Choosing Which Races to Attend
Frank Overton
What are the hot gravel races for 2025 and what's the word on the street? Sign-up season has already started (Mid-South) and coming up for most all the rest. In this podcast and training tip Ben Delaney and Coach Frank Overton are digging into our favorite events, exploring some big changes in race formats and talking about how to prioritize A,B, & C events into your annual training.
To choose which races to make you A and B and C Races, start a google doc like this.
Step 1: List out the name, location and dates in chronological order.
Step 2: Factor in the costs, time and logistics it will take to each one. Will you drive and how much time will that take? Or will you fly and if so what are those costs. Also think if you want to deal with packing your bike.
Step 3: Eliminate which events are not possible because of 'life', aka, money, work & family. Be realistic! Put a strikethrough the races you eliminate in case your plan changes later.
For elimination, think in terms of no more than one big event per month. Two is fine but you may need some non competitive months before or after. Its all up to which one your want to attend first and how that works into your life + everything else!
Step 4: Identify your A Race - this is your most important race that sets the priority of your training and makes other races, B or C races.
Step 5: color code your A, B and C Races, like so:
Step 6: Work backwards from your first A race - use that date when you use our custom plan builder. The custom plan builder will optimize the timing of your weights (if you elected) base, intervals and race specialty phases.
Step 7: Start training, dreaming and setting goals.
Step 8: Show up and Streak! Make as many days on your calendar turn green as life allows.
Step 9: Use CoachCat for help when life gets in the way of your training.
Other factors to consider are:
- vacations and time away from training
- strava segments you want to go for (often times can be used in place of interval workouts)
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