Training - how much / what type

ROK ON

Quick query. At this time of year how much training and what type of training do you do?
What are you training for: sportives, racing, audax, fitness etc

In terms of type in case folks don't want to give too much away maybe split between % of time at endurance strength or speed.
Thanks. Just curious.

billy.fish

ROK ON wrote: »

Quick query. At this time of year how much training and what type of training do you do?
What are you training for: sportives, racing, audax, fitness etc

In terms of type in case folks don't want to give too much away maybe split between % of time at endurance strength or speed.
Thanks. Just curious.

Doing: Cross

Training: Pretty much all high end work with some recovery

Will be doing come monday: Longer steady state, just below tempo with some threshold for the next 3-4 months

For: IM racing and 24hour racing.

seve65

ROK ON wrote: »

Quick query. At this time of year how much training and what type of training do you do?
What are you training for: sportives, racing, audax, fitness etc

In terms of type in case folks don't want to give too much away maybe split between % of time at endurance strength or speed.
Thanks. Just curious.

training for letape I, trying to commute in the stiffest gear I have at a steady pace but not to the point were I am gasping. Planning to gradually crank up the miles each week and go up and down the hills that I find in the stiffest gear I can manage with a smooth stroke.

Contrast that with most of last year which was just going as fast as possible up any hill I could find, and sprinting and resting between lamp posts etc on the way to work. And weekend rides were more about finding longish routes with any steep hills I hadnt cycled up before. There was no real objective other than to improve fitness and be able to get through sportifs with a good time. Last autumn I did go up and down the Cork airport hill 13 times, before it got dark, just to see what that would do to my muscles as I had a vague notion of doing letape at that point. I know (or I dont actually know..!) its a million miles from being a relevant comparison but you have to start somewhere. How about up Mahon falls 4 times consecutively ?

Dubba

For me its (same as last year) to start commuting daily again, while adding some distance to the commute as it gets brighter / warmer.

I also want to get some long weekend spins in, but I find it hard to cycle
steady state and end up doing interval type training all the time.
Properly need to start re-thinking this but at the moment just getting out and loosing some weight is my top priority.

rottenhat

A weekend spin of about 100km plus another shorter one of 50ish and miscellaneous commuting miles - I'll be ramping back up to 200km spins on Saturday and another 100km odd with Orwell on Sunday by the end of the month though.

All endurance, although heading out with Orwell sometimes qualifies as a speed workout for me, getting ready for the PBP qualifiers.

markdrayton

Training to ride faster, race CX/MTB XC and have a couple of weeks in the big mountains. I commute each day (20km round trip) and aim for 4 or 5 sessions from the following selection each week:

* turbo session (2x20, 3x20 or 1hr)
* 90min tempo/sweet spot road ride
* long road spin
* MTB spin

Focus is on maximising the accumulated stress/need for recovery balance. Besides commuting I don't generally do much at long/steady pace.

BryanL

as much time as possible @70-80% max Hr
one lactate session a week
commute one way in 53x11( it's flat)

until next stage of training...............

The tax man

rottenhat wrote: »

A weekend spin of about 100km plus another shorter one of 50ish and miscellaneous commuting miles - I'll be ramping back up to 200km spins on Saturday and another 100km odd with Orwell on Sunday by the end of the month though.

All endurance, although heading out with Orwell sometimes qualifies as a speed workout for me, getting ready for the PBP qualifiers.

Christ and there was me thinking of heading out for 70-80k tomorrow. It's the word spin that hurts the most.:D

petethedrummer

BryanL wrote: »

commute one way in 53x11( it's flat)

Is that a good idea? You must have legs of steel.

petethedrummer

Interesting post here regarding motor pacing and getting fast.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=400365&postcount=13

Anyone ever tried it?

lukester

petethedrummer wrote: »

Anyone ever tried it?

Other than drafting cars in traffic, no. Always wanted to try it though.

levitronix

About 8 hours or so
2 days doing threshold stuff
1 day recovery and sprint stuff
1 day long club ride or solo
Will start commuting again im feb bring up the hours a bit

Idleater

petethedrummer wrote: »

Interesting post here regarding motor pacing and getting fast.
Anyone ever tried it?

I heard about it on a recent club spin, and as a motorcyclist I'm willing to give it a try, but by jasus do the two participants have to trust eachother! I'd be fairly sure that there would be a lot of frowning from insurance companies in the event of anything going wrong if it were found to be orchestrated!

petethedrummer

Idleater wrote: »

I heard about it on a recent club spin, and as a motorcyclist I'm willing to give it a try,

Brilliant, one volunteer.

Seriously though, i dunno if I'd have the nerve. Never mind the fitness.

100Suns

petethedrummer wrote: »

Anyone ever tried it?

<snipped>

Cookie_Monster

My goal is Wicklow 200 and 5,000km of road for the year

Accomplished by aiming for 96km min a week.

Split between at least 2 nights a week of 15-35km and a long Sat/Sun spin, building up as the weather gets nicer.

Plus a 5km round trip to work when I cycle, potentially giving up to an extra 25km a week

Already well ahead of target

chakattack

100Suns wrote: »

<snipped>

Come on...give us the gory details!

100Suns

chakattack wrote: »

Come on...give us the gory details!

On reflection it was irresponsible. I'll fill you in on W200.

cantalach

Until there's more light in the evening/morning, I'll continue spending about 4-5 hours per week on the turbo and just 2-3 hours doing proper outdoor cycling. Roughly half my turbo sessions at the moment are either FTP intervals or strength work (very high resistance, low cadence stuff). The other half of my turbo sessions are endurance. Come May/June I'll be up to 12 hours per week with only perhaps 1-2 of that being turbo.

I'm training for sportives, a four day charity tour in August, an 'Amstel Gold' weekend in April, and a trip to the Alps in early September. If there was an open TT league in Cork I'd be up for it but in my 40th year, I'm too old (or too chicken) to take up road racing

ROK ON

Thanks for the replies.
Myself I do 8hrs presently.
Two interval sessions (spinning class & turbo)
Midweek spin between tempo and threshold with some intervals (either hill repeats or speed).
W/E spin. Mostly hilly so try to time those and go hard.

Will hope to do same 4 day event as Cantalach but no other firm goals. Maybe some league racing if still in Dublin midweek.
A few sportifs more (would like to do Mt Leinster challenge).
Seriously considering entering a few open races held close to Kerry, however my inability to train in a fast group with a club will probably put pay to that. We'll see.

ryan_sherlock

I have taken January as a month this year when I have put everything training wise I do online. I have not broken down what I was trying to accomplish in the particular sessions but HR (lots of noisy data) and Power is there.

I'm going to write a post about it once I'm done with the current training camp. Not too many 'top riders' (not saying I'm a top rider, yet) put up everything and I wanted to show what I have been doing so that people can have an idea of what it takes when I hopefully start winning later in the year.

You can see my profile on Strava: http://app.strava.com/athletes/8492#interval_type?chart_type=hours&interval_type=month&interval=201101&year_offset=0

I have actually missed a couple of (non interesting) indoor sessions at the start of the month - I'll add those in at some point to.

Basically, lots of L2, L3 and L4 intervals (twice per week). Some neuromuscular training when I'm fresh too.

I hope this is some insight.

cantalach

Thanks, Ryan. That's a fantastic insight. Just one thing though...in order for the HR figures to make sense, can you tell us your HRmax? The raw bpm on its own is kinda meaningless, other than being able to make relative comparisons between your different efforts.

ryan_sherlock

cantalach wrote: »

Thanks, Ryan. That's a fantastic insight. Just one thing though...in order for the HR figures to make sense, can you tell us your HRmax? The raw bpm on its own is kinda meaningless, other than being able to make relative comparisons between your different efforts.

My avg HR for a 1 hr CX races is around 178-180
Average for a 2hr MTB race, 175
Average for a 5hr Marathon MTB race, 150-170
Road race - completely depends - usually the same as a marathon MTB race.

Max I have ever seen on the bike is 192 but if I hit 185+ it means I'm going HARD and am reasonably fresh.

Long descents (where my hr can drop to the 40s/50s) skewers avg HR so it is not worth reading much into. Same with power, long descents with little or no pedalling skew the avg wattage for the ride. Normalized power for most of the riders here (non recovery) is between 265-300W

Also, HR doesn't make much sense for me anyway - too variable during efforts - I ride with a HR monitor always, but very seldomly use it during a session. Power/RPE is where it is at for me.

cantalach

Thanks again. I appreciate that you train based on power rather than HR. But I guess a lot of us don't have the benefit of SRM or equivalent so the next best thing for us is to look at what sort of %HR you're doing in an interval or climb. I realise that HR is affected by many factors (not just how much power you're putting out) but it's a reasonable poor man's alternative nonetheless.

smacl

My goal is also the W200, which currently seems like a big ask. Training at present is 2-3 short lunch time spins per week up Cruagh to Johnnie Foxes and a longer spin at the weekend. Also doing kettle bell and boxing training each week for general strength and fitness, cutting back on the booze, and eating well. Plan is to add some distance each week and have gone over all the hills a few times prior to the event. Certainly want to be doing > 200k per week prior to the W200, and have done a 140k-160k a few weeks before. Can't believe how out of shape i've got since last summer.

petethedrummer

Looks like stage racing is the key to getting fast.

The 21-year-old Australian came into his national track championships having just completed the Santos Tour Down Under, where he rode in support of Garmin-Cervelo teammate Cameron Meyer's winning performance. Bobridge spoke of notching his best pursuit times following a stage race, a situation which Boardman found familiar.

"That's an interesting observation [by Bobridge] because 1996 was the year I went through the whole Tour de France," said Boardman. "I really struggled but was getting better towards the end. I came out of it and I had the best form of my life for probably six to eight weeks afterwards.

"[The world record] was off the back of very, very intense stage racing which is not how I'd normally do things. Normally, I'd want to do it more carefully and controlled thinking about the training."

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/boardman-calls-bobridges-pursuit-record-phenomenal

niceonetom

That reminds me of something I read about Janez Brajkovic after he won the Dauphiné. A week later he beat his previous CP5 by 40 watts, which is quite a bit.

Joe Friel calls it 'supercompensation' following a crash block. It's a bit high risk and unlikely to work for any of us, but for those already near their genetic potential a pattern of training to peak, tapering, crash block (like the Dauphiné or TDU) and then rest can produce top form.

LINK

High Nellie

Idleater wrote: »

I heard about it on a recent club spin, and as a motorcyclist I'm willing to give it a try, but by jasus do the two participants have to trust eachother! I'd be fairly sure that there would be a lot of frowning from insurance companies in the event of anything going wrong if it were found to be orchestrated!

In most policies it is specifically NOT covered. So, be warned - the rider can take you personally to the cleaners if anything goes wrong.

petethedrummer

niceonetom wrote: »

Joe Friel calls it 'supercompensation' following a crash block. It's a bit high risk

I heard the Irish rugby team were doing training similar to this before the last world cup. That gamble didn't pay off.

Idleater

High Nellie wrote: »

In most policies it is specifically NOT covered. So, be warned - the rider can take you personally to the cleaners if anything goes wrong.

Define "rider" - "Motorcyclist" is considered a "rider" for insurance purposes, and being able to stop in the distance in front is a duty of care for any road user, cyclist included.

Personally I would (as indicted) be uncomfortable driving a motorcycle closely followed by any vehicle, cyclist included, and I have RoSPA advanced, without familiarisation if at all, so your quote and point are severely misplaced.

cantalach

I read Fignon's book over Christmas and he says he used something akin to supercompensation in the lead in to his first Milan-San Remo win. Just a few days before the race, he rode over 200km on just a light breakfast.

CramCycle

My aim for the year is to clear a minimum of one 200km event per month. No real training as such, just going to go out and get it done by whatever means possible. Hitting on average of 125km a week in work commuting.

We received a "WATTCYCLE" in work the other day and I plan to do an hour or two to measure my fitness every Wednesday (I have about 5 hours sort of free in the middle of the day). Might post up the results it looks interesting. I can't find it online so i will post pictures next week. Might also get the gas analyser and the heart rate monitor going simultaneously to have a crack at looking at the effect on my metabolism.

Other than that here are the events I intend to do but have to qualify for the big one in the middle:

January: 28th Dying Light Permanent DONE alot slower than I would have liked but I blame that on a run of punctures and the atrocious roadworks between St.Margarets and Garristown (also the fact that I am well out of shape after Christmas).

February: 26th Slievemann 200

March: 13th Ardattin 200
26th Pink Elephant 200

April: 9th Hollywood 300
22nd Easter Fleche A team is under construction if anyone else is interested, looking at between 400 and 450km

May: 7th REK 400.
22nd Mick Byrne 200

June: 4th Red Line/Red Lane 600
11th Four Counties 600 Only one of these two will be happening so it is a matter of what is happening work wise etc

July: 2nd Around Down 200 An area I have done no cycling in and would love too, first time it is being run AFAIK
9th Surf And Turf 300
30th The Brown Stuff 400

August: 21st Paris-Brest-Paris The only event I need to do qualifying for and after much disappointment last year I am eager to qualify, this is my big event for the year

September: 24th The Dying Sow 300 Slept in last year and ended up only getting the 200 Dying Cow done on the day, will correct that this year

October: 29th The Dying Light 200 Beautiful flat route and there are Hot Ports afterwards (at least there better be, the thought of them shaved 3hours of my other 200km time last year

November: 13th Lumpy 200.

December: I will probably head out on the Dying Light again to finish off the year on the first day above zero in the month of December.

Depending on the misses attitude there maybe more done but it's unlikely but suppose I should spend a bit of time with her

niceonetom

cantalach wrote: »

I read Fignon's book over Christmas and he says he used something akin to supercompensation in the lead in to his first Milan-San Remo win. Just a few days before the race, he rode over 200km on just a light breakfast.

I've heard about that too, but it's not a crash block or supercompensation thing, it's something else entirely.

I think the theory is that for absolute maximum glycogen storage you need to totally empty the tank before filling it again. That would be a priority for a 300km race like Milan-San Remo where resilience is the name of the game. I don't know if there's any science to back that up - the whole carboloading area is a bit contentious I think and lots of what was taken for granted in the 80s is questionable now. It's an even higher risk strategy than a crash block as it would rely on the rider having the powers of recovery of, well, Laurent Fignon. We'd likely end up bonked and take a week to recover.

billy.fish

niceonetom wrote: »

I think the theory is that for absolute maximum glycogen storage you need to totally empty the tank before filling it again. That would be a priority for a 300km race like Milan-San Remo where resilience is the name of the game. I don't know if there's any science to back that up - the whole carboloading area is a bit contentious I think and lots of what was taken for granted in the 80s is questionable now. It's an even higher risk strategy than a crash block as it would rely on the rider having the powers of recovery of, well, Laurent Fignon. We'd likely end up bonked and take a week to recover.

*sharp intake of breath through teeth*

Yeah.....no.....

The idea is kinda there, but the issue is repletion of the intramuscular glycogen stores. TBH fasted/starvation training is something that has been around for years in martahon and any ultraendurance event. The science behind it isn't sketchy its just very hard to study without muscle biopsies and getting people to do that post glycogen depletion .is...dodge...they tend to be borderline hypoglycemic coma when it happens.

In short...dont do it. it has no place in training.

As for carbo loading....its a very outdated and dis proven idea from the 70;s

*awaits abuse*

chakattack

billy.fish wrote: »

*sharp intake of breath through teeth*

Yeah.....no.....

The idea is kinda there, but the issue is repletion of the intramuscular glycogen stores. TBH fasted/starvation training is something that has been around for years in martahon and any ultraendurance event. The science behind it isn't sketchy its just very hard to study without muscle biopsies and getting people to do that post glycogen depletion .is...dodge...they tend to be borderline hypoglycemic coma when it happens.

In short...dont do it. it has no place in training.

As for carbo loading....its a very outdated and dis proven idea from the 70;s

*awaits abuse*

Hi Billy,

Always enjoy your posts...great to see some evidence and experience thrown in to counter all the speculation and myth.

Can you expand more about carbo loading?

I'm guessing, your muscles (and liver?) have a limited capacity for glycogen storage and once you meet that there is no point going crazy on the pasta?

billy.fish

I like to talk.

Suppose the basis for some modern belife that CHO loading is useless comes from two areas:

1) INtramuscular capacity to store glycogen is limited by training state
2) Uptake of CHO to replete these stores is not limited persay, but the rate that they get depleted is

So in case 1: Unless you are very very very well trained depleating a minimal store that you tend not to draw off anyway has no purpose. More or less untrained (Vo2max<50-60ml.kg.min-1) individuals will be pulling so much energy from exogenous CHO sources above intramuscular that it makes no difference.

Case 2: You are better working on this than working on depleating stores, the more efficient you can become at utilising a lower fraction of the rate limited* 1.2g of CHO.min-1 you can pull down at a higher intensity the more likely you are to be able to turn onto exogenous stores at a later stage.

So uncle Greg says: CHO depletion ; great if you're very well trained, if not, get more efficient at using CHO at lower intensities (ie being frugal)



*this....is a very different topic to talk about

petethedrummer

Who shot who in the what now?

I think I preferred training when it was endless laps and not being allowed to drink water cos it sloshed around in your stomach.

Lumen

I think billy.fish is saying in English: untrained riders get most of their energy from food, because the energy stores in their muscles (and presumably liver glycogen and fat burning ability) are limited. But you can only digest so much food, so if you want to ride fast over distance you should work on basic training rather than getting all fancy with starving yourself.

You need to conserve your muscle energy stores for the high intensity efforts, because at those efforts the food & fat contribution is relatively low.

thebouldwhacker

@ ROK & Cantalach, are either of ye doing the 100k Clonmel to Killkenny on Sat?
It would be good to meet and get some pointers as I am planning (depending on the employment situation) to do the TdM too.

cantalach

thebouldwhacker wrote: »

@ ROK & Cantalach, are either of ye doing the 100k Clonmel to Killkenny on Sat?
It would be good to meet and get some pointers as I am planning (depending on the employment situation) to do the TdM too.

I'll be there. I'm a tall guy on a very muddy but theoretically black Cervélo RS. As far as I know, places for the '11 TdM are now full so if you haven't committed (and paid a deposit to PS by 25th Feb) you'll be on the waiting list. That said, places usually come available between now and August so provided you're not too far down the waiting list you should be alright.

thebouldwhacker

I should know by the end of next week what the future holds, I'm keeping him up to date going forward with my personal economic climate.
I missed out last year so fingers crossed it goes well this time.

I have a blue trek 1.2 and will probably be wearing a smart and quite complementary pair of LOOK bib tights, which are also blue, so just look for the tall smurf... at the back most likely:o. Weather looks promising so looking forward to the spin....
Any idea of the route? I'm guessing we'll go through fedard?

karlmyson

Hiya bould, I'll be there too, on a matt black Canyon. Dayglo blue Assos jacket also which I just about fit into (working on that ) Good to put faces on boardsies. It'll be a shade more than 100k too I expect, more like 120k.

seve65

hi guys, whats the clonmel-tipp event tomorrow, what time and where do you see that listed ? Cheers.:)

karlmyson

seve, it's the first outing in 2011 (a calibration spin) for people riding the Tour de Munster in August. As such, it's a closed event.

ROK ON

seve65 wrote: »

hi guys, whats the clonmel-tipp event tomorrow, what time and where do you see that listed ? Cheers.:)

We could tell you, but we'd have to kill you.
Its like the masons.

seve65

ah sure, I will have to devise my own treat then :P

hope you all have a good day out and enjoy practising your funny hand signals then !

seve65

ps enjoy the 83.7 miles and 3300 ft of climbs .;)

billy.fish

Lumen wrote: »

I think billy.fish is saying in English: untrained riders get most of their energy from food, because the energy stores in their muscles (and presumably liver glycogen and fat burning ability) are limited. But you can only digest so much food, so if you want to ride fast over distance you should work on basic training rather than getting all fancy with starving yourself.

You need to conserve your muscle energy stores for the high intensity efforts, because at those efforts the food & fat contribution is relatively low.

yeah...kinda....

But yeah...that'll do pig, that'll do

ROK ON

I had come into 2011 with a reasonably good 10wks of base training and about 2 interval sessions per week.

Last few weeks have seen my move from base training to a build phase completely interrupted as life has Intervened.
Still doing 2 interval sessions per week, but have done no other bike work.

Q. Do I need to go straight into interval/build type sessions again. Or should I try 2 or 3 weeks of base rebuilding.

I had targeted an open race in Banteer in mid March as my first ever race. However as I have not bEen able to train with my club at all I have no skills work or group riding training done whatsoever.
No club league where I live so if I want to race it must be open racing.. Has anyone here simply turned up at a race without much fast group riding done?

Lumen

ROK ON wrote: »

Has anyone here simply turned up at a race without much fast group riding done?

Yes, my first open race of last year. I'd done one or two club group spins and one handicapped club race.

About 10km from the end of the race I exited the race stage left over my handlebars, fortunately avoiding anyone else.

Racing is tiring. When you get tired you can't think. Therefore, if your group riding skills depend on thinking rather than learned instinct, you may crash.

Ryder

Raced club league last year with little or no fast group riding. Found it okay especially if your goal is to just stay in the group. Be paranoid and make no move without a 360 check and youll be fine