Looking to hear from other riders who followed the TR Cyclocross training plans. I just completed a season using their plan with somewhat fair results. I’ve been racing cross for 6+ years and this season I noticed that my sustained top end race effort was lacking.
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I did the CX plan when adapted training launched in 2021. I did high volume and followed almost every workout exactly. It was the first year of racing after the pandemic and I’m sure in some sense I was technically rusty but I also didn’t feel super fit at races and I was definitely missing something. My big issue was with progression levels and doing the fixed workouts in erg. I had low vo2 PL so I wasted a lot of time doing workouts with short intervals at 120% so I was neither really working the top end nor was I really developing maximal aerobic fitness. But hey I was completing workouts and it’s all about not feeling like a failure, right? (I’m being sarcastic lol)
I’ll try and post with a comparison but my power bests now vs the year I was doing adaptive training is hugely different. I am self coached (and coaching a couple of people myself) and, although I only did one race this season I felt amazing and ended up having my best placement ever, even after taking three years off of CX
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Are you saying you dropped TR’a recommended vo2 work and did more threshold? Thanks.
No I still did vo2 stuff but harder, 5x4min full gas efforts. Progression levels for VO2 work are pretty useless, it’s as easy as doing 3-5min repeats at full gas.
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So I’m to assume that the TrainerRoad Cyclocross plans have not been correctly designed for real race applications?
I’m fit for racing, been racing road and cross for a while (I’m not a newbie) however the necessary fine tuning for cross races are lacking the proper structured intensity drills.
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I did one a few years ago (before adaptive training), and it wasn’t right for me at all. It just pushed vo2 and other short-type intervals (but not the very short 3s spikes). There wasn’t a threshold workout until a few weeks in. I felt like I lost my threhold power and didn’t improve my vo2max either. It also wasn’t spcific enough to how our races are around here are, which is grinding through the mud at threshold, with some very short (1-3s) sprints uphill. I swapped to doing threshold workouts for the late part of the season, and felt like my fitness improved only then.
I also think now that if you’re racing every weekend, and maybe do another cross training session during the week, you do enough high-power efforts, and it’s better to stick to endurance and some threshold for the rest of your training.
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Hey @OliverTwist 
We’re already exchanging emails on the Support side or TR, but I figured I’d drop some info I’ve already mentioned to provide helpful information for the rest.
From a coaching perspective, in cases like @OliverTwis, we’re getting a red flag that an athlete may not have a sufficient base of aerobic fitness. This is common for a certain portion of athletes who either just ride without structure leading into the CX season or have had a long season racing other disciplines and haven’t taken the time to go back to Base after a Specialty Phase.
A good question to ask is, has the athlete given themselves enough time to follow a plan with Base and Build phases?
If they didn’t, then that’s a crucial platform for the repeated high aerobic and anaerobic efforts of CX.
If they did, then we’d look into balancing work and recovery. Following a Masters Plan is a great first step. But if they are not being disciplined with extra training and recovery days, then we’d want to address that.
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About to have my final race next week. I did a full base and build cycle into the specialty and I am in a much better spot than I have been in my other 3 CX seasons. My Progression levels are high enough that my Vo2 workouts are super hard and productive. I have had a great season with my first podium ever and two 4th places.
Everyone will have a different experience but as someone who can’t afford a coach and doesn’t have the discipline to self coach I think TR is a great option.
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How did you incorporate your races into your calendar in terms of designating them as A, b, c in your schedule, and when did you start your base? Thanks!
Base Started in mid July after a week off the bike. (I was supposed to do Crusher in the Tushar but it was cancelled). First race was last week of September. Due to where I live, there were only 5 races on the calendar so how you classify races may vary but here’s how I did it:
C: No expectations of a result, trying to work on skills at race speed and race prep
B: Would like a good result but not my most important race.
A: State Championship, want to win my category
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I’ve mentioned this a couple of times recently, but TR’s low PL workouts are nonsense. VO2 is probably the worst of the different zones.
I added a Sustained Power Build phase to my calendar and my VO2 PL was 1.2. There’s only 6 VO2 workouts in the block and it likely would’ve taken all 6 of them to get up to what should have been my starting point.
I get that a proper set of 5x5 can be pretty hard and probably not something you want to throw at a total noob, but what is the benefit of doing 4x2.5min at 106% FTP?
He
Are you suggesting that the prescribed Trainer Road Cyclocross Base training consisting of 3 sets of 4 week Zone 2 is not appropriate at a way to improve the sustained power for
required for cyclocross racing?
Regards,
Thanks
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No, that’s not what I’m saying and I don’t think TR has a CX-specific base plan. If you make a CX plan with the Plan Builder tool, it will probably give you a General Base plan for the Base phase.
I don’t have any complaints about the structure of any of the plans, they’re all very reasonable. It’s just that if you start a particular block with PLs below 4ish it might take a while before you are actually doing a productive amount of work in that particular zone.
It probably has less impact on your Base phase, since generally time in the saddle is one of the main goals. But if you’re doing a Build or Specialty and starting from super-low PLs in VO2 Max and Anaerobic, you’re going to end up going through those blocks without doing much meaningful work in either of those zones.
No base program has to be that specific to a discipline. In fact, I think people only really need one or two blocks (so 4 to 8 weeks) of race focused work. Otherwise I think many riders need to focus on TTE work (sweet spot and ftp), endurance volume, and vo2 intensive blocks to race aerobic ceiling. Without giving away too much of my trade secrets lol I did a block of low anaerobic and vo2 work and then my final CX block consisted to maximal short efforts and 30/30 type work. Ironically I didn’t really need all this top end work in my race, but I was prepared!
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Here’s the recommended Trainer Road Cyclocross Plan which I will use in 2025
Base:
3 x 4 Weeks Base = 12 weeks total - May-June-July
Build:
2 x 4 Weeks Build = 8 Weeks total - August-September
Specialized:
Specialized Phase = September and into Cross Race Season - November
Comments
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How many events have you put into the calendar?
Between mid-September to mid-November there will be 6-7 serious cross races and 3-4 mid-week secondary training races.
Cheers
I.m starting the Build plan next week, race cyclo X but have zero top end . This year has been worse as I spent the summer and Autumn doing some bikepacking races. Only to realise I don’t actually enjoy bikepacking!
Now I’m getting dropped at the start in cyclo x races, but because I can ride well at threshold I still win my age category, but want to be higher placed overall.
The other posts on here seem to be implying there is not enough top end work in the TR cyclo x plan.
I am already doing the masters plan but find the endurance sessions so boring and would rather do nothing that day then do another interval day to make 3 /week.Should I do the cx plan after Build, or find another plan that has more top end work?
so I had meant to post this previously, but just remembered I hadn’t, I have the following saved to compare the year I did adaptive training to prepare for CX in 2021 (when adaptive training was initially released) with stuff I’ve done since. i should note that by the time I did adaptive training, I had already been using TR for several years. While my FTP isn’t drastically different, I think it was 295 in 2021 and it might be 300 at the moment, maybe 305, I am far stronger in a lot of other intermediate power targets from 1min-5min. I attribute it to a) not getting caught up in progression levels b) doing short stuff at maximal effort and not bound to targets and c) not doing stuff in erg mode. So, while I was technically successful in doing all the workouts I was given by adaptive training, it didn’t push me in any way.
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In my opinion the best way to get ready for cyclocross is to work on general fitness over the spring and summer; any TR program will do. Then from mid summer attend one group training session per week and really blow your doors off whilst also maintaining the finesse cx requires. Just riding a cx bike at a steady pace through mixed terrain for the remainder if the week will make it feel like an extension of yourself and maintain a nice fresh fit feeling.
Once race season starts then thats 2 hard sessions a week so resting becomes top priority in between.
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