Hi! This plan is for athletes of Intermediate to Advanced experience level. It It is made for cyclists who ride both MTBs and road bikes and have between 7-11hr/wk to train. It requires you to have a Power Meter on your road bike, as well as a Heart Rate Monitor (worn riding both bikes)
Road bike workouts are prescribed with target Power ranges (only) and MTB workouts are prescribed with target Heart-Rate ranges (only). The distribution of road-bike workouts to MTB-workouts is roughly 1 to 5; approximately 22% of prescribed workouts are MTB. I'm happy to create the calendar with ALL Power-based or HR-based workouts--email me (joseph@cyclinggains.com)
MTB rides are primarily scheduled on the weekends and increase in duration towards 5.5hrs in length. A 3-3.5hr road or MTB ride may be substituted for the long MTB ride--but it is a good idea to allow your body to progress through each weekend (as planned) towards the length you expect to be out on the race course! And that only comes with practice.
The plan is 10wks long, consisting of 5-6 days of training per week of between 7-10hrs total training time per week with 3 overload weeks of 10+hrs. It is very important that you devote your Recovery days (Day Off the Bike) to recovering. You can only train hard when you rest hard!
I'm a professional bike fitter with 14 years (thousands of hours) of experience, as well as an athlete and occasional competitor (cycling, running). I believe in the periodized training philosophy (Bompa) and incorporate pyramidal, polarized, and mixed training models in all of my coaching. I offer individual coaching; goal-oriented and individualized training plans; strength-training plans with an emphasis on improving biomechanics.