Hi,
I want to choose a training plan to get me ready for the 312. I know I can do lots of base/z2 but, having completed the 225km just missing the cut off this year mainly due to a late start , I know the event is front loaded with 3000 plus meters of climbing. Z2 alone won’t be enough- I have to be able to be able to generate enough power to make time on the climbs.
I am 62y old. FTP varies between 220 and 255 depending on work/life and ability to train, at 72 kilos. I will work on overall body strength etc.
Thanks
Bob
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Hi Bob,
The Mallorca 312, what an event. That is definitely on bucket list too. It is the perfect ultramarathon to begin (or extend) your journey into long events. Although you’ll be riding 3000 am, they are not the toughest mountains and early in the season the weather is bound to be nice.
However, let’s not underestimate 312km. Thank you for the relevant info, like your FTP and kgs. That helps.
The first obvious tip is to adjust your work/ life balance as much as possible to reach that 255ftp.
I’m not the trainer that says you need to train a lot, because I understand all the other things you need to do in life. But for this event I’ll make an exception: you’ll need to train a lot.
With a lot I mean 4 to 5 times a week.
What you do in those hours is really not as important as it is for any other event. So you don’t need to train differently than 150km. It is just more.
My first advice would be to look at the race you did last time. Answer the following questions:
Where did you start to get behind on schedule?
Did you eat 70-90 gr of carbs per hour?
Did you drink 500-800ml per hour?
Is your body fat% below 20%?
Was your cadence on the climbs above 75rpm?
Did you train all year around?
Did you eat a big breakfast 2 hours before the start?
Did you eat enough the whole before the start?
Did you rest enough in the days before the start?
Do you have a 32 or 34 ring on your cassette?
Answer any of these questions with no and you know what you need to focus on.
For your schedule I would advice you to train 4 to 5 days a week. 2 Interval trainings with powerzone 4 and 5. Finish these trainings with as much zone 2 as possible (1-2 hours).
Dedicate 1 training a week to zone 2 (3-6 hours alternating 3 hours in an easy week to 6 hours in a hard week) and 1 training doing zone 3 blocks, mixed up with zone 2(2-3 hours).
If you want tot do an extra, fifth training you ride another easy zone 2 training.
In this last 2 months you change the order of your intervals and put hem at the end of your training.
Keep monitoring your health and fitness.
Hope this helps. If you have any questions, let me know.
Have fun, Coach Robert
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Hi,
I missed the cut off by 4 min. I had started 25 min late about 7000 riders back. I then got stuck, coming to a standstill, at 2 points in the first 50km. I am relatively confident that but for these I would have completed the 312 rather than the 225.
FEIW I did a 12 week TP on Zwift last autumn raising my ftp to 258 from 220ish riding 5 days a week. I then got plantar fasciitis and was unable to walk much and had weeks off the bike. By the time of the 312 FTP back to 220ish I hope that with consistent training I get back up into the 250’s but recognise ftp is not everything , I don’t need that for the ride perhaps, but power on the climbs and then the endurance to keep going after I hit the cut off.
Oh. I fueled at 90g of carbs an hour and well within your hydration limits.
Good breakfast, decent sleep.
1x set up and gear range good at 42/44.
That all sounds good Robert.
Thanks.
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Sounds like you know what to do. Just to re-iterate the basics.
Obviously what you want to do is by the event feel the right amount of freshness vs fatigue so you want to avoid too much intensity too early as it increases chances of burnout and injury and generally focus on pre-event specificity which pretty much means transition from a base of mostly z2 now to eventually a lot of tempo.
I assume in your climbs you will still be doing tempo for the most part. Sounds like you are already good at not blowing up on long rides so I don’t feel I have a lot to add here. Lots of sleep, lots of riding, periodization, good recovery built into all levels, days (sleep), weeks (rest/recovery days), month (recovery weeks), and years (periodization)…
Good luck with your event.
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I agree with Alex. You know what you are doing. You probably overdid it with that zwift program, but since you recognize that mistake too, you’ll do fine this year.
I’m a big fan off slope mode in TD. Most other training programs rely on erg mode. Often that lowers the cadence on high resistance which leads to a bigger stress on the joints tendons.
Start now and take more time to prepare, and you’ll probably do fine.
Have fun
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Thanks Alex and Robert,
I can probably put a training plan together based on your input but I take it no obvious plan available in TD?
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You can do the same thing in Coach Jack, it’s very flexible and works on these same principals. If you don’t find exactly what you want you can do a custom Coach Jack plan (click harder) that gives you more flexibility. So Coach Jack kind of does it your way and speeds up the process of plan creation.
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So, I have taken out an anual membership and CJ has come up with a plan. It starts tomorrow. I have attached a link:
https://app.trainerday.com/plans/bobs-stronger-rider-plan-2
Questions:
- How does it look? Some of the rides nearer the 312 are very long
- How do I move it back a week.
- What is the easiest way to add all the zwo files to Zwift
- I like to do certain rides with Le col on zwift ( i like to group chat )and the rides coincide with some of the rides in the plan so is there an easy way to frop the into the plan?All erg based.
Sorry, lots of questions.
Thanks
Bob
Ok, I worked out how to push the plan back but decided to leave as is.
I have started with 12h a week but by the end of the plan it had me doing 20h plus! I have payed around with the options to bring the end hours down to 15. I see i can increase then as i go along.
TP pushes my WOD to zwift. Would Intervals ICU do the same?
Re the Le col erg group training sessions- i could just do the ride instead of a trainer day prescribed ride but presumably no way to drag the file from zwift into TD with the erg etrics in advance so that ity then appears as a WOD?
Oh sorry, I forgot to to respond to the previous one. No intervals can not push to zwift at this time. They are adding more partners so maybe eventually we can. If you use our calendar you can turn on sync to free TP and get daily workouts in zwift.
You can also use our app to control the trainer and use zwift for all the zwift stuff at the same time but Zwift would need to be on separate device (computer?) with Ant+
I will respond more later.
Ta Alex
You may have seen TP have taken over indie Velo. So does that mean a TD workout to TP could or should automatically be available in TP virtual ?
Yes I saw it and yes it works the same way with Zwift. It’s called TP WOD and both IndieVelo and Zwift support this, and many other platforms.
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Sorry, so slow. I see you deleted that plan so probably created a new one. Do you still have any questions regarding this stuff. I am happy to explain. But either TD>TP>Zwift using our calendar or paid version of TP, or each day just saying “Send to TP” are the best solutions but you can download all ZWO files and put them on your computer as well. Not exactly sure how to answer #4 if you can explain more let me know.
re *4 i will try and explain…
I ride a Le Col group w/o every sunday-90 min, mix of z1/2. In my plan i have a 270 min z2 indoor or outdoor ride split into 3 rides indoors of 90 min each. I want to incoroprate the le col w/o and so replace 1 of the 3 TD rides. I can probablt d/l the zwo file for the le col ride.
Actually as ai type this it sounds mad BUt i dont wnat to fail the TD training plan by just missing a w/o!
EDIT
Like this?
