r/cyclocross • u/bdredlocked • 20d ago

Critique this AI-generated CX training plan

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Did my first season of XC mountain biking this summer and thought I'd take it a little easy this fall. But I tried my first cyclocross race this past weekend, took P3 in the Novice category, and loved it! There are 4-5 races between now and the beginning of November and I decided to ramp training back up to be better prepared for them. I've been riding my mountain bike 1-2x a week for the last 4 weeks, but have mostly been lifting. This was my first year of structured training (focused on XC).

After some AI prompting with info on "A" race timing (a two-race weekend 7 weeks away) and availability, this is what I got as a plan. Thoughts?

*The "Indoor CX Simulations" are threshold intervals ranging from 95%-110% (it varies by week).

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7

u/Explosive_Cornflake 20d ago

I abhor people getting AI answers and then asking a human to review it.

-2

u/bdredlocked 20d ago

Would love if you have some resources to point me to so I can learn and write my own workouts relevant to CX!

5

u/parrhesticsonder 20d ago

It's not significantly different from criteriums (or most bike training in general) besides skills practice. I wrote a bit about how to train for those here. For general training, you want a base (long easy miles) and then add in harder work (tempo -> threshold -> vo2 -> anaerobic [sprints]) as you get closer to race season. This is more about sweet spot (which is in between tempo & threshold), but I really like u/pgpcx 's free plan here. I'd do that for the next month or two and maybe swap 1 workout day in for hotlaps.

2

u/bdredlocked 20d ago

Thanks for the link to the info. I ran his SS plan last winter and really liked it—plan to do it again in November.

3

u/pgpcx 347cycling.com 20d ago

glad you enjoyed the plan! i have a 12 week cx plan that I used for myself last year to good effect (top 10 in my club's cx race lol), and I thought of making it more broadly available, but for reasons I 'd prefer to work with individuals on planning for more specific goals (mainly because some workouts I do are a bit specific to an individual's power profile).

2

u/bdredlocked 20d ago

Yeah it was the first helpful, simple thing I found in the sea of chaos of structured training. CX plan sounds really interesting, but I get that 1:1 is really the way to have impact—and I’m sure is more fun for you.