or tough group rides for scheduled interval workouts, but try to make sure these rides are similar in structure to (at least as challenging as) the workout you’re replacing.As with all our high-volume plans, this plan is intended for experienced athletes who have plateaued at lower volumes.

Climbing Road Race

Climbing Road Race (8 Weeks Per Block)

Training Plans for Your Needs

Focused Training for Your Event

More Plans for Road Racers

Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

Training and Racing Videos

TrainerRoad Community Forum

Climbing Road Race

Climbing Road Race (8 Weeks Per Block)

Training Plans for Your Needs

Focused Training for Your Event

More Plans for Road Racers

Ready to Get Faster?

Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

Training and Racing Videos

TrainerRoad Community Forum