“Develop the Endurance and Power to Successful Complete a 100 mile Gravel Event!”

Training plan description: Coach Simon has developed this 12-week training plan to get you into the best condition possible with a range of 8-14 hours/week of training for a gravel endurance event of +- 100 miles (160km). Having clients who have participated in these type of events, we are very aware of the physical demands and what kind of training is required.

This training plan is all about developing your endurance and power on gravel (training can be done mostly on the road or even indoors). Specific instruction on how to fuel is provided as well as specific training sessions to reduce your need for carbohydrates and become more efficient at utilizing your own body's fat as fuel.

This plan is designed in blocks of 3 weeks followed by an easier week with a simulation ride before starting the next block. The simulation ride increases each block with the final simulation scheduled two weeks before the event with a target TSS of roughly 80-100% of your goal ride. This will prepare your body as best as possible for what you will experience on race day. An easy recovery week follows and some higher intensity efforts in the final few days plus recovery to keep you fresh, feeling sharp and ready to compete at your personal best and make yourself proud! The plan ends on Week 12 with the event on either the Saturday or Sunday (plan works for both a Saturday or Sunday event).

The training is with Power and is designed in the Workout Builder format which provides your personalized power zones in each training session which are calculated automatically from your Threshold number inputted under settings. Additional benefits of the Workout Builder format include direct training session sync to your Garmin or Wahoo device and training session upload to Zwift, TrainingRoad, CycleOps and more.

Designed by former professional and multiple national champion coach Simon Kessler of Simon Says Cycling, coach Simon has coached for 25+ years and has enjoyed an incredible track record as a coach which includes state and national champions on multiple continents in road, track and mountain biking. Some of Simon’s clients have won world championship medals and gone on to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. With this plan, you receive 30+ years of top-level experience in a super effective training plan that will lead to fast improvements.

Training for another race or personal improvement goal? Checkout our other training plans for racing (road, time trial, criterium), centuries, gran fondos, base training, power gains, and more. Visit: simonsayscycling.com

Plan Features

This training plan starts on a Monday

The plan is reusable an unlimited amount of times

This plan can be used for other endurance events of 70-120 miles

This plan works with power only (no heart rate zones)

Designed with the latest Workout Builder - offering you more precise training with your personalized power intensities automatically displayed for each session

Your day's training session appears automatically each day on Garmin, Wahoo, Zwift, TrainerRoad, and more.

Weekend group ride option

Mental training audio included

Additional instruction and coaching via our client-only FB group