Originally Posted by Racer Ex

That's always the fly in the ointment, and I'm not sure that evening out the hours isn't going to diminish the effect of your build phase. When I backed off my hours I started paying a lot more attention to JRA time, shortened my warmups and cool downs, but made sure I was really disciplined in both.

Another thing to consider: I try to look a bit in advance on the races I'll be doing as we set up my training; if you're looking at 1-2 hour events I'm not sure you can't get as sharp on somewhat less hours and adding a bit more intensity. If I've got something deadly like Gila on tap I bite the "big hours" bullet.

The nice thing about having that underlying fitness is that we can get a lot done in a month or two depending on what came before.

I'm sure you've considered all this stuff. Now you need to grab a beer and have a heart to heart with your coach