I just completed a fairly long training plan on the run up to the Belgian Waffle Ride last weekend (April 16th) in Carlsbad. I’ve decided to sign up to do the BWR Asheville scheduled for June 10th. I’d like to try to keep raising my fitness, however, plugging the dates into Plan Builder just results in a Build Phase until the event in June. Is this suggested, or should I just work in a Specialty Phase until then?
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Chad has said on the podcast before that defaulting to earlier periods of the training cycle is generally advised when there isn’t enough time to get a full training cycle in (generally 20 to 24 weeks). So yeah, this makes sense to me. I think you’ll probably lose fitness if you only do specialty until the next race.
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What did you do in the lead up exactly and what are your goals for the next race?
Have you recovered since the last race?
What are you doing over summer?
You have about 8 weeks so broadly could do 4 weeks build, 4 weeks speciality incl a taper at the end. This would be if you want to be very race fit.
However if you’re quite tired from earlier phases of training you may be better served with another week of recovery then maybe another round of base-build. Maybe even just train through the second race with a bit of recovery after.
Thank you for getting back to me on this. All in all, I’m not too beat up from the training leading up to the ride and from the ride last Sunday. Breaking it out into two 4 week blocks sounds like it could be a good plan.
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Interesting. My current training plan goes against this (so I’m now wondering if I should follow that or what). I have my main A event in July and recently I added a second A even 8 (or maybe 9) weeks later. After a recovery week, it has me going straight back into Speciality. I’m wondering if it’s different for the OP since he only added that second after after the first plan had fully finished?
Of course, in my case I’m on a low volume gran fondo plan, so from SSB2 through specialty, the plans are awfully similar - 1 day of sweet spot, 1 day of threshold, 1 day of VO2. I think the type of threshold and VO2 work is changing between phases. But I’m wondering if this means I shouldn’t be as worried as someone with a different plan.
Do you plan on resting before attempting another arduous training plan?
I’ve stayed off my bike for a week. Just went out for a group ride today, felt pretty good.
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What specialty phase did you end up with going into BWR SD? Speaking off the cuff I think going back to a build would be beneficial as it might allow you to touch up those energy systems and get some of those benefits before sharpening your peak performance with a specialty phase.
At least that’s how I look at it.
I’m doing something similar to you in that I also just completed a base/build/specialty plan up to BWR. Now I’m taking two week off unstructured and then starting a polarized base/build then specialty phase leading into Cedar City.
Did you peak according to the previous plan you used? I feel like I peaked earlier than expected, specifically at the end of my build and start of my specialty plan. At least in terms of motivation and how I felt on the bike.
I just followed the AI generated low volume plan through the 3 phases and added a long day (75 to 100 miles) around zone 2 on Sunday. Not sure if I peaked exactly, but I was in better shape for the event than I thought I would be. Had some issues with a tight lower back during the build phase, but got it sorted out with a dynamic stretching routine in the morning.
To asnwer your question specifically, though, I think I followed the climbing road race specialty phase.