Fill my 8 week gap please!

So I’ve currently got SSB2 LV starting Jan 1st, followed by general power build and specialty, however, this leaves an 8 week gap before my “A race” (Only race). So, I pushed specialty so that it finishes the week before the A race. This leaves an 8 week gap after build phase, whats the optimal way to fill it?

Additionally, the specialty plan finishes like this:

What, if anything should I do in the few days of the week before the race?

Thanks in advance! :facepunch:t3::sunglasses:

An easier way to do this is plan the training working back from the date of the race so you know you’re going be at your peak and successfully tapered. Then you’ll find you’re trying to fill weeks at the start of the plan which will be easier to do.

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Agree with this approach - work backwards from your target event. You likely have time to add in some extra base work up front which probably makes the most sense from a fitness perspective

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@Crownan – check out this thread I started a couple days ago and was essentially asking the same thing.

@Bryce gave me some really good feedback and rationale on how to plan my year around races. In my case, I was going to repeat SSB LV I, but he re-worked my calendar with a more progress and recommended build. It might be helpful to you.

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Thanks! Somehow I missed your thread!

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Except I’m now still confused as to what exactly to do as I don’t have any B races intersecting my training :flushed:

Well . . . I think you could go one of two ways:

  1. Do what I was originally suggesting, which is repeating SSB LV1 - and maybe repeating a few weeks to perfectly fill the 8 week gap. This way you’d have a full, steady build all the way up to your event.

  2. Do Base → Build → Specialty and the do a re-build leading up to your event.

My untrained, unprofessional two-cents is that I don’t think you can really go wrong with either approach. You’re gong to get faster and fitter with each approach.

If I had followed my original plan, I would have showed up to my ‘A’ race in really, really good shape. Bryce’s feedback gave me some tips on how to optimize around the progression of plans, as well a (perhaps) getting a mini-peak before a ‘B’ event. Overall, I kind of think it probably makes less than a 5% difference in fitness – so I took his advice and re-worked my plan (and I also learned something). But it’s not like if I went my original direction I would have been a mess…I would have been pretty well off.

Also, I’ll say this – again from my personal experience, but I think @chad has mentioned this in a podcast before – I don’t think you’re going to want to stack heavy Vo2 work beyond 4-6 weeks. If you’ve been doing Vo2 works for 6 weeks, I would DEFINITELY ratchet down to a recovery work and/or some sweet spot block.

Not only will you physiologically beat yourself down, but psychologically you’ll probably get tired of the ass-whipping your trainer is regularly dishing out and your motivation will wane.

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Most excellent reply, thanks very much!