Hi guys, I would like to seek the expertise of the forum regarding my training regime. First, a little bit of "my story" (sorry for the long read).

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

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I'm writing the new weight weenies blog. Hope you like it

My SwiftCarbon Ultravox

Take a look at my 12K climb thread, I bet you will find some hints there (particularly my last weekly plan).

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=124913

I personally think you would benefit from defining and working at more targeted intensities, specifically quality days at threshold (Z4) or VO2 max (Z5).

If Saturday is your long/hard day, then make Sunday a recovery/rest/easy day so that you can put in a quality day on Monday at Z4 or Z5.

I saw that and it is a great thread, I'm just not sure if these are threshold climbs too, most people treat corkscrew as sprint efforts, eg go flat out and try to hold it

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I'm writing the new weight weenies blog. Hope you like it

My SwiftCarbon Ultravox

7-9 minutes is not a "go flat out and try to hold it effort".

You didn't mention your body weight. Even if you aren't "fat" you would be amazed at what losing a few pounds does to climbing.

Sprint to me means VO2 max, if you can hold an all-out sprint for 9-15 minutes then you're a better man than me! Put another way, you are trying to increase your threshold for 9-15 minute durations.

Based on the suggestions I received in that thread, you could break up your quality days into three types of efforts (these are just what has worked for me):
- 10-15 minute climbing intervals at threshold (builds base FTP)
- 3-5-minute hill intervals at VO2 max, all out (for top end)
- 10, 15, 20-minute climbing intervals at supra-threshold

I'm 57kg, and 169cm.

My Tuesday's seem very similar to the 5 minute v02 Max interval thing, what was the recovery time between intervals?

What sort of heart rate is a supra-threshold at? Is it about 120% of ftp?

BTW I don't own a power metre so power zones mean nothing to me.

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I'm writing the new weight weenies blog. Hope you like it

My SwiftCarbon Ultravox

I do my 5x5 VO2 max intervals with a 1:1 work/recovery ratio, after a good warm-up.

If you don't have a power meter (I don't), I suggest signing up for TrainerRoad. You will quickly get a handle for your zones and FTP, and the perceived effort required. Threshold = Hard sustainable, Supra-threshold = On the limit.

I then verify my efforts against Strava's power estimates, which I find to generally be in the ballpark for sustained climbs.

Supra-threshold is anything above FTP, but for multiple 10 to 15-minute efforts I find that 5-10% above FTP is plenty hard. Really depends on how many you do.

I don't have a PM (yet) either, but I am able to recognize ballpark "zones" aka what kind of effort I can maintain for 1, 5, 10, 20 minutes etc. The longer you ride and the more you experiment with pushing your body for various times, you can get a pretty good feel for which of the zones a given effort falls into.

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"We haven't located us yet"

If I'm training to do something in 8 minutes, I would do a lot of work at the ~5 minute range. I also follow this methodology for longer TT efforts. When it comes to the time that I plan to make my personal best time I can always seem to extend the intensity a little bit longer. If I train at about 85% of the duration it seems to work on race/game day to extend.

I think a sprint was anaerobic >VO2 max.
An ITT is normally held over VO2 max for the later parts and 9-15 min is reasonable.