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So this year for the first time I've done chaingang, raced crits, done the Etape and learnt a lot about road riding/racing in general. I've been riding crits/chaingang/turbo with longer rides at the weekend. No issues doing 60/70/80miles plus, so I feel like my endurance has improved but when the pace surges on a race I'm struggling to ramp up.
So whilst I got the points to move up to 3rd cat, I'm still getting dropped more often than not and whilst I'm trying to stay at the front, ride intelligently etc - more over I think its fitness. Those that race will probably have gone through the same realisation that there's a bit of a gulf between having a good level of fitness and a level of fitness for road racing - even in cat 3.
So has anyone used the sufferfest training plans or can recommend another plan as a way to improve between now and next season? I don't have the time to hours and hours of long slow duration base training - plus I'm most interested in being competitive in crits up to an hour or so.
I did the intermediate plan from about this time last year in anticipation of heading to Los Angeles area for Thanksgiving (lots of climbing and riding with friends that do rides in that area all the time). I really noticed the difference in my climbing and friends said that I was turning the pedals over noticeably better than on previous trips. Money well spent. Now if only I had done another round of it after the New Year......!
Just remember the outside riding sessions can be done inside if needed, just drop the length by about half.
Having the power meter to judge the efforts made sure I wasn't wasting my efforts or going too had - Rubber Glove helps you set the levels.
Might work even better with Trainer Road - I don't have that.
STL
Thanks STL - I don't have a power meter but do have trainer road plus dongle and cadence/speed sensor.
The lads on the road club have suggested that I need to be looking at more like 9-10 hours a week, rather than the 5-6 that would be required with Sufferfest.
How easy would it be to add in a bit extra on top of the sufferfest plan? It might risk straying from their plan too much and negating the effects? Or should I be too tired to contemplate it if I do sufferfest properly?
The intensity suggested by Sufferfest also goes against established advice from other sources about getting in some base mileage and being able to build a bigger base capacity and therefore also ultimately get to a higher level of intensity/top end power once you start interval training following the base period.
A lot of people seem to rate TrainerRoad above Sufferfest. It's something I'll be looking to get into when I have a garage in a couple of months.
I have done the sufferfest intermediate plan this winter. Enjoyed it and noticed a big difference, even not following it exactly.
don't forget it will end up costing alot in videos though, its quite an investment
in terms of topping up, the main times i struggled was when i ignored their 'easy Sunday ride' and did either a really fast chain gang or a 100m + . The week after would deffo suffer as a result and id skip stuff
I've got Trainerroad but I like the video footage and music aspect to the Sufferfest, so I've mostly run the sufferfest videos through trainerroad.
I've accumulated a lot of Sufferfest videos over the year, buying them to alleviate the boredom of the same old sessions. So I'm pretty much only missing one or two videos to be able to do the training.
And there's a 15% discount on the plans at the moment.