Training program for 45min Crit race in middle of August

Hello! First of all, I think your podcast is brilliant, and I hope to have the same perfect experience with your training platform.

I have a Crit race coming up in the middle of August, this is the last race of about ten during this season and right now there is a small summerbreak between races. I would like to start a training program today and top my training for that last race in August.

How do I do that with TrainerRoad?

Which program/plan?

Will the program adjust to my specific amount of weeks/days?

Please help me as soon as you can, I would like to start as soon as possible. Thanks in advance!

So I read up on Chads posts and tried a few things. Firstly I choose the Speciality phase and Crit plan. It could be an coincidence but the plan ended at my defined A-race. So everything looks good right now.

If I start creating specific racing dates and define them as priority A,B or C with my training calendar will the plan adjust to these or do I have to make changes to the plan?

The changes you are most likely to adopt are introducing a warm up workout for the eve of the race. Also moving workouts around days to get sufficient rest. The calendar will manage this albeit you’ll have to do this manually.

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The plans don’t automatically adjust. The workouts you get in any particular plan are fixed, though you get to move preferred days around when you schedule them e.g. If you prefer doing a long ride on a Wednesday your can set that.

After that it’s all down to you to adjust things manually. You can move workouts around and delete them, you can schedule extra workouts, races, etc. There’s a load of advice here, on the blogs and in the podcasts about how to adjust plans to fit in races, mix in group rides, etc. General approach on B and C races is don’t change things much - don’t taper, just go in with whatever fitness and freshness you have and give it your best shot.

Also worth pointing out that the Specialty plans are really for fine tuning fitness, not building it. Which is perfect if you’ve already got a good solid base of fitness, but if not you might be better off with a Build or even Base plan.

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This is absolutely right.

If you have some previous consistent and structured training in your legs, then you could skip the Base Phase and jump straight into the Short Power Build Phase. If you take this route, I recommend doing Weeks 1-7 of Build followed by Week 8 of Specialty. Week 8 of Specialty is designed as a taper week and will help to prepare you for your event :+1:.

If you are just starting your training for the year, then it would be beneficial to start at SSB II and then transition into Weeks 1-3 of Build, followed by Week 8 of Specialty.

Best of luck with your preparation!

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Cycle a couple days of vo2max and anaerobic with sweet spot work and you’ll be ripping. If you only do really hard stuff it can make you mentally overtrained; can only HIT IT so many times over and over.

have fun and good luck! which crit are you doing?

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Thanks! I’m doing two Crit races in Stockholm. My A race is Skeppsholmen GP. It’s about 45m and very tough. I’m a beginner but races in the middle category called B (A is fastest).

Thanks I’ll try taper with week 8 then. Right now I’m enjoying outside workouts and trying to practice on my technique. Is it alright to stand up on the bike when doing short and hard intervals?

Thanks! I’ll adjust the training program accordingly. Already listening to the podcast and enjoy the episodes very much. :blush::raised_hands:

It is best to practice how you plan to race. In your race, will you stand during short efforts or will you need to stay seated? If you expect to stand during the races, then feel free to stand during your training.

Also keep in mind that standing and sprinting while training indoors on the trainer can generate a lot of stress on your frame, and should generally be avoided to protect your frame’s integrity.

@Nienkerk, not mentioned, but the best training for racing is racing. If you can get in a few events beforehand, this will elevate your bike handling and pain tolerance. Even if you don’t get a chance to race beforehand, fast group rides are beneficial or get together with some pals on a small circuit and sprint for speed signs and corner fast.