My next challenge - suggestions?

giannip said:

...The race will be 8laps of a 13.3.ml course. I know the course and finished 11th last year in a 4 lap C race with much less condition that I have this year in my opinion.

What's the course like, flat, rolling, a killer climb, a few short decisive climbs? What was the deciding stretch last year?

Adding a few watts to your FTP will help regardless so don't skimp on L4 work. If there are climbs over a few minutes long then dropping a couple of pounds by race date (general advice, I have no idea how lean you already are) might help. If it's a flatter course with "sprinters hills" and prone to windy conditions then I'd concentrate on L5 and even some L6 sessions for those crunch times.

It really depends on your personal weak areas and how the race is likely to play out. The good news is that a month is plenty of time for several focused hard training blocks followed by a taper. I'd take a very objective look at your recent races, where you were strong and where you struggled. Identify those areas where you'll get the most bang for your training time buck relative to the nationals course and likely tactics from the strong riders. Then plan out a two to three week focused strategy hitting the weak areas hard and digging a fairly deep training hole then taper.

Good luck,
Dave

Well, the course would be undulating and one section goes along a new motorway which climbs up in 3 stages.

On that course it's pretty much that people just drop off and then there's maybe 20-30 or so left on the last lap and the last time up the climbs it's whoever can hang in there.

While I'm not worried about this course when racing in my own category, my main aim for the Nationals is to hang in as long as possible. I'm racing with guys who have just finished a 1 week UCI2.2 tour so there's no point in kidding myself.

giannip said:

...On that course it's pretty much that people just drop off and then there's maybe 20-30 or so left on the last lap and the last time up the climbs it's whoever can hang in there....

O.K. so it sounds like your basic attrition course with the stair stepped climb being the crux. FTP explains why folks might make the first lap or the second and then get shelled so keep that in your training schedule. If the steps are less than 6 minutes or so and there's chance for rest and wheel sucking on the downside of the rollers then I'd hit L5 pretty hard in your final build as well. If the stair steps or critical sections of them are steep and short as in two minutes or less then I'd work in some L6 on similar hills as well. Since you don't sound very confident of contesting the sprint I'd drop those sessions from your training during your final push and use the time for some of the stuff above.

Only you know your strengths and weaknesses, but hold those up to the course you just described and put together a plan that builds the most important things which are most likely FTP and VO2 max and continues to build CTL up till your taper. From that standpoint or if the hard workouts leave you a bit flat you might swap some pure L4 work for some high end L3/SST work so that you can go a bit longer in level and continue to build CTL without completely trashing yourself.

When I get a couple weeks out from an important event I spreadsheet CTL, ATL, TSB with estimates of my daily TSS, duration and intensities. It lets me do some "what if" planning to see how deep a TSB hole I'll dig and how fast and far CTL will fall during the taper. I just use a simple block average estimate for CTL and ATL by creating a spreadsheet with the following formulas:

CTLd = (CTL(d-1)*41 + TSS)/42
ATLd = (ATL(d-1)*6 + TSS)/7
TSBd = CTL(d-1) - ATL(d-1)

It's not exactly the same as the exponentially weighted average in WKO+ but gives you a pretty good estimate and is simple to code into a spreadsheet. I shoot for a low positive TSB on my prerace day which usually gives me a slightly higher positive TSB (+2 to +6) on race day. This has been working nicely for me, but look back at your previous TSBs before your best races to see what works best for you.

Good luck,
-Dave

It's not that I'm not confident, it's that I am a realist 😄 . I'm a C category rider, back racing for 1 year and I will be racing against A / B cats + a few Pros, one of them being Nicolas Roche who just finished the Giro.....so you see where I'm coming from?

🙂