Newbie plan advice, please!

52 year old female MTB rider, pretty competitive for my age, been on Zwift for the last couple of years, but really wanting to pick my training up for a couple of big events this year, so have joined TR to get more focused. I love my trainer and training and have become mildly obsessed with the podcast and all the information presented there and in the forum!

My A race is a 100km MTB race on 10 June 2019, and my B event is a 160km sportive on 31 March 2019. That is 18 weeks to the B event.

My current plan is to start with Sweet Spot Base I and II, putting my ego aside that I don’t need any base training.

The full 12 weeks then leaves me with 6 weeks to go till the sportive, and Sustained Power would be the obvious choice but I am 2 weeks short for the full plan.

Should I skip the last 2 weeks of Sweet Spot Base II, skip the first 2 weeks of Sustained Power or skip the last 2 weeks of Sustained Power, or some other option? I recognise that any version of this will probably bring me to the start line in much better shape than I am now.

Also, I can generally train twice during the week and both days on the weekends, including a group ride on Sundays, so do I choose the low volume versions with 3 sessions and do the sunday group ride as an extra, or choose the mid volume versions and accept that I will always have to skip a session each week. Neither option seems to align easily with the goal of reaching the prescribed TSS.

If your fitness is strong, I think it’d be ok to skip final two weeks of SSB 2 but I wouldn’t skip 1st two weeks of SPB since each week builds on the prior. As for when to fit training in, low volume sounds like the way to go and if you are feeling especially spry, you can always choose the +1 or +2 variants for the workout prescribed.

Best of luck!

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If you are doing a MTB race with a lot of short steep climbs, you should be doing Short Power Build after your Sweet Spot Base. I would not skip any SSB work, but instead, cut shorter your Build workout.