I’m preparing my 2025/2026 road cycling training plan and decided to give Athletica.ai another try.
I’ve set two peak forms: one for a 70 km race on April 6, and another for a 140 km race on May 10 — two very different race profiles.
The plan generated by Athletica seems to follow a fairly standard model, and I’ve found it difficult to adapt to my specific race types. In my case, the plan leans heavily towards VO2max HIIT and “race pace” sessions, which also seem to appear quite early in the season. There’s no consistent approach, with, for example, part of the training being polarized and another part pyramidal.
From my experience, when you know your own training data and have clear performance goals, there’s potential for more tailored plans — for example, I’ve created a version via ChatGPT that feels more in line with my objectives.
That said, I think Athletica has a very promising interface and a lot of potential. I’m curious to see if more customization options might be added in the future, especially regarding race profiles and seasonal periodization.
I’d be interested to hear how others have managed to customize their plans for different types of races.
I would trust your instinct and manually adjust the base weeks (that are currently build weeks). You can do this from Overview, then just hover over the week in question to adjust as per screenshot.
Hey JBB,
Welcome back to Athletica! I’ve been using the platform to prepare for long gravel races.
Yes, the plan for Athletica follows a pretty standard format. The goal is to maximize your fitness within the given number of training hours you have available.
I find that the base period is a little more polarized, and the build is more pyramidal. Again, the goal is to periodize your training with a progressive overload so that you continually improve your fitness.
There’s a lot of research that suggests doing VO2max and intensity work early in the season improves VO2max, which, in turn, increases your ceiling and your capacity for more aerobic work.
The biggest thing for you that I see with Athletica is to get some extra endurance time in to manage your 140km race. So I advise my athletes on Athletica that if there’s time in their day, increase the time of aerobic development rides as you can. As long as you don’t increase your intensity out of Zone 2 and as long as you increase the time slowly (don’t go from two hours to six hours the first time!), you will be good with the program.
Keep up with the tempo and strength endurance rides, which are the most like a race pace for long races.
What kind of races are you doing?
I’m happy to help you think through your program!
Thank you very much for your fast reply (I appreciate !) and for sharing your perspective. I agree with you on a few points — especially the importance of progressive endurance volume for the 140 km event, and the logic of using VO2max work early in the season to raise the ceiling before focusing more on aerobic work.
That said, my challenge with Athletica is not so much understanding the overall progression, but the lack of differentiation between my two target events:
– 65 km road race in a 9km loop (typical local race in France): last year’s race took me 1h50, NP around 250–255 W, average HR 178–180 bpm (Zone 4, far too high). Very fast start, several short climbs (2km 4%, I usually climb these around 320w average), frequent attacks and accelerations. My goal in 2026 is to finish on the podium.
One month later a 150 km cyclosportive in hilly part of Normandy, France : last year’s race took me 4h30, 1700 m elevation gain, NP 220 W, average HR 165 bpm. About 15 climbs, including 4–5 around 2 km at 6–7%. Sustained endurance, steady pacing, and repeated long efforts are key here.
I agree both races require very different specific preparation. For the April race, I need short high-intensity efforts, repeated climb simulations, sprint work, and race-start simulations. For the May race, I need longer tempo and sweet spot intervals, sustained climbing at race pace, and extended Z2/Z3 endurance. But in a more general way, my goal this year is to :
-improve my cardiovascular endurance (developing a Zone 2 around 240 W)|
-work on the ability to accelerate / attack after efforts on climbs
In my current plan, the workouts feel quite generic — mainly VO2max HIIT and early race-pace work — without a clear way to adapt them to the unique demands of each race.
Jumping in to add, you might not see the difference right now since it’s focusing on your earlier race - and with Athletica you really can’t go sneak peek at a future week for your next race, since that week will actually change (often dramatically) by the time you get there based on what you’re doing leading into that week. E.g. you can’t preview three weeks before to see what your long run/ride will look like because it’s basing that off of your current fitness TODAY.
It’s a feature, not a bug, but can be confusing/concerning without that context and caused me quite a bit of grief before understanding it. Hope that helps at least a bit.
I understand this feature of Athletica and its potential for adaptation. That’s the advantage of the platform compared to static training plans, but at the same time it requires committing “blindly” to a training plan without having a clear overview of the whole season. Beyond the financial aspect, it means putting trust in a platform run by AI… which I actually did last year, as I trained using ChatGPT. The difference was that I had full control over the prompts, which allowed for a fairly high degree of customization, even if it wasn’t perfect.
In the case of Athletica, I’ve specifically pointed out shortcomings in the proposed plan in relation to the type of races I’m preparing for. Athletica really needs to offer more precise race-type configuration — for example, it’s currently not even possible to set the race’s elevation profile, which doesn’t seem very serious to me.
Best,
JB
Hello @JBB,
Thanks for the questions and comments, and thanks for the explanations of the two races.
For the 65k road race, it sounds like you need a lot of base fitness on which to build some long tempo intervals at that 250-260 w range, plus some threshold intervals at around 320 -330 w.
You could do both with bursts, meaning starting the interval with a jump then settling down to your target pace. That would mean simply adapting the Athletica workout to be a little more specific to your needs. The 30/30s help build the snap you need for the frequent attacks.
For the cyclosportive, you’ll need much the same but maybe without the jumps.
For both, you’ll need a lot of base aerobic fitness to build your durability.
I agree that you have to put your trust in a AI platform; however, this platform is built on scientific training principles and training plans created by Dr. Laursen and others. Those plans form the basis of the training, then with your comments, feedback, and training, the AI adapts your program to your needs, making it far more than just a Chat GPT plan.
You could always get a coach to help you fine tune Athletica to your needs. For example, I work with quite a few athletes who use Athletica as a framework, and we build in changes based on their race and life schedule.
But honestly, we don’t change much except for volume. Several of my athletes are doing centuries or long gravel races, so we add more aerobic volume to the plan that what Athletica typically suggests. We also add in full-body strength training and yoga.
No program, except for a far more expensive custom coaching plan, is going to give you all the specifics for specific race preparation.
Athletica is the best training plan for self-coached athletes that I’ve seen - by far.
That’s my two cents both as a coach on Athletica and as an athlete who uses Athletica to train for 100-150k gravel races.
Let me know what other questions you have, JB.
So I’ll commit to this new training plan with Athletica in October, after a short break, in preparation for the spring races. I might come back with a few questions at that point.
But I still think the race customization interface should be more developed
