I have just started a training plan trying to improve my mtb marathon races, the problem is that sundays out with the group are mandatory and in my case it is to go at full gas (zone 4 and zone 5) since I am the weakest of the group and i struggle to keep up, especially uphill, normally we ride between 80 and 120 km, so my question is, ¿what workouts should I cut out of my weekly training plan to make up for the Sunday rides?
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I would cut out one of the high intensity workouts that is similar in effort to your Sunday effort especially as you say you are in Zone 4/5 most of the ride. Also make sure Monday is a rest day on your calendar. You can manipulate your plan i:e move the workouts around the days by clicking on the workout and dragging it to the day you want.
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As @ozmadman says, should you continue to do a mashup every sunday, likely do a long endurance ride the day before, and make Fridays and Mondays your rest/recovery days, with a Wednesday HIIT session sandwiched between en endurance ride either side.
My actual advice would be to follow your strucured plan to your goal event on the horizon if you take your racing seriously and ignore other rides that may add unnecessary fatigue to your body, and that also has no training benefit to your TITS.
I do not know how you keep up for +4 hours at Z4 the whole time. If Z4 is the average, means you are spending an excessive amount of time at Z5 too to keep the zone average high. Beware of fatigue.
The problem with group rides is that they are usually ridden without any consideration to any training plans. It takes a strong mind to reject the temptation of riding someone else’s ride, and riding your ride. Best of luck.
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Is it an MTB group ride or on the road?
So let me be more explicit than @Dan, what exactly is mandatory about the group ride?
If you are serious about a training plan, the other rides need to fit into the plan, not the other way around.
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Doing the training plan is in order to be better in my group rides, i really don’t have the level for competing in races at all, that’s why I don’t want to stop riding on sundays as I usually do just with my mates
To determine what workouts to cut out, you will have to see how your fatigue from those 80-120 km weekly rides are.
I do not know how old you are, what the fitness levels of your companions are, or how responsive to training stimuli you are, but the experience of most people is that for you to get better at your week end rides you will have to step back before you can forward.
Good luck.
I’m going to differ from some folks here and say not to drop the group ride, esp the MTB ones. If you want to get faster on the MTB, you need to ride MTB, and if all you do is train on the trainer, you get plenty strong, but not necessarily fast.
That said, you do want to be judicious about it and hammer fest every weekend is not a great idea as others have said. At the very least take a weekend off from it every few weeks, and you likely need to drop other workouts to compensate for the fatigue.
I’d start by dropping the longer and harder ones like kitchen sink but you really need to just stay attuned to your body and see how it goes / if you’re getting faster or not. There’s no way anyone here can give you one plan/answer that’ll solve it, but thats part of the fun.
Please extrapolate. I could be doing myself a disservice it may seem. Would like to hear a viewpoint on this.
Ah, the comment wasn’t meant to be general but was specific to the OP bc they are trying to get faster at marathon MTB. For MTB you have to balance your training with skills and actual on-course riding. You can periodize it through the year, you can allocate based on what you need most (ie hit whatever is the weakest link), but you probably don’t want to totally give up the outdoor trail rides unless you have to (eg trails covered in snow)
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@Heretic @devolikewhoa, you are correct about the fatigue, for a few months I have felt very tired since I started the plan, I have even seen myself slower than normal, but I will try to cut one of the hit sessions to compensate a little for the Sunday rides and see how it works, thank you guys
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