Training
Today
Training
Today
A crit is forty accelerations with a finish line at the end.
Nothing about a criterium rewards a steady effort. You accelerate out of every corner, close every gap, and the last two laps are the hardest of the race. The physiology that decides it is repeatability — how well you recover between hard efforts while still riding hard.
So this plan is built out of the sessions that train exactly that: hard starts, which front-load an interval to drive oxygen uptake up quickly; 30/30 and Rønnestad-style repeaters, which accumulate a lot of time at VO2 max in short bursts; and race primers in the final week to sharpen without adding fatigue.
It is six weeks and it is genuinely advanced. Ride it after a build block, not instead of one.
Every session below is a real workout you can open and ride right now, with or without the plan. Applying the plan puts them on your calendar on the days you choose.
| Week | Focus and sessions | Load |
|---|---|---|
1 week | Open sharp Week 1: classic 4×3 VO2 and three sets of 30/30s. Ride the recoveries genuinely easy or the sets fall apart. | 4.9 hours |
By training repeatability rather than steady power. Short, very hard efforts with short recoveries — 30/30s, hard starts, Rønnestad intervals — reproduce the repeated accelerations that decide a crit, and they raise VO2 max at the same time.
Thirty seconds well above threshold followed by fifteen seconds easy, repeated for around thirteen reps per set. The format accumulates far more time at high oxygen uptake than a continuous effort of the same average power.
Yes. Six weeks of concentrated VO2 work on top of nothing produces a good three weeks and then a plateau. Ride a base and a build block first, then use this to sharpen.
Training works in blocks. These plans pick up where this one leaves off.
The build block that follows base: threshold intervals and VO2 max work, holding onto the aerobic volume that made them possible.
Eight weeks of sweet spot work at 88–94% of FTP, progressing 2×15 → 3×20 minutes, wrapped in enough Zone 2 to keep it sustainable.
2 week | Hard starts Week 2: hard starts and four sets of 30/30s, plus a group ride. Practise the surge out of the corner. | 5.6 hours |
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3 week | Peak repeaters Week 3: Rønnestad 30/15s and five sets of 30/30s. The hardest week of the plan. | 6.4 hours |
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4 recovery | Recovery week Week 4: recovery. Three weeks of this intensity has a cost — pay it here rather than on race day. | 3.5 hours |
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5 week | Race specificity Week 5: hard starts at five reps, race primers, and a group ride. Everything now looks like a race. | 5.4 hours |
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6 recovery | Sharpen Week 6: one last VO2 session early, then openers and primers. Arrive at the race sharp, not tired. | 3.4 hours |
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Applying the plan schedules all 24 sessions from your chosen start date. You pick which days of the week you ride.
Start Criterium Sharpener