Hey all,
Currently in race season here with a C race most Saturdays.
I realise there are a few key sessions - 2 mid week and one on generally on Saturday within the mid volume plan, my question is do I swap the key Saturday workout for the race or swap it around to try and get that one in? Usually a VO2 workout.
Week would be
Mon- rest
Tues - usually a VO2 workout
Wed - endurance
Thursday - over under a or similar
Friday - easy/endurance
Saturday - Race
Sunday - Generally SS
Thanks all
Use the race as a workout. Nothing beats a good race for developing fitness and skills 
I was always planning to swap a workout for the race, my question is which one? As in which of the 4 workouts during the week (not including the endurance) is the best to drop off as a replacement.
Depending on the race but usually I’d say swap it with the VO2 workout. You will normally get that work in any race as no race is steady or structured.
Potentially you could also swap it with your U/O sessions.
Putting in a race is fine to swap over a session - You can get some the same adaptations from the race as a hard session and learn new race skills and nutrition.
If the race is a 50 minute crit, I’d swap out the VO2 workout. If it’s a 2+ hour road race, I’d drop the O/Us. These suggestions are based purely on how I compare and race these types of events.
Same question, different approach:
Races tend to be Saturdays for me, I’m on Build MV, I rest Sunday and workout days are MWFSat. With Sat being the 2hr SS ride. I workout before work (4:30ish), have a 4 months old etc.
My approach, and I’d like opinions and suggestions, would be to do a 1.5hr SS on Tuesday (as long intervals high TSS as I can) and two high intensity workouts on Monday, Thursday and Race Saturday. If I don’t race (weather, life etc.) would adding 30mins of endurance to the end of whatever high intensity I do on Saturday be a good compromise? Or do I really lose out by not doing the full 2hr SS ride?
Depends on the race. Do some analysis of time in zone etc and see where it fits best.
The approach I take when doing this is to restructure my week so that it starts on race day. That allows me to analyse the race, decide what kind of training stimulus it provided, and then adjust the workouts for the rest of the week accordingly. I found this to be a better approach (mentally at least) than doing the race at the end of the week and then having it unfold in a very different way to expected. E.g. A crit race which I was expecting to have a lot of VO2 work, but then ended up being in an early 2 man breakaway which stuck so turned into an over under workout. So instead of dropping the VO2 workout that week I’d drop the over under or threshold workout. Other approach I have done effectively is to just rotate which workout I drop. E.g. Anaerobic one week, VO2 the next, threshold the next. This works well if races don’t fit neatly into one category (which is often the case) but contain a real mix of intensities.
Load the races in plan builder as C races and the program will fill in the rest of the workouts.