What kind of intervals to do?

[gregkeller]

I have a 7 mile flat time trial coming up in the beginning of April. I was wondering what type of intervals i should be doing to be at my best for this. I am mainly doing 2x20's now, and will start with training crits in march. Should i do intervals shorter than 20 minutes since the TT should hopefully take around 17 minutes? Like 8 minutes or something like that? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[rmur17]

I have a 7 mile flat time trial coming up in the beginning of April. I was wondering what type of intervals i should be doing to be at my best for this. I am mainly doing 2x20's now, and will start with training crits in march. Should i do intervals shorter than 20 minutes since the TT should hopefully take around 17 minutes? Like 8 minutes or something like that? Any help would be appreciated.

I would definitely add L5 training and perhaps some L6 for an event that short. There's little doubt a good TT'r can reach a high % of Vo2max for 17min so it makes sense to raise the FT ceiling .. I'd keep the basic 2x20's for threshold work and add the higher-power stuff once or twice a week. You may have to curtail longer endurance work if you're really serious about cranking up the short-term power for this race (IMHO).

Danged if I know what the magic training formula/balance is though ...

I would also try a couple of max. effort say 15-20min to see what power you should target for the TT. That assumes you don't already have a well-documented Power-duration curve.

Seeing it's flat, riding the course would be useful for familiarity mostly but it's always best to have been around at least once.

rmur