I’m going on a week-long cycling trip to the mountains next summer with a lot of climbing. I’m considering starting the Build Me Up program so that the final, calmer week is completed just before the trip, allowing me to build fitness and form ahead of time. Is this a good idea?
That is one of the better training plans in Zwift and it sounds like you have plenty of time to do it without going into the trip fatigued.
Given the way I’ve read your question, you aren’t planning to smash those mountains, you simply want to prepare your body to cope with mountains on long daily mountainous rides for a week.
You don’t have to do a workout plan for that.
You could simply put trainer difficulty in zwift at 100%, presuming your turbo can emulate ~15+ gradients and simply freeride some hilly/mountainous routes most days at a steady pace, increasing your time in the saddle per session.
Build up to doing routes like Four Horsemen.
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Lots and lots of Ventop or ADZ.
ADZ daily if you can handle it, then leaving 1 or 2 days a week for rest. You’ll need the rest because your legs will feel like bricks! Do keep moving after your rides, otherwise you’ll end up with really sore legs.
Aside from that, if you can create your own workouts with fixed 5-8% gradients and then set those as interval blocks for 10 minutes at a time with few minutes rest in between, 4 of those - use your gears to control the effort. I use a lower cadence as well 70rpm or lower. 4x10 is 40 minutes. When they get easier, increase the length of each block by a minute or two. Or reduce recovery time between blocks.
The idea of lower cadence is that it burns your legs a lot more and builds up strength in them. And when you hit the real hills at normal cadence, it feels like it’s not a problem.
You’ll also want to get out and do some IRL rides of similar distances and repeat small hills if you have to. Also find some technical descents even smaller ones, get comfortable with the descending if you aren’t already.
This isn’t about breaking records downhill, but being safe. Descents like Col du Glandon or the Saisies descent in France are very, very fast. You can get into trouble if you aren’t careful. “Distressed” roads are common over there for instance, eg the Col de Sarenne has an appalling road surface.
That’s how I do it, I don’t have mountains nearby.
Feel free to send me a message if you want more detailed help.
A proper rear cassette and riding at 100% TD may help.