Hello all. New TR user here. I’m racing the Cohutta 100 in late April and I don’t have enough time to complete the base, build, and specialty plans prior to race day - I only have time for two of the three. Should drop build phase and go straight to the specialty plan? Or should I just race right after the build phase? I vaguely recall Chad addressing this in a podcast but I wasn’t able to track down the answer. Thanks in advance.
If you have little experience (years riding) and/or little to no base now I’d do base, build and start into the specialty phase knowing you won’t complete the specialty plan prior to the A race. You’ll be better off with a proper foundation going into build. A bad build will lead to a ineffective specialty. Better to be in the middle of a specialty with quality under your belt than completing a half assed specialty phase.
If you have years of experience under your belt and an ok base now start in with a build then specialty.
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And for a race of this distance, it may do you best to focus on base and build. It’s rarely ever a good idea to skip base.
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Some riders may be tempted to bypass their base training, but if you’ve been off the bike for an extended period of time, a focus on base training is especially important. Don’t skip it.
If you’ve been out on the road tackling unstructured, low-intensity miles, you won’t need to put as much focus into establishing a foundation of fitness, but you still should dedicate some time to it. Everyone can benefit from re-entering their training season in the Base phase. It simply comes down to how much time and how often you feel you should revisit it.
Specialty is very much “the icing on the cake” while Base and Build are the real “meat” of your training. If you are able to consistently complete a full Base and Build Phase, you will have plenty of fitness heading into your A race 
Happy training!
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I’ve had a good number of successful races using only the Base and Build phases of the plans. As previously said by others, start there and move on through.
The only adaptions I might make are some longer rides during the build (I’m assuming that the ‘100’ is a 100 mile race) but that would just mean replacing one of the weekly rides in the Build plan with a longer one. That might also depend on your goals and previous experience as to what you feel you need to do.
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