Training Plan - 200KM Gravel Race - Main Race

Training
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Hello guys I’m new here, After reading a lot on the forums, I decided to apply what I saw about structuring plans for my main race of the year.

MY PLAN FOR MAIN RACE OF THE YEAR ( THE RIFT GRAVEL RACE – 200KM – 2000MTS ELEVATION)

MY RACE SCHEDULE UNTIL THE RIFT RACE.
TIME TRIAL - TAÇA LUDOVICO TOZZO 25/04/2020 CIRCUIT - TAÇA LUDOVICO TOZZO 26/04/2020
TIME TRIAL - HANS FISCHER 16/05/2020 ROAD RACE - HANS FISCHER 17/05/2020
*GRAVEL – THE RIFT 25/07/2020 (best possible performance of my life i have to destroy ted king and colin strickland * ironic mode )

MY PLAN FOR MAIN RACE OF THE YEAR (counting from december 1st 2019, i have 32 weeks to the Rift Gravel Race)

First Option:

TRADITIONAL BASE 3 – HIGH VOLUME – 4 WEEKS
SWEET SPOT BASE 1 - HIGH VOLUME – 6 WEEKS
SWEET SPOT BASE 2 - HIGH VOLUME – 6 WEEKS
SUSTAINED POWER BUILD - HIGH VOLUME – 8 WEEKS

FINAL
40K TT - HIGH VOLUME – 8 WEEKS OUR (opinions) CENTURY - HIGH VOLUME – 8 WEEKS

Second Option:

SWEET SPOT BASE 1 - HIGH VOLUME – 6 WEEKS
SUSTAINED POWER BUILD - HIGH VOLUME – 8 WEEKS
SWEET SPOT BASE 2 - HIGH VOLUME – 6 WEEKS
SUSTAINED POWER BUILD - HIGH VOLUME – 8 WEEKS

FINAL
40K TT - HIGH VOLUME – 8 WEEKS OUR (opinions) CENTURY - HIGH VOLUME – 8 WEEKS

skipping TB and doing SSB + SPB 2X, I saw some people reporting that they did it and had a significant increase in FTP.

Bonus:
I started cycling about 4/5 years, but only started to take seriously to 2 years and training with power meter in those 2 years.
These two years always revolve around 15 to 19 thousand km per year, hardly get sick, I know that my schedule can suffer changes such as travel or illness etc.

I currently have 73 kg with a ftp of 345, but this November I am entering a training peak where I have 2 races in November, my idea was to rest in the last two weeks of November, rest would be intensityless training, and to enter December 1st with the schedule I passed above.

I would like some opinion about what would change, if you agree, what is the best training options and everything, I say that because I always had a coach in these 2 years, but it was not working, and I will try to train myself.

I appreciate anyone who can help.

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Curious about this. I’d think it would be too much accumulating tss, but I’d like to hear a coaches opinion.

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Curious about your age?

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First of all, I’m super jealous that you’re doing the Rift, it looks amazing!

There’s a TR support article that’s relevant to what you’re asking:

https://support.trainerroad.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025556952-Too-Much-Time-

Other thoughts (from somebody who’s not a coach, so a grain of salt worth):

  • Your second option is 36 weeks. Would you be starting that a month early?
  • You’ve got at least a couple years of training in your legs, so I don’t know how much of a dent four weeks of Traditional Base would make. Instead of starting base with 4 weeks of TB, you could finish base by repeating the last four weeks of SSB2: SSB1 (6 weeks) → SSB2 (6 weeks) → SSB2 weeks 3-6 (4 weeks) → SusPB (8 weeks) → Century (8 weeks)
  • Don’t underestimate the HV SSB plans, or the build. It’s a brutal amount of work.
  • Century > 40k TT for what you’re doing, I think. Your time trials are going to be over by the time you start your specialty plan, so you won’t need to hold your FTP for an hour; you’ll need to still be going strong after nine hours (or whatever pace you’re targeting). (See also the TR recommendations for gravel races.)

Another TR post, this one about HV SSB vs. Build plans:

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I did a 210 mile gravel race this June using Sweet Spot Base 1 & 2, Sustained power build and century specialty. Only ride other than these was one 100 mile outdoor ride just to get my equipment figured out. I finished within my goal of beating the sunset by 45 minutes. I could have gone a lot harder and wished I would have, which is easy to say looking back on it.

B

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29 years haha, old.

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Yes like an amazing race, this year I was supposed to haverace the SBT gravel race, but I live in Brazil, and the united states with the trump government are making it difficult to get passports, which made me not go to the race, and I ended up adding and waiting for the rift in 2020.

Well I training very seriously (I think) in these two years, I always did structured training by my former coach, last month I did an average of hours of training weekly.

The result was 10 to 13 hours per week in the last 2 years

Honestly I go out little in group, because I love training, I prefer to go alone, last year I ran a lot of races, and this year I just did the races that had stages with time trial.

I had already read the article “too much to time”, I am honestly still in doubt, according to the article, would make my option 1.

however if the option 2 makes me beast stronger I would start it at the end of the month.

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Youngster. Good for you!

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Have you had a significant increase in your ftp from the beginning of ssb 1 until the end of the century?

I will follow the whole spreadsheet of the trainer road, but the weekends always outdoor training.

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I came into the training block after having had two separate surgeries that kept me off the bike for about 3 months between May and November. I went from an FTP of 271 in November of 17 to 231 by November of 18. I worked from 231 to 283 by mid June of 2019.

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@Nate_Pearson our @chad any opinion of would be important

option 1 or option 2 :grimacing:

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i like option 2 way better. 12 weeks of sweet spot is SO MUCH in a row. Switch up the stimulus and make sure you get enough vo2max work, as gravel requires that; esp since you are gonna smash those guys you mentioned :wink:

Good luck!

Brendan

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Thank you Brendan, I accompany you on gravel, and I know that you are also a coach, unfortunately I could not training with you.

And that’s what I thought, because in the next 4 weekends, I have race in all of them, I will take about 10 days off after that and come back with the SSB plan 1

And I thought of coming back with exactly this plan, as the race is far away I thought of the second option:

SWEET SPOT BASE 1 - HIGH VOLUME - 6 WEEKS
SUSTAINED POWER BUILD - HIGH VOLUME - 8 WEEKS
SWEET SPOT BASE 2 - HIGH VOLUME - 6 WEEKS
SUSTAINED POWER BUILD - HIGH VOLUME - 8 WEEKS

FINAL
And after reading a lot I decided to change Century to
CLIMBING ROAD RACE - HIGH VOLUME - 8 WEEKS

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We’ve got something to help you figure this out coming out soon. Keep an eye on the forum. :shushing_face:

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Nate’s dropping hints all over tonight…

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My A event last was a 100k road ride followed by 100k gravel ride. I had only been into cycling for about a year when I decided to do this event. I started with sweet spot base 1 & 2 low volume then sustained power build low volume. For the specialty phase I used the century training plan at mid volume. The mid volume was a little too much for me at that point in my cycling journey and had to back off a bit about 5 weeks. The fatigue really started to pile up and once I backed off a little things got better pretty quickly. I completed my event with a respectable time and was very happy with how the TR plans worked for me.

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Hi Nate. I’m going to suffer at Iceland aswell in July. Are you guys publishing som tips regarding The Rift on the forum? I’m starting by base training these days. Live north of the wall on the northwest coast of Norway, snow and rain the next four months, and father of two kids with limited time on my hand (4-6 h/week). Would be great to get guidance to set up a plan I can follow.

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We don’t have any plans to publish tips on the rift, we’ve never done that race :disappointed:.

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Did you do the high volume plans?

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Mid volume. I would commute to work occasionally but that maybe added an easy 45 minutes a few times a week. If anything, I think it actually hurt me commuting in the long run as I did not get enough recovery.

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