With the end of my first ‘cross season drawing near I’m day dreaming about next winter and how I’m going to train for it, or rather when I’m going to train for it. The choice of plans is pretty straight forward, short power build into Cyclocross speciality however I’m not sure how to schedule it. The cross plan seems to finish with a bit of a taper (30 minute Truuli -2) but cross is a season. I’m in no danger of winning anything so I’m not targeting a specific race, more I want to do well over the whole season. So do I schedule the plan to finish at the first race, so I’ve got all the training in my legs, and then what do I do over the season to stay fit and sharp?
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I just signed up to TR for almost exactly the same reason, having heard about plan builder on the podcast. Hoping that I can throw my planned CX races on the calendar, and get TR to give me a plan for training over the summer and then into race season. One hard thing to gauge will be which league races I want to treat as ‘A’ races, given they’re supposed to be 8 weeks apart…
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Based on my CX experience (Cat 2 in the Seattle area, four seasons under my belt), and what I’ve seen of the TR CX build and specialty plans (which I will of course caveat that I have not ridden), you’re going to have to make some modifications either way. Depending on how long your local series is, you could actually do really well for yourself to hit peak fitness for the first or second race, then just ride out your fitness/form. There is certainly something to be said for a high series standing and a front row call-up by coming into the series hot. In that case, you’ll want to do some maintenance work during the season and expect the form to run out at some point (but most local race seasons are not all that long), as well as making sure you’re spending time outside on the CX bike to keep your skills sharp.
If you want to peak for the final race of the series, or maybe your state championship, I think that’s when you would need to make more modifications to the TR build and specialty plans. To be really fresh for racing in the heart of the CX season (assuming this is in fact your objective), you probably shouldn’t be doing more than one or maybe two other high-intensity workouts during the week. Not to mention the fact that CX requires a lot of skills work that the TR plans do not contemplate. If at all possible, you will want to be getting outside on your CX bike at least one weekday and on the weekends to work on cornering at speed, dismounts/remounts, run-ups, etc (and contrary to road, you will especially want to train outside when the weather is bad if you hope to race well in those conditions). Now that you have a season under your belt, you probably have some idea what your strengths and weaknesses are, and also what each week’s course features you’ll want to practice beforehand. Whichever way you go here, remember there is a lot of “free speed” to be found on the course–a rider who is less fit can still ride a feature faster all day long, but you can only sprint to close the gap so many times.
There is a lot of wisdom to be gleaned here about how to prepare for and race CX: Library — Cycle-Smart . Some of it may be geared towards taking CX more seriously than you are looking to (or may be right in line with your goals), but either way it should help you get some ideas about how to set up your weeks during the season, what kind of training to do for fitness and skills, etc. The bottom line though is that there is a lot more to riding a CX bike fast than having a big engine.
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As already mentioned, plan builder is what you want to use, as soon as I find out the dates for our upcoming southern hemisphere CX season I’m going to switch to using it 
Thanks for your detailed reply @clarksmithson, your thoughts on peaking at the start/end/champs are interesting. As I mention, I’m in n danger of winning anything, I just want to put in a decent appearance.
Thanks to @wysbf2 for pointing out Plan Builder, I’d missed that. I’ve plugged in provisional dates for next season’s race, and it’s done a good job of putting a plan together for me. Good work TR!
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