Racing training week - focus on climbing

[GorrGrimWolf]

Hi Guys,

I would like to ask for help. I have tried to find a lot of programs and plans for cycling, but all seems to be overly sophisticated or dont suit my needs. There is almost no need for peeking during my race season. I also race almost every week since now till the end of September. Sometimes its two races per week. It is all kind of races - from 10k TT to 180km road race.

So therefore I'm looking for a program that will help me to work on my strengths, allow me to race regulary and be consistent during year. I dont wanna stop working on my weaknesses, but I dont think there will be a much of a reason to mainly focus on them since my goal lies somewhere else. But thats something to consider.

BIO
- 185cm, 70-71kg
- Only one racing season
- 1.5 years of cycling training
- FTP around 310-320 watts
- Average of 12-14hours for training per week
- Sometimes all week free for training, sometimes I have around 8 hours to train with really busy schedule

Strengths
- Climbing
- High cadence style
- The longer and hillier the course, the better
- Good aero position on bike
- No problems to work with high HR,
- Change of pace/power is easy, I'm not diesel

Weaknesses
- Sprinting and short efforts under 3 minutes
- Hight wattage - aka attacking on the flat
- Riding in the strong wind
- Short distance TT

Goals and targets for this season
- Get even better in climbing over the longer distance (race 3hours +)
- Focus on recovery and whats really matter - no junks miles
- We have a cycling serie of brutal long races and calling it 53x11 Marathon Serie, usually its a 150km+ hilly road races. I would like to focus on them.
- Start to practise attacking and winning intervals (From Friel/Hunter book)
- Get better in TT

Until now I didnt really do intervals. Im slowly starting to use them now, because its much easier with power meter. Also I had tendencie to train 5-8 days in row without recovery. Just feel guilty without training. Now I would like to make my hard days really hard and the rest you know... With all the tempo I usually start to feel tired, slugish and without the snap after few weeks.

I can use rollers for training and around we mostly have a punchy 3-6 minutes climbs, the longest is around 15minutes. But it is possible to find some piece of flat road. In this year I have around 200 hours of training and mainly base miles.

So for instance this is how I scheduled this week
Mon: Rest Day
Tue: VO2 2sets of (3x4minutes)
Wed: 1h L1
Thu: 2-3h L2
Fri: 1h L1/rest day
Sat: Race 3h
Sun: Race 2h

For a race only on Sunday I would do something like this

Mon: Rest Day
Tue: 3x15min FTP
Wed: 3h L2
Thu: 1h L1/rest day
Fri: 4x5min VO2
Sat: 1h L1
Sun: Race 2h

But I would like to hear your comments and advice how to shuffle the workouts around. What I feel is maybe try to have one week more focused on endurance and the other more on intervals. But as I said - I would like to make it as simple as possible.

Thanks for all your insights!

[olebole]

I think you have a solid plan in general, just listen to your body and add an extra rest day if needed.
What I would do is try to experiment with some block periodization: add one week a month with 4-5 VO2max sessions followed by one, preferably a "race only on sunday" week, where you only put in L1-L2 work.

[HillRPete]

I would add some kind of monthly progression to the schedule (unless you're not doing that anyway).
E.g. instead of weekly alternating VO2 workouts, do the 2x(3x4) one month, then 4x5min the next, then 3x3min (3min pause) all out the next
For the FTP you can do 3x15 one month, 2x20 the next, 1x35 the next, e.g. when working towards a bigger TT race, to increase the specificity

Also personally I wouldn't do any VO2 workout with just one day between the race. Rather block VO2 and FTP session on Tue/Wed or Wed/Thu with at least 2 days space between one of those hard workouts and a race. Along the lines of what olebole says, training is nothing without resting(/easy riding).

[GorrGrimWolf]

Thanks to both of you for your input.

1) I wanted to try to peak a little bit for imporant races. I have picked about 4-5 of them. I suppose that basicaly would be sufficent to back off a little in the week of "A" race - either turn down the volume or intensity. Dont know what is better tho...
2) I think you are right about the VO2 training so close to the race. The legs would felt deadly slow. Therefore I guess its better to just use easy L2 two days before?

I have tried to read couple of threads here and what actually caught my eye was Tapeworm and his attitude to his training. He do a lot of intervals, but he also was doing his long rides in L1-L2 zones mainly. I know that by doing workouts up to 3hours in L3 would get me a lot of TSS - but it is not only about TSS, right? I believe that something like efficiency and different impuls for the body would be welcome (polarized training).

Do you think that this aproach would be fine for my goal? I'm not saying that I will never do sweetspot or tempo ride, but I would like to keep them on the minimum if possible.

Also last question - the races usually provide a lot of intensity. So I guess from my point of view it makes sense to back off a little with interval workouts during weeks with two or more races. Or you would simply limit during those weeks a volume and kept the intensity of the workouts same?

And I will try to focus on recovery much more, also with proper nutritient and SLEEP. I have started to strech and have to say that I feel better on the bike.

We have access to the PowerBreathe in our team and I have to say it makes a little difference during the climbing. Much easier to breathe... Will continue with in in the season.

// Correcting typos

[HillRPete]

I have tried to read couple of threads here and what actually caught my eye was Tapeworm and his attitude to his training. He do a lot of intervals, but he also was doing his long rides in L1-L2 zones mainly. I know that by doing workouts up to 3hours could be done in L3 and by doing that I would get a lot of TSS - but it is not only about TSS right and I believe that something like efficiency and different impuls for the body would be welcome (polarized training).

I am also following Tapeworm's advice on that. If it just wasn't so hard to keep the intensity down on prolonged 10% climbs. One wants to do the nice rides when it's weekend and a longer ride can be squeezed in between family and gardening. Maybe I should get an 11-32 cassette.

Also last question - the races usually provide a lot of intensity. So I guess from my point of view it makes sense to back off a little with interval workouts during weeks with two or more races. Or you would simply limit during those weeks a volume and kept the intensity of the workouts same?

Yes, cut down the volume to recover, but still do some intensity, so the body doesn't switch down.

[boots2000]

If you are racing 1-2x on most weekends I thin VO2 max (especially on Tuesday) is overkill.
Do an easy ride of 2-3 hours on Tuesday and be 100% for some quality work on Wednesday.
Since you claim that you struggle on flats, maybe work on flat tempo on Wednesdays. Longer efforts at Sub-threshold at 1st, later on maybe some split efforts like 6 min- 1st 3 min sub threashold/2nd 3 min above threshold.