One of my training buddies (let's call him Stef) is training for the "three peaks" challenge next year. It's a 200km road race with 3 mountains, each about 1800m of gain. I've decided to train with him on the weekends, and I think he's got a "traditional" coach who believes in doing the hard ks. I've decided to go because I think the riding would be fun, and I've got fitness goals for mid/late January. I'd like to ask your opinion on how I can make the most out of these rides anyway. They're probably not ideal in terms of fitness building, but I think they have their merit in terms of "mental" building.
So my fitness goal for January is to be able to shave 1 minute off my time on Corkscrew road. For me, it's a 9:30 climb, 2.2km at 10%. I'd like to eventually crack 7 minutes, but I'm going to do a minute at a time. I've done this climb on the back of longer rides and it takes 10~11 mminutes. My goal is to try and get 8:30 fresh and maybe get into the high 9s after a longer ride. I'd also like to be able to do Norton Summit in 14 minutes, My best individual time is 15:08, and I've been paced by stronger riders into 14:40s. It's a 5.6km climb at 4.8%
Looking at my two goals they seem simiar enough, however I'm concerend that since corkscrew is twice as steep as Norton I'm going to have to compromise on one of them to get my target. (eg one depends more on pure watts and the other is more watts per kg)
Essentially, I'm going to do my usual routine during the week, 2 1~1.5 hr sessions of short maximum intensity efforts followed by recovery. My plan is:
Monday: Rest - (yoga ball workouts/planking/general core strength workouts.)
Tuesday: 1~1.5hr probably involving 5 minute climbing efforts, 2 to 3 depending on how I feel
Wednesday: "Isolated Pelvis Efforts" - http://veloflyte.com/training_for_racing_and_fitness 30 minutes with 2 or 3 1 minute efforts
Thursday: Same/Similar as tuesday
Friday: Rest or 30 minute cruze
Saturday: 2.5hrs mixed intensity followed by effort up corkscrew with Stef, if feeling good may do other climbs.
Sunday: 2.5hrs mixed intensity
The Saturday/Sunday rides are the group rides, where we tend to get a little silly on the climbs. Stef wants to do corkscrew/other climbs at a "steady" tempo. I generally hit the other climbs of the day hardish (6-15minutes at ~90%). I guess what I want to know is that if I should tone back these initial climbs down to make the most of the corkscrew effort? Should we hit corkscrew hard or is steady tempo fine? I've had a suggestion that if I want to hit a climb I go flat out, and when I get tired I go really slow to recover. I like the sound of this as it means I still get to have "fun" but can also improve my fitness.
I plan to "try" and do Sunday as an easy ride, but I might get a bit silly hence why I'm putting it down as a mixed intensity. Should I tone this back to "easy"?
Lastly, does my total load sound ok? I'm not sure if it's too much, or maybe just too much of the wrong thing (eg spending too much time in the "medium" no mans land). Saturday is a bit weird, since it sort of feels like a race intensity, and of course from what I gather you should never "train" at a race intensity. It's good fun though, and I'd still like to do it, is there some sort of compromise that would work ok? Like say what I mentioned above of going flat out and then "exploding"?
What would people recommend I should do during the week (if I want to do the weekend rides)? Does what I have planned work?
Thanks in advance for your advice
