The Short Track Cross-Country specialty plan cultivates maximum aerobic power and high-level endurance. Taking full advantage of the fitness you developed in the Base and Build phases, you’ll develop the ability to repeat extremely high-power efforts, over and over again. It’s just what you need to land on the podium of your goal short track events.The low-volume version of this 8-week plan includes 3 challenging workouts per week, each ranging from 60 to 90 minutes in length and mimicking the demands of short track races. An easier 4th week offers the chance for some mid-plan recovery, and the last 2 weeks of the plan serve as a taper, reducing volume but maintaining intensity in the final leadup to your goal event.

Short Track Cross-Country - Low Volume

In order to get a handle on any recent improvements to your fitness, your first workout is the requisite FTP assessment in the form of our Ramp Test to allow us to scale your power levels appropriately. If you've used another assessment format, continue to use the same one in order to maintain consistency but also because it can serve as an effective Threshold/VO2max workout. Ideally, you'll have a day or two of recovery in your legs and will feel ready to fairly demonstrate your current level of fitness. If not, consider riding easy today and postponing your assessment until tomorrow. Then, it's onto a cluster of repeats at roughly that same suprathreshold power output, but for shorter and more frequent chunks of time. Working above your lactic tipping point is an excellent way to stress your maximum aerobic capabilities and to tax your mind's ability to tolerate a form of discomfort that's very much a part of short track XC racing.Your week closes out with a round of hard-start intervals that combine a high-power push with some sustained effort done very close to your threshold power. These are close approximations of the combination of efforts frequently encountered over the course of a mass-start race as well as any course with punchy climbs or corners.

Week 1

This week of race conditioning introduces (or more likely, reintroduces) you to some atypical VO2max intervals. These are unusual only in the sense that you won't encounter them in too many training plans, but you'll surely deal with this combination of efforts when racing short track. It's important to be able to repeat short, highly powerful surges and then resist the urge to let your power fall too far between accelerations. Get on it, stay on it.
Then, your less abusive but no less challenging repeats well above FTP grow a bit in duration in order to increase your ability to repeat efforts a little tougher than Threshold repeats but not quite as tough as ones performed at shorter, more traditional VO2max durations. But the ability to drive your power this high, hold it, and repeat it, will have a direct impact on the quality of riders who can hold your wheel for any length of time.
Finally, it's onto a near repeat of last weekend's Sprint + Threshold repeats where the emphasis marginally shifts to improving your sprint power but doesn't lose sight of the necessity to hold your post-sprint watts high.

Week 2

This week's VO2max + Sweet Spot repeats incorporate&nbsp;slightly lower power outputs into slightly longer sets and place just a touch more emphasis on your stamina than on your high-power capabilities. If you feel up to the challenge, you're welcome to nudge up the intensity if you're feeling underchallenged as the sets stack up. Then, your suprathreshold endurance work reaches its peak durations while keeping the total workout volume very steady. While it may be a wash in terms of overall stress, you may find that these longer durations are surprisingly more difficult. But so will every rider trailing in your wake out on the racecourse.&nbsp; Your final, pre-recovery-week set of hard-start, muscle-endurance intervals repeats last weekend's change and lifts the opening sprint's demands even higher. This pairs solid training with another opportunity to explore some limits by finding out if a 30-second effort at 1.5x your FTP comes as a detriment to your post-sprint power output. If that's the case, tone down the sprints but try to keep the sustained segments just as prescribed. &nbsp;

Week 3

Time to let the last few weeks of training soak in over the course of an easy week of riding. During this week, try not to lose sight of the fact that&nbsp;adaptation happens during recovery, not during the often muscle-damaging doses of high-intensity training that comprised much of the last few weeks.&nbsp;Until you firmly grasp the benefit of proper and adequate&nbsp;recovery, only hard lessons await you out on the trail. If, however, you've recognized the benefit of recovery done correctly, you'll happily abide by the low-intensity, same-training-schedule nature of this easy week.

Week 4

Following a week-long training decrease that ideally finds you returning with some renewed training motivation and fresh legs, it&rsquo;s time to ramp things back up for a couple weeks before tapering your training prior to your most important event(s).&nbsp;
You'll begin with a bit of a mash-up where your hard-start efforts now precede several fairly short rounds of on/not-quite-off repeats. Each one of these sets could very closely mimic the demands of the shortest of short track races, and having 4 in a row is likely to qualify as race-specific overload for most riders.
Next, it's a return to the tried and true VO2max durations that range between 2-3 minutes at a time starting with some repeated 2.5-minute action. This basic structure may not be perfectly in line with the frequent changes in effort required on most racecourses, but they're one of the most reliable ways to increase FTP as well as build endurance up toward your peak aerobic power.
Cap off this week with something more in line with the intermittently very high power outputs you'll dole out over a technical course by maximizing your time spent well above your FTP. By severely stressing your muscles for a minute at a time but then rewarding them with a full minute's recovery, you can accumulate a significant amount of time at highly practical and productive power outputs while avoiding the deep-muscle fatigue that comes with longer, more depleting repeats. &nbsp;

Week 5

This week begins with a near-repeat of last week's early workout but ups the intensity of your initial sprint. For some riders, this will just be the next step in the progression toward higher performance. For others, this might signify a breaking point. The key is to determine what sort of initial burst of power exacts too costly a toll on the remainder of the interval and what leaves just enough fuel in the muscles to back up that hard charge.
This week's second interval session tacks on another 30 seconds to each already long VO2max repeat but reduces the overall training load to compensate. This is a good time to revisit last week's tips concerning productively repeatable power. If you've homed in on the sort of power you can barely sustain for 2.5 minutes, 3 minutes might require a slight power reduction. Or your fitness and toughness may have risen to a point where you can gut out that additional 30 seconds like a boss, no decrease required.&nbsp;
Close this demanding week of training with a few merciless rounds of one of the sneakiest microburst formats in the TR catalog. In lieu of matching your recovery valley durations to each preceding surge's, these efforts are only performed at 120% FTP. But don't be too quick to lift the workout's intensity until you have a round of these in your legs--these can go from manageable to miserable in a hurry.

Week 6

Your final&nbsp;full-strength&nbsp;week of Specialty training begins with one more round of hard-start VO2max repeats that includes yet another increase in each initial sprint's power target. Once again, see what works and perhaps what doesn't as you further your performance self-knowledge.&nbsp;Then it's onto another variation in your VO2max repeats that have been trimmed down to durations that are likely to only tease your muscles with the torture usually promised by longer aerobic-capacity intervals. But what they lack in duration they make up for in repetition presenting another opportunity to demonstrate restraint in the early stages of a workout (or race).&nbsp;This final, pre-taper week then closes out with a fun little assortment of anaerobic repeats clustered so tightly that they'll grow increasingly aerobic as you progress through each set. At the same time, each grouping of repeats aims to simulate the random and unrelenting power requirements of bike racing on ever-changing terrains.

Week 7

It's time to taper your training load with the goal of leaving you fresh and motivated by the weekend. You'll begin with a toned down version of last week's familiar format that maintains all of the intensity necessary to keep you sharp but dispenses with a bit of the volume that leaves you heavily fatigued by the end of the workout.&nbsp;
Your VO2max repeats see a volume reduction as well, but they too retain all of the intensity necessary to keep you familiar with the pain but light on fatigue.
Saturday is an&nbsp;openers&nbsp;workout based on a Sunday race, but if your race falls on Saturday or perhaps both weekend days, perform the short priming workout on Friday instead. If you'd prefer a different openers workout, take a look at Scott Peak or the other versions of Truuli.
This week&rsquo;s format can be repeated should you have a string of race weekends ahead since it maintains all of the necessary intensity but not nearly as much of the fatigue-inducing volume. But don&rsquo;t plan to utilize this approach for more than a few weeks since peak fitness is a short-lived, temporary point in your ever-changing fitness.
But before that decline has any chance set in, go out there and reap the rewards of months of hard, consistent training the likes of which only the most dedicated and hard-working riders achieve.

Week 8

Short track races are short, fast, and technically demanding—a bit like the offroad equivalent of criteriums, with just as much excitement and fun. Competitors need repeatable power, good endurance, and a strong sprint, and those are the skills targeted by this 8-week specialty block.

Short Track Cross-Country

The Short Track Cross-Country specialty plan cultivates maximum aerobic power and high-level endurance. Taking full advantage of the fitness you developed in the Base and Build phases, you’ll develop the ability to repeat extremely high-power efforts, over and over again. It’s just what you need to land on the podium of your goal short track events.The mid-volume version of this 8-week plan includes 5 workouts per week, each ranging from 60 to 90 minutes in length and targeting the demands of short track races. An easier 4th week offers the chance for some mid-plan recovery, and the last 2 weeks of the plan serve as a taper, reducing volume but maintaining intensity in the final leadup to your goal event.

Short Track Cross-Country - Mid Volume

The Short Track Cross-Country specialty plan cultivates maximum aerobic power and high-level endurance. Taking full advantage of the fitness you developed in the Base and Build phases, you’ll develop the ability to repeat extremely high-power efforts, over and over again. It’s just what you need to land on the podium of your goal short track events.The mid-volume version of this 8-week plan includes 6 workouts per week, each ranging from 60 to 120 minutes in length and targeting the demands of short track races. An easier 4th week offers the chance for some mid-plan recovery, and 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;As with all our high-volume plans, this plan is intended for experienced athletes who have plateaued at lower volumes.

Short Track

Short Track Cross-Country (8 Weeks Per Block)

Training Plans for Your Needs

Focused Training for Your Event

More Plans for Off-Road Racers

Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

Training and Racing Videos

TrainerRoad Community Forum