The CX season has now started, so I’ll have approx 3months where I’ll be racing every weekend. I’ve built up to the season nicely, but what plan do I use during the race season? I’ve read numerous posts on here, most seem to suggest using a structure that could only be achieved by using “train now” I guess. For CX, all my races will be “A” races, so it seems that the plan builder perhaps isn’t suitable. Other than using “train now” for 3 months, is there any other way to obtain a stuctured plan through the season?
What you can do is choose (1) race to be your A race, typically I choose a race that is 2/3 the way into the season. I then make every race leading up to it a B race, this is what I have done historically to get the best results. Choosing what time of year to peak so you have the best results/points possible is the key, but know at some point you are going to have a hard time/be tired.
You are very welcome, also do not forget to input the races correctly in the calendar so the system has an idea what to calculate. Look at your historical racing data from last year and use the workout time and TSS as a guideline for the B races in the calendar.
This is exactly what I’d recommend as well. If you have one particular race that you’d really like to do well in, make that your A race. If not, somewhere late in the season is a good place for your one A race. Here’s one more reason to love Plan Builder!
One last thing to consider is the volume of the plan you’re choosing. I’d calculate the total riding time each week, including your warm-up, race, and cool-down, into the total number of hours you’re hoping to ride.
This will help to avoid building a plan with too many hours or workouts per week. I’d replace at least one workout that you’d normally have in your training plan with each race. As always, leave time in the week for recovery as well!
If you’re racing every week is it beneficial to make each race an A race?
I think the idea is that you would plan your season so as to peak for say , the regional cx champs, and the National champs.
These would be your A races.
Then, looking at all the other races you are planning, you can list them as B, or C races.
In my case, I rode the National Gravel champs last weekend. My summer A race.
I’m racing local cx this weekend but this will be a C race.(as I will still be a bit tired).
CX is always eyeballs out , for me anyway, but it can still be a B, or C race, and I won’t have tapered, carb loaded, etc like i would do for an A race.
I’m assuming you are training as usual in between all your races.
And if you can recover quickly , then fine, but a lot of us would struggle with being able to
train consistently and complete the workouts successfully if we raced every weekend.
I 've just got my cx plan by going into plan builder. I’ve put in a hypothetical A race (as I don’t know the exact date of the cx regionals)
TR has come up with a pretty sweet plan , which will get me onto the podium(we hope)
@Lydiagould we recommend that athletes try and select at most two A races each year and that they be at least 12 weeks apart to ensure that you are at absolute peak form for each of them.
It sounds like you’ve got a good plan going, and from what I’ve heard gravel nationals went pretty well for you if I’m not mistaken!
We’re wishing you the best of luck with the rest of your season!
My experience with CX and training plans is to not run a plan during the season. The 1-2 races count as hard work-outs and on the weekdays, I pick endurance or sweet spot work-outs. If I only have 1 race I might pick a hard workout on Tuesday or Wednesday.
CX is my A race. None of the races is more important than the other so I try to maintain the fitness. But that is only for a 1½ month period.
Yes, I agree. My target for the year was the CX season as a whole, rather that one particular race - I just want to do well in the overall league standings. But I’ll give the above advice a shot, I’ve added in an A race near the end of the season, and all the others as Bs and see how we go.
I guess you just use “train now” for your mid week workouts between races then?
There is a similar thread on here, where the advice was that if you go with a TR plan, then to pick the day for hard workouts to be your race day. That way TR won’t put another hard workout on the day after etc.
Personally I’ve found that workingnon sweetspot/threshold works better during race season, than adding more high-intensity intervals. Mostly because if I don’t, I never do anything over a few minutes for months on end, and my threshold power takes a knock.
