9 day mtb race

Did you start from zero? If so, you're asking a lot of your body. I think speed work is completely out. Work on volume and increase it as fast as you can tolerate, then hold volume steady two weeks out and back off one week out.

lanierb said:

Did you start from zero? If so, you're asking a lot of your body. I think speed work is completely out. Work on volume and increase it as fast as you can tolerate, then hold volume steady two weeks out and back off one week out.

I agree. If you don't think that you have the base to start training for speed now, I wouldn't try it later. If you think that you can work a day of intervals into your weekly training plan, starting, like, now, without injuring yourself, then you have time to give it a try. Otherwise, it's just not worth it.

I've been riding last year did a few races (mtb) would be around 3 to 4 times a week. Basically I've been riding not consistanly but enough to race a 75km races.

I'm on my 6th training week and this week I started with 2 X 20min intervals at L4 on Tuesday and Thursday. 90min base (L3) on Wednesday.

Tommorrow (Friday) it will be flat 70 to 80km ride MTB. Saturday 60 to 100km on rode but hill. Sunday About 70 to 90km MTB with a bit of everything. This type of riding I've been doing for the last 5weeks.

My intension is to do 2 @ L4 intervals a week and 4 @ L3.
Maybe from Week 4 or 5 to go I'd start adding L5 once a week.

What you guys think?

OK that helps. It sounds to me like you have a good plan actually. L5 once a week sounds about right for that kind of race. Everyone is different, but or me I would do as you plan and add it in a couple weeks, say 8 weeks out.

Do you also have some more aggressive riding in there like a once a week group ride? It seems like that would be useful too, with all the rest being L3/L4 and some volume.

lanierb said:

OK that helps. It sounds to me like you have a good plan actually. L5 once a week sounds about right for that kind of race. Everyone is different, but or me I would do as you plan and add it in a couple weeks, say 8 weeks out.

Do you also have some more aggressive riding in there like a once a week group ride? It seems like that would be useful too, with all the rest being L3/L4 and some volume.

At the moment on the Friday to Sunday ride I ride with one other guy who is stronger than me, so I chase the whole time.

I've been trying to keep group riding to a minumin as the club that I joined has slow riders and on club rides you wait alot.

So I'd rather ride go and ride for 3hrs than go out for 3hr but only ride for 1.5hrs.

This weekend I entered a race in Sabie its a 75km race and very hilly/mountainous area.

Going to ride within myself as I'm scared to hit the wall around the 50km mark.

I told my riding partner that from the following week we must increase our distance as I feel I'm fit enough now to start pushing 100km to 120km on weekends for the next 6 to 7 weekends.

I also would like to add 2 days of gymming in my program, how and where should I fit it in. I was thinking of a Monday only doing upper body and Friday morning perhaps doing upper body and add in I few lunges and squats.

What you guys think.

franco1 said:

I also would like to add 2 days of gymming in my program, how and where should I fit it in. I was thinking of a Monday only doing upper body and Friday morning perhaps doing upper body and add in I few lunges and squats.

What you guys think.

I think you'll find that consensus here is you shouldn't waste your time on this. Get on the bike instead.

lanierb said:

I think you'll find that consensus here is you shouldn't waste your time on this. Get on the bike instead.

+1
Or at least wait until after the 9 day MTB event is over before you start any gym regime as any other extra physical activity at this point other than spending time focusing on the specific event your targeting IS going to hinder not help your recovery and will most likey be detrimental to your endurance towards the end of the the 9 days of racing.
You won't build any bike endurance in the gym, just keep building and banking on the bike fitness right up to the last week before your event and you'll be apples mate!

The reason I mentioned gymming, was purely to build some upper body strenght, coming from the road where you dont have the constant pounding I think my shoulders and triceps will suffer.

My Mondays are rest days so I figured to gym there just upper body NO legs. And on Friday mornings gym full body and ride in the afternoons as mentioned previously.

Can I also ask, how much time should one be training for per week as I heard of some other guys doing between 18 and 19hr weeks, as Im only on 13hr weeks now.

It's funny to read this thread because I'm doing a 10-day stage race in 8 weeks. I did the same race last year, with a similar prep to what I'm doing this year. The difference is that this year, I knew the date well ahead of time so I could plan stuff out. I didn't really get to finish off with any speedwork last year because the race was bumped up.

18 or 19 hours a week? Try 10!

Here's my basic prep:
General Aerobic Phase:
M:1 hour at 90% of the average of my 2X20s
T: 2X20 at 100%
W: Same as M
R: Same as T
F: Same as M
S: 1X20 and Microintervals
Sun: 1 to 2 hours Tempo

VO2 phase (starting 10 weeks out from event):
Same schedule during the week
Sat: VO2 Intervals 4 and then 5, then 6 X 4 min. over the course of the weeks
Sun: Race or team ride. Climbs, attacks, sprints, breakaways, etc.

NM phase (3 weeks, starting 5 weeks from event)
M: 10-12 X 1 min. at around 150% FTP
T: 1 hour Sweet spot
W: 10-12 X 1 min. at around 150% FTP
R: 1 hour Sweet spot
F: 10-12 X 1 min. at around 150% FTP
S: 1-2 hour Tempo
S: Race or team ride.

2 weeks before (Times are estimated...but I'll be GRADUALLY cutting TSS until I arrive at the start of the tour at >15 +TSB
M: 30 min. to 1 hour Sweetspot
T: 2X20 at 100% FTP
W: 30 min. to 1 hour Sweetspot
R: VO2 intervals
F: 30 min. to 1 hour Sweetspot
S: 1-2 hour Tempo

With this schedule, my CTL was (will be) 95-100 before the taper.

P.S. During your tour, be sure to eat, eat, and eat. It's VERY important.

Bailsibub said:

It's funny to read this thread because I'm doing a 10-day stage race in 8 weeks. I did the same race last year, with a similar prep to what I'm doing this year. The difference is that this year, I knew the date well ahead of time so I could plan stuff out. I didn't really get to finish off with any speedwork last year because the race was bumped up.

18 or 19 hours a week? Try 10!

Here's my basic prep:
General Aerobic Phase:
M:1 hour at 90% of the average of my 2X20s
T: 2X20 at 100%
W: Same as M
R: Same as T
F: Same as M
S: 1X20 and Microintervals
Sun: 1 to 2 hours Tempo

VO2 phase (starting 10 weeks out from event):
Same schedule during the week
Sat: VO2 Intervals 4 and then 5, then 6 X 4 min. over the course of the weeks
Sun: Race or team ride. Climbs, attacks, sprints, breakaways, etc.

NM phase (3 weeks, starting 5 weeks from event)
M: 10-12 X 1 min. at around 150% FTP
T: 1 hour Sweet spot
W: 10-12 X 1 min. at around 150% FTP
R: 1 hour Sweet spot
F: 10-12 X 1 min. at around 150% FTP
S: 1-2 hour Tempo
S: Race or team ride.

2 weeks before (Times are estimated...but I'll be GRADUALLY cutting TSS until I arrive at the start of the tour at >15 +TSB
M: 30 min. to 1 hour Sweetspot
T: 2X20 at 100% FTP
W: 30 min. to 1 hour Sweetspot
R: VO2 intervals
F: 30 min. to 1 hour Sweetspot
S: 1-2 hour Tempo

With this schedule, my CTL was (will be) 95-100 before the taper.

P.S. During your tour, be sure to eat, eat, and eat. It's VERY important.

Thank you for your program. Was this a road race as this is the same type off program I would have done.

I'm not a contender for a top 10 yet, but I would think of doing more L4 and L5 training. For me its just surviving no attacking and counter attacks.

At the momnent this is my rest week but for the next 2 x 4weeks I like to increase my time in the saddle.

Franco, my program is mainly L4 (90% FTP is on the low range of that...and of course I do 100% FTP intervals). I believe that Sweet spot area around 90% can bring big benefits. Sweet spot rides can be tough sometimes, but I've found I recover from them very well by the next day.

A recovery week? What's that?

On my program, I rarely need a day off...maybe once every six weeks or so. And I'm not a young rider....

If I were you, I'd go for a big volume push this month, with one or two VO2 workouts each week. But be careful with these, as they can be stressful. I think once a week is pretty good, but see how you do.

Then in the last month, do the 1-min. intervals for several weeks. Then gradually lower volume some (especially those last two weeks) and you're form will come on like a freight train. But don't make the mistake of lowering your training load too much. Otherwise, you can go into the race with your fitness too low. Really, it all depends on how much training load you've built up these last several months as to how much tapering you can do....

If you can't respond to the attacks, keep working on that threshold. The higher your threshold is, the more matches you can burn in a race.

Yes, the tour I'm doing is on the road, 100-120 km stages. I did the same one last year, broke away, and won the yellow jersey (then was disqualified for being led off course by the officials :mad🙂. Well, there's always this year 😎

Bailsibub said:

Franco, my program is mainly L4 (90% FTP is on the low range of that...and of course I do 100% FTP intervals). I believe that Sweet spot area around 90% can bring big benefits. Sweet spot rides can be tough sometimes, but I've found I recover from them very well by the next day.

A recovery week? What's that?

On my program, I rarely need a day off...maybe once every six weeks or so. And I'm not a young rider....

If I were you, I'd go for a big volume push this month, with one or two VO2 workouts each week. But be careful with these, as they can be stressful. I think once a week is pretty good, but see how you do.

Then in the last month, do the 1-min. intervals for several weeks. Then gradually lower volume some (especially those last two weeks) and you're form will come on like a freight train. But don't make the mistake of lowering your training load too much. Otherwise, you can go into the race with your fitness too low. Really, it all depends on how much training load you've built up these last several months as to how much tapering you can do....

If you can't respond to the attacks, keep working on that threshold. The higher your threshold is, the more matches you can burn in a race.

Yes, the tour I'm doing is on the road, 100-120 km stages. I did the same one last year, broke away, and won the yellow jersey (then was disqualified for being led off course by the officials :mad🙂. Well, there's always this year 😎

Thank you for your input.

What I meant by recovery is for example
Week 1 - 14hrs training
Week 2 - 16hrs training
Week 3 - 18hrs training
Week 4 - 10hrs training

Easier on the 4th week (if I remember correctly its macro and micro cycle?)

Hey Franco,

Many people these days avoid recovery weeks. Reason being, with WKO (and a powermeter) you can avoid digging big holes in your training that would actually require an entire week of recovery. If you see your TSB is getting too low, you can just take a day off, and you find the next day, you can get back to working hard.

Also, that fourth week you've got there is more like a taper, which is good if you are going into a race at the end of that taper. But you are missing a pretty large chunk of training time that could be spent building fitness (so you could have a bigger taper before your important race and still have a high level of fitness).

Bailsibub said:

Hey Franco,

Many people these days avoid recovery weeks. Reason being, with WKO (and a powermeter) you can avoid digging big holes in your training that would actually require an entire week of recovery. If you see your TSB is getting too low, you can just take a day off, and you find the next day, you can get back to working hard.

Also, that fourth week you've got there is more like a taper, which is good if you are going into a race at the end of that taper. But you are missing a pretty large chunk of training time that could be spent building fitness (so you could have a bigger taper before your important race and still have a high level of fitness).

Thanks for the reply. What does WKO mean?

From Monday 01 march there is 8 weeks to the race. How would you structure my training time.

Franco, WKO is the software many people use in conjunction with a powermeter. It's so good, it's almost an unfair advantage over those without it. 😄

Like I said before, I'd make a big push in my training load this month and ease off of it just a bit the couple weeks before your race. (This is one area where WKO is simply awesome.)

And yes, I wouldn't taper every fourth week. If you are training well day after day, and you notice you aren't particularly strong one day, then take it off. But the recovery week is something that's steeped in tradition and not necessarily the best thing for your fitness.

You can see what I'm doing to prepare for my stage race. It's nothing fancy, but it's a good general schedule to work off of. Ride your MTB, too. Maybe replace a 2X20 session with some race pace MTB riding.... That'll help with the specific nature of that work.

I don't know what your training load is right now, but yeah, gradually tack on extra minutes to each workout this upcoming month...so one week if you are doing 2X20, then the next week you are doing 2X20 and 5 min. of microintervals, etc.