spessx

Hey guys,

I've got about 7 hours a week to train which normally breaks down like this:

3 x 1 hour sessions during the week. 1 of those is spent on the trainer so I have my powertap to guage effort. The other two are during lunch at the office where I use a spin bike (Just HR, no power)

1 x 4 hour group ride on Saturdays.

All I do our crits and a few circuit races - my races rarely last longer than an hour to an hour and a half. Currently I have no problem holding my position throughout the races (usually 10 back or so) but I get popped on the last lap when the pace jumps. I'll load up with lactic acid and can't produce any more power.

I just quit using a coach and am thinking about trying the following:

Monday - Water Rockets Intervals 6x1 minute all out ( too help with that last lap effort)
Tuesday - 1 hour base
Wednesday 30 minutes easy with Leg openers.
Thursday - Thursday night crits. 30 minute warmup/30 minutes racing.
Friday - off
Saturday - 4 hour fast paced group ride.
Sunday - off.

Can you guys suggest anything I might be missing? I'm only training 7 hours a week so that shouldn't be too much intensity - correct?

Any advice would be appreciated.

-s

Ultraslide

Have you read Chris Carmichael's Time Crunched Cyclist book? Included are several race oriented training plans for beginner and experienced racers. It is geared for 8 week blocks to peak with 4 weeks off. Might be worth a read to get some ideas since the plans are geared for people with 6-8 hours of training time available per week.

badhat

thats a pretty solidly thought out plan

the 2 things that jump out at me are:

1) space your rest days out a little more.

just for example, i do monday and friday rest days, which results in a 3 day block, rest, then a two day block and another rest.

your 4 days in a row is gonna end up with diminishing returns if youre trying to make them reall count.

2) i dont really get the point of 1 hour "base" sessions. if youve only got an hour and wanna do FTP targeted steady state work, do SST or 2x20s or ZCIs or something. if you're using it as a recovery, call it that, but i dont think theres much point to doing z2 work for less than 90-120 mins. the adaptation benefit of z2 is from duration. thats just me though.

spessx

Thanks Badhat,

2x20 was in my original plan but I was concerned that it might be too much intensity in one week.

How about doing it this way then:

Monday 2x20
Tuesday 6x1 all out
Wed Recovery
Thursday Crit
Friday Recovery
Sat Fast Group Ride
Sunday Recovery

Thanks again!

badhat

what days are locked in?

guessing that thursday, saturday and sunday are locked and other than that you have some flexibility?

where it says recovery, does that mean full rest day, or easy spin?

spessx

Recovery = Off completely, no riding.

The days of the week can be shuffled except for Thursday and I want to be recovered for the Crits.

-s

echappist

Do the anaerobic demanding interval (e.g. WRI) before the threshold interval as you'll be fresher. If you are extremely time crunched, you may even want to consider dropping the fast group rides in favor of 2 hours at SST. As for recovery, i usually prefer having 48 hours before the last high intensity interval and the start of a race.

spessx

What percentage of my FTP should I use for the SST intervals? Does that help build lactic acid tolerance?

On the WRI's why wouldn't I do those on day two? The power output doesn't really matter that much - it seems like the goal is just to saturate your body with lactic acid so that it will get better at being able to handle it.

-s

badhat

if you wanna be in top weekly form for the crit, imo, take TUESDAY off, not wednesday, and on wednesday do a short, sub 1 hour workout with 20 minutes or so of hard efforts (whatever duration you need, just keep the overall colume low) and a good warm up and cool down.

echappist

SST is done at ~85-92% of FTP. It helps raising your FTP, which is a steady state of sort at which your blood lactate remains relatively constant. Does it help much with LA tolerance? Not directly. Anaerobic intervals (Z6) are known to help with lactic acid clearance, but you can't do them that often. OTOH, how many matches you have depends on how hard those efforts are in relation to your FTP. A higher FTP will allow you to hold those relatively untenable effort longer and/or at higher power. Coggan says something to the effect that a large diet of SST won't help you excel in a crit, but it will go a long way in ensuring that you don't get dropped. If you are looking for training geared especially toward crits, you may want to place WRI with microburst intervals.

ericm979

I'm not seeing any periodiation in the plan. Are you going to do the same thing every week from now until october? That's not optimal for your important races and is mentally wearing, making burnout more likely.

spessx

This is for the rest of March and April. I'll start with a new coach on May 1.

Also, I've been on a periodized plan since October of last year. I'm not convinced that periodizing a plan is optimal when you're only training 7 hours per week.

-s

badhat

you probably dont need rest weeks as much as someone with more volume but theres still a benefit to focusing on endurance and skills in the offseason and timing your anaerobic endurance and v02 max work in short burts you target based on your annual goals.

Brian Ratliff

On Monday and Tuesday, I'd do 1 hour tempo (70-80% FTP) with some over-unders (30-on, 30-off) at the end of the effort. Wednesday I would do something like 2x20min or TSS or even a straight up time trial (something to train threshold directly). Thursday, race (30 min of crit racing isn't all that much in terms of training stress). Then do what you've written (rest-group ride-rest) Fri through Sun.

Basically, I think you can train harder and longer with the limited time available. At the very least, I wouldn't sacrifice Wednesday's training session to "get ready" for Thursday's race. Training races are for training. The object is to use those races to do speed work, not to win per se.