Hi everyone. New to TR.
The UK TT season kicked off this weekend just gone and now there are events coming up that I would like to do well in:
9 Aug – 10m
23 Aug – 25m
5 Sep – 10m
13 Sep – 25m
19 Sep – 10m
20 Sep – 25m
How would you structure these next two months? I tapered last week leading up to yesterday’s race. My CTL is 81. There will also be other TTs that I could ride in but, I’d treat them as training if I did.
Thanks,
Sam
I’ve also been doing a 10 race TT series with events every couple of weeks. For me, I just don’t taper. I find that if I taper for each event that I will lose too much fitness or feel flat. I go into the events with a tad bit of fatigue and it seems to be working well.
Only If I was going into a state race or A event I would schedule a taper week into the event.
Cool. How’s your season going? How are you training between races?
The season is going great actually… my power has been consistent pre and post lockdown. I try to average around 12hrs a week with intervals on M-W-F or T-T. I always do z2 rides in between and longer outdoor rides (3-5hrs) on the weekend when I’m not racing.
This series course is a 8 mile double turn around and I recently set a PR of just over 29mph at around 330w.
Good work! What sort of intervals are you doing on MWF/TT?
I think we’re probably quite similar. My PB for a 10 is 20:13, 330NP. Yesterday was 21:00, 326NP (slow day!)
Nice! That is super fast. Do you guys have u turns or roundabouts for the turns? I feel the u turnarounds hurt our times. I wish TT’s were more popular here. Unfortunately, people would rather sit in and try to sprint compared to racing the clock. I was doing a short block of some vo2 stuff because during lockdown I did only SS and threshold so I lost some top end. Although recently I started doing some longer SS and Threshold again. Start with 2x30’s and work towards 1x60+
Are you on strava? Look me up, “Eric O”
Roundabouts. Follow Sam on Strava to see this activity. Join for free.
I would hate to do a U-turn, you must have to scrub off so much speed.
vo2 and SS sounds good. I’ve recently started doing 2 hard rides a week, one SS and one threshold. Thinking of some Hickson intervals and longer SS work
Those Hickson intervals look tough. I find vo2 intervals Quickly push me to the edge or getting sick and building too much muscle fatigue. Vo2 work is my weakness although for TT Racing I seem to respond better to longer Sub thresh intervals. It will be interesting to follow your racing and training. Hopefully we can bounce ideas off each other and get quicker!
FWIW…
Our local TT Series often starts end of March and runs 6-8 races straight for a couple months. Basically April-May-June is a lot of testing (TT’ing). We have had years with back to back Saturday and Sunday events.
What the guys chasing overall series titles do is arrive for race #1 in close to top fitness. Then race like mad and hang on as long as possible. These riders go for broad peaks, sacrificing a few watts at the top for durability. A subset of individuals will go all out for a specific event, usually the state championship 40km race. Those riders use the standard base-build-specialty approach and work in non-A race days as “hard” days.
So for the OP… given your races start soon, you likely have the fitness you are going to have for this season. From the tone, sounds like you want to do well for the duration and not target a specific event.
What I’ve done in similar situations is to keep the in week work moderate and limited. You are basically racing and recovering so very hard to race and recover and gain fitness.
A typical week for me would be:
Monday - Rest or easy spin or low level strength
Tuesday - 60 min moderate ride (LT1)
Wednesday - Hard day. High % SST (95%) 2 x 30 or higher power efforts (5x5 or 4x8 110% range). If focused on 40km, I go longer and longer on hard days.
Thursday - Recovery ride 60-90 min
Friday - Openers (usually 60-75 min total with some efforts)
Saturday - RACE
Sunday - long ride 3-4 hours
Repeat until end of series / season.
Given that you are bouncing between 10 and 25 tests, it might be worth adding a 20-30 min 90% FTP effort after your tens. If pointing toward the 25s.
If you have not been riding the TT bike much, suggest getting on it soon and ramping up time so that you get used to holding position and making power on the TT rig. That adaptation and comfort will be worth a lot. When I’m all in for the TT series I’m on my TT rig a ton. Even 3-4 hour rides at times. Gotta hold position.
Perhaps of note - I’m early 50s in terms of age so one race and one hard day is what I can do in season. I tend to do long openers so its 2.5 days with hard efforts. If you require less recovery it can be worth doing the standard one day VO2max efforts and one day threshold. Particularity if pointing toward one of the later races.
Take home – ride the TT bike, don’t sacrifice training for race day during a short season.
Have fun, looks like a great series and love all those 25 mile tests!
-Mark
This is great. Thanks!
If the 2021 season is a ‘normal’ season, I might do Base-Build-Specialty. I did Elwell-Sierra-Sonora +2 in the build up to a mock TT (basically a solo effort on a TT course) and found it really good for sharpening up. Got a PB as well!
From the tone, sounds like you want to do well for the duration and not target a specific event.
Yeah, I’d like to perform well during all five, rather than sacrificing four of them to peak for just one.
That weekly schedule looks pretty good.
What do you consider LT1 – zone 2?
High % SST (95%) 2 x 30 or higher power efforts (5x5 or 4x8 110% range). If focused on 40km, I go longer and longer on hard days.
I saw Andy Coggan post on a forum that 106-110% was a bit of a no man’s land as it’s too hard to go long enough to target LT but too easy to really target Vo2 max.
I know he recommends Hickson intervals – 6x5’ @ 113% with 2:30 rests. Have yet to try that. Guess why!
Two weeks ago I did Galena +1 (albeit sat up on a dumb trainer – riding in position doesn’t seem to help unless on direct drive turbo), so will give 2x30 a go indoors, or 2 x 10 mile TTs at sweetspot outdoors.
Given that you are bouncing between 10 and 25 tests, it might be worth adding a 20-30 min 90% FTP effort after your tens. If pointing toward the 25s.
Yeah, good shout. I did 2x15 @ 90% on turbo a few hours after the race on Sunday. I’ve got a 10 tomorrow evening, so will do a long sweetspot effort whilst others are racing/cool down.
If you have not been riding the TT bike much, suggest getting on it soon and ramping up time so that you get used to holding position and making power on the TT rig.
Completely agree.
How’s your season going, if at all?
Sam,
No season here. Mid-Atlantic USA. We were hit hard by Covid and had lockdowns. That took away all the March-June racing which had 8 TT’s scheduled. It’s OK, worked on other things, building fitness toward next year hopefully.
With decent covid numbers now and some things opened up, a few of us are doing twice a month 10 mi TTs on a favorite course. Not the same as a proper race but enjoyable. Assuming things stay good, same small group of friends will do some 25s this fall.
LT1 = Zone 2 (or close enough). Just getting the legs going with some pressure. Not too easy, definitely not too hard.
6 x 5 min at 2:1 work rest and 113% is a very stout workout. If you recover well from that and it pushes your power up, then maybe for a few weeks. But toward the last 3-4 weeks of the race set, I would just focus on lowering fatigue and racing well.
Ending with that double whammy 10 then 25 back to back is pretty evil planning!! Evil in a good way. Some folks do extremely well with back to back events. The first race can act as a mega-opener for the second. I’d come into that weekend well rested and ready to go. Smash that final 25 and feel great.
If it were me, and I was fairly fresh today with decent fitness, would be about polishing and racing well. Probably would set up a training block culminating in the August 23rd 25 mi race. Basically, train up to the August 23 race. Hit that weekly VO2 type workout and keep lengthening the threshold or high SST workout. Don’t go nuts and move from CTL of 80 to 120 though. Just a bit more for 3-4 weeks then start to dial it back. If you start now and train through the August 9th event have 5+ weeks. Good amount of time to create a block and polish up the form you have already established this season.
Come through the 23rd then into early September with once a week hard, once a week steady, once a week race and you’ll stay sharp but start dropping fatigue from the legs.
The end of your schedule is 4 races in 16 days. Two tens and two 25s. If you get the race - recovery correct for the last say 20 days, you can smash them.
Something like that. I tend to err on the side of extra recovery vs trying to eek out smallish gains when race season is full on. You can always train heavy October into next year : - )
Even for normal years, I’m not a big fan of extra long tapers. Doesn’t work well for me. Unless a rider has been pointed at an A-race for a long time with a very good plan (and coach), seems to either miss the peak or come in with dull legs. Others will say: “bollocks, a big taper works great for me and I eat gravel for breakfast day of my big event”!!! Over years of doing this stuff, I’ve become a big fan of dialing things up slowly into a longer race season and bringing them back down slowly toward a couple races I enjoy most.
Just manage the fatigue and do what makes your legs feel good. When it comes to tapers, openers, race day warm-ups, everyone is a bit different.
-Mark
a few of us are doing twice a month 10 mi TTs on a favorite course
Not a million miles away from how the sport started!
LT1 = Zone 2 (or close enough). Just getting the legs going with some pressure. Not too easy, definitely not too hard.
Sounds similar to my standard easy rides average 66% MHR on road bike (no power) or ~65% FTP on TT bike.
6 x 5 min at 2:1 work rest and 113% is a very stout workout. If you recover well from that and it pushes your power up, then maybe for a few weeks. But toward the last 3-4 weeks of the race set, I would just focus on lowering fatigue and racing well.
Agreed. I don’t think I’d want to do, or be able to stomach, an extended period of that kind of workout. It’s 0.96 for an hour…
Ending with that double whammy 10 then 25 back to back is pretty evil planning!! Evil in a good way. Some folks do extremely well with back to back events. The first race can act as a mega-opener for the second. I’d come into that weekend well rested and ready to go. Smash that final 25 and feel great.
I’ve raced on back to back days before. Sometimes the second day feels good, other days it doesn’t. I definitely prefer doing 10/25 rather than 25/10 though! They’re the final two races though so I guess motivation will be high. I did a solo 25 a few weeks ago and that was 54 minutes of “why am I doing this!?”
Probably would set up a training block culminating in the August 23rd 25 mi race. Basically, train up to the August 23 race. Hit that weekly VO2 type workout and keep lengthening the threshold or high SST workout.
So something like the Hickson intervals or maybe Spanish Needle-esque stuff progression and 2x20 threshold, build up to an hour at sweetspot?
Come through the 23rd then into early September with once a week hard, once a week steady, once a week race and you’ll stay sharp but start dropping fatigue from the legs.
What would ‘hard’ and ‘steady’ look like during this sort of peak maintenance phase?
The end of your schedule is 4 races in 16 days. Two tens and two 25s. If you get the race - recovery correct for the last say 20 days, you can smash them.
Yeah, this will just be about survival!
I’ve been playing around with tapering and openers. It’s an art!
is that 10 miles or 10 minutes?
General snapshot comment since I don’t really know much about you as a rider, but If you’re using WKO5, see what your FTP to VO2max % is to see if you’d be better hit FTP work or VO2max work. If it’s in the mid 80s, go vo2max. If it’s lower, keep banging FTP work.
Rest and recover hard between the TT’s but keep the legs sharp. I’d do this by having just one hard and one moderate ride between those really close event dates. The dates that are spread more apart (like august), fill the week before with normal training.
Crush it!!!
Hey Brendan,
10 miles.
I haven’t used WKO5 but I will try to download it and see what my FTP to VO2 max % is. My gut feeling is my % is quite low. Numbers:
July solo 25 mile TT – 297 watts for 54:35.
May 4 x 3 minutes’ @ 385-400 in position up a slight 2% hill.
Folks won’t like this answer, but when I’m in season I do a fair amount of tempo work around my hard and race days. I like to keep some pressure / tension in the legs. I just don’t do well with days off or long tapers. Leaves me flat. So if racing each weekend I try to balance fatigue with good feeling legs. It takes some experimentation to find what you respond well to. And that can change over time (yeah, more complexity).
Admit that Hard and Steady are vague terms…
To me, “hard” is a VO2max workout or threshold work. I like longer intervals for VO2max during the season (3, 4, 5, 6 min). Getting into 4x8 or 5x8 110% or more is too much for me in season. Particularly for time trials where its steady state, I avoid on/off type work (30/30 et al). I want the work but I also want my brain tuned in to being OK with hurting and staying in the hurt zone. Threshold days are going to be 95-100%and something like 2x30 or 1x45
But again, depending on fitness and how you recover, it may be too much to do two hard days plus a race. If racing every week it is important to recover.
Steady for me is right around LT1. I find that is a good level to have some tension in the legs but not too much. I’ve measured LT1 but something around 70-75% of FTP is a good estimate. Play around up and down to fit your needs.
Hope some of this is helpful. One issue with asking these Qs on a forum is ten people give you 20 ideas and cause confusion : - )
Not a TT’r myself, but I’d say threshold has become my strength. I’d do a threshold block in the time you have, increasing Time at or just below threshold. There’s loads of threads about it. You can see the progression I did about 10 weeks ago starting with Lamarck (4 x 10) and working up to Unicorn +1 (1 x 60).
I’ll hopefully be racing 2 x a week now for the rest of August then 1x a week in September. I do club TT on Tue, VO2 max session Thr (but only short like Bluebell - don’t want to fry the legs) Open TT Saturday, - Monday off and easy road riding the rest of the time. If it was a full season I would have a mid season break to refresh …but since the season is 2 months I’m going to try and go for it flat out until the end of September! 
Have a few 10’s, 25’s and 1 x50 planned - was supposed to do a 50 last weekend but the weather was awful
Nice. Were you supposed to race E2/50C? I entered but was DNS(A) in favour of a local 10
Yeah, that makes sense. I raced last night and I’ve got 2 x ~20 @ threshold planned on a local 10TT course for Saturday. I’ll check your ride history out. Thanks
I did a lot of tempo last season but I was hoping to do well during a 100 in June, so it was ‘race-specific’. I’m not doing any this year as no 50s or 100 on the schedule. I find it quite tiring, and usually opt for sweetspot instead…
Another vote for long threshold
One race + one hard session is enough for me. I might do three hard rides in a week without a race, but I don’t wanna overdo things at this time.