first off, thanks for the awesome 5 STAR podcast, I love it and I listen to it every week. I enjoyed the recount of your 24 hours race at Old Pueblo last week.
I am an ultra endurance cyclist, I usually compete in races that last 24 hours or longer (I.E. The Silver State 508 and 24 Hour World Time Trial Championships, hoping to one day complete RAAM as well). I subscribe to trainer road because I support what you guys are doing, I am a local and appreciate what you guys have done for the local cycling community as well as the global cycling community. I also would pay the subscription just to access the ramp test. I do not use any of your plans because I have a coach, and I also don’t think that any of them suit my needs as an ultra endurance cyclist.
My questions is this:
Is there any plans in the future to create training plans for ultra endurance cyclist (us going beyond the double century level)?
If not, do you have suggestions for those of us (ultra endurance cyclists) to utilize your current plans and manipulate them to suit or needs?
Would also be interested in a TR ultra plan as long as it doesn’t look like traditional base on steroids. `To me indoor training is not well-suited to repetitive 3+hr endurance rides - its just not worth the boredom!
This is my 3rd year of training for ultra distance races (Transcontinental, SRMR - although not at the pointy end yet) and my current approach is to do SSB-SPB-Century MV Tuesday-Saturday and then add a 6-12hr ride on Sundays. I’ll then try to do a high-volume training week in early spring (circa 1500 TSS) and a few 24hr rides from May-June mainly for mental preparation.
But I’m definitely not an expert and would welcome advice and opinions on this, as well as any info the OP wants to share in terms of the sessions that your coach has you doing.
Plans for ultra-endurance events aren’t on our roadmap at the moment for a few reasons. We’re focusing our coaching efforts on some really exciting new features that we have on the way, and indoor training for those long events would be absolutely brutal. Outdoor rides prescribed by a coach would be much more manageable and almost as effective. You’re a perfect example of an athlete who has goals that are a bit outside of what we can support with the existing TR plans, so I’m glad to hear you have a coach helping you get there. Best of luck with your training and racing!
Currently I am training at a lower (relative) TSS, 500-800 a week. My coach switches things up and schedule is variable. Right now I am just throwing down some shorter sweet spot work, as well as some tempo each week. I am only getting in aprox 3 hours. endurance on sat and sun each week (due to it being EXTREMELY boring going over 3 hours on the trainer). I am doing a 24 hour indoor ride, just to keep me mentally prepared for the season, in March. Then he will have me do a couple of 24 hour days before the Silver State 508, and the SS508 will prepare me for the 24 hour Time Trials as well. I will also ride a few centuries and double centuries at an extremely hard pace throughout the season, which I throw in my planner. I don’t really ask his patterns or why he prescribes certain things, just because I am lazy, but looking back it seems like he builds up my ftp with a lot of HIIT, then slowly progresses to more tempo and endurance work while maintaining that FTP. After my week long break in November we did a few weeks of sprint work, and I kind of think that was just so I didn’t get completely sick of the trainer.
@larry Thanks for what you guys do! I completely understand the whole concept of supply and demand, less of a demand for the ultra stuff, but maybe one day… fingers crossed
The problem is TrainerRoad is focused on providing plans for executing using indoor training. The way to approach ultra endurance events is to do just massive amount of miles. 4+ hours on the regular. Most people are cracking pretty hard at 2 hours on a trainer, never mind double that.
Here was the training plan from the winner of the SS508 this year:
“My training for the 508 was just part of my normal race season, i didn’t specifically train for 508. however i did peak and taper for it. During the week i do interval training 2, 3 nights, recovery one night and endurance one night. Intervals range from power build to high temp to steady state. i do a lot of longer steady state as the season progresses. 15 to 20 minutes at ftp x 3 with 5 minutes rest in between is common for instance. weekends is endurance, 5 to 8 hours is typical per day. ridden at 220 watts or mid level endurance wattage for me”
