Two "A" Races with two completely different power demands

For my 2019 Road Race season I am aiming for the Criterium and TT State Championships as my goal races, both of which I believe I have a decent shot at. Right now I am just starting my SSB Mid Volume II plan and have time for 1 build and 1 specialty before the crit then the TT is one month following. My current power profile has me as an all-rounder with a pretty smooth curve so it is not like I am currently favored physiologically toward one race. My actual race experience and results is about the same for both and I’m just on the verge of winning races in both.

Would it be a bad idea to try to build my seasons training to be ready for both or would I be better off if I just picked one and focused on that? Any training plan succession suggestions to follow to do this? I’m slightly leaning towards the TT since there is less outside influence on my results if I need to focus on one. I doubt I could solo breakaway in the crit and even remotely expect to win.

I’m in the same situation – my A Races are the National TT & RR (with Crit the same weekend).

I’d love to bag the RR champs, have 0% chance in the crit, and a realistic shot at the TT.

I chose to do the Sustained Power Build and the 40k TT Specialty (maybe the Sprint Tri Spec – 20k TT).
I went with this instead of the mixed bag of Rolling RR and/or General Build because I felt that would split the vote, as it were. I had to seriously and realistically assess what my strength are and what my goal is – I don’t want to be competitive, I want to win. I decided that training to be a strong TTer will help me more in the RR more than being a strong all arounder will help in the TT.

With you, TT and Crit requirements are so vastly different…however, with the races 1 month apart (mine are all the same weekend!), you might have a good chance if you do the Crit Spec, race the crit, then do a block of TT-type workouts. It’s not going to be the best plan, but you gotta work with what you have. You’ll already have the high end engine, you’ll just need to work up some muscular endurance.

General Build → Crit Spec → Sustained Power/40k TT Spec block.

$0.02.

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This is a great response.

It’s generally pretty tough to specialize for two races in such close succession, and you might end up becoming a jack of all trades, master of none. Your comment about outside influence really resonated with me; usually a TT is safer than a Crit and I couldn’t imagine the frustration of crashing out of a Crit after training specifically for that race. Obviously still race both races since they’re important to you, but you could try General Build>Crit>Sustained Power or 40K TT like @Captain_Doughnutman suggested. I’m not sure what the best way to modify the plan to fit in the 4 weeks between races, but I’d probably choose the TT-specific workouts over redoing the Build.

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