Is my training plan too easy?

What kind of race is it Janie, a road race, time trial, and over what distance? I've seen the plans in the Carmichael book and I too think they are a little too easy, with only the advanced plan worth following for a competitive cyclist.

If you are road racing or TTing then you will certainly need more intensity before the race, although it isn't too late to add some with 5 weeks to go. OTOH if you're riding a century or similar then the Level2 work is all you really need.

Janie, I've been follwing the intermediate plan too and am in the 5th week. I think its designed to give you a good base of fitness from which you would then need to sharpen your speed with for a race.

I did my first race last night since 13 years (a 1 hour fast crit) and performed well enough by my target, holding the bunch for 20 mins, then using the rest of the race for interval training. What I need is more fast speed work though, as the Heart rates I saw in the race were way above the tempo zones you train at on the programme ie at around 90% max HR.

Still, in this game you need to build a good base to tackle races and I've noticed my fitness improving on it, so for me its good. I'm looking forward to using it to increase my diet of racing.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Blackie
Janie, I've been follwing the intermediate plan too and am in the 5th week. I think its designed to give you a good base of fitness from which you would then need to sharpen your speed with for a race.

I did my first race last night since 13 years (a 1 hour fast crit) and performed well enough by my target, holding the bunch for 20 mins, then using the rest of the race for interval training. What I need is more fast speed work though, as the Heart rates I saw in the race were way above the tempo zones you train at on the programme ie at around 90% max HR.

Still, in this game you need to build a good base to tackle races and I've noticed my fitness improving on it, so for me its good. I'm looking forward to using it to increase my diet of racing.

Just to update you on it Janie, I've won my first race this season, a 4th cat race in the UK. I definitely think the Carmichael programme gave me a good base, then I used a few races to sharpen up my speed. In my opinion the intermediate programme is good. Once you start racing, you'll want to move onto the advanced programme, and then though you need to tailor the programme or you'll overdo it, then a coach would be handy.