Athlete Type for Dirty Kanza 200

[cutbackcoach (james hooper)]

Any advice on best athlete type for Dirty Kanza 200? Just got in and have sufficient time between now and May 30 for a full Xert program. Its 200 miles of rolling hills and wind with a few famously stiff climbs, all day and into the night. I’m thinking GC - or would it be better to opt for an even longer focus in light of the sheer distance (century maybe)? Appreciate any thoughts.

[wwwicked (Daren Chandisingh)]

I’m doing a 300km/180mile ride in June, so quite similar.

The advice given to me yesterday seems relevant:

Am I better off doing intervals rather than longer(ish) rides?

In this case scenario, I would recommend setting your athlete type to something a little further up the PD curve (maybe Climber or GC Specialist). When athletes are preparing for those long distance events, I would argue that the focus duration becomes less meaningful than the athlete’s training load, which is built up through Improvement Rate. Moving your athlete type further up the PD curve will help you perform better in those Zwift races. In the meantime, you’ll still want to continue buil…

[cutbackcoach (james hooper)]

Thanks very much Daren. GC and pushing the TL makes lots of sense.

[ManofSteele (Scott Steele)]

Keeping your Athlete Type at a very long focus duration is really going to do is going to give you almost 100% low strain, so you’d likely never really be recommended any workouts with lots of intensity (which makes sense for that athlete type), but it really is good to have some variety in your training. Moving yourself up the PD curve is going to give you a wider range of workouts for XATA to choose from, and as I elaborated above the Athlete type is about the intensity of the race/event that you’re training for, not the duration. Think of all the short, punchy hills you’re bound to encounter, or sections of headwind that will likely force you to work above TP for a bit. Those will all drop the focus duration from 1:00:00+ down to something likely in the 8:00-20:00 range, which is why a GC specialist or climber athlete type would be a good choice. Have you completely the DK before and uploaded the results to Xert? Or have you performed a similar ride and uploaded it to Xert? Go back and look at the Focus Duration for that activity and use that as a guide to select an athlete type this time around.

Hope that helps! Good luck with your preparation!

[cmroy (Chris Roy)]

Thanks for this, I’m way behind in tagging onto this thread but it seemed very appropriate.

I am doing a 270km ride with 4000m+ of elevation. Wondering how this Athlete Type and training worked for you (if you are still around). Would also be interested to know where your training load was as you entered the event. It seems training load could be of greater importance than the athlete type for this length of event. Anything in the middle athlete type with hill type intensity seems like it would be beneficial depending on the rider and how they respond to different length and intensity of intervals.