Training plan for 2013 road racing

Slo_Rida

Hey all
I do a bit of cycling and have entered a couple of A4 races this year - one DNF and and one finish in a chasing group. So next year I plan on making a season of it and entering more races with the view of being competitive.
I have no misconceptions about the training required to achieve this in the first season so at the minute, I am trying to put together a plan for winter training. I am starting with a reasonable level of fitness but I don't have the years of cycling miles in my legs that most others would.
Some of my questions are:
When do I "start"?
How often do I train?
When do I ramp it up/down etc?

My rough plan so far is to start proper in October with at least one long spin at the weekend and a turbo session suring the week. Then in November do 2 mid week turbo sessions all the time making the weekend spin longer. December can be tricky with family commitments so to keep that amount training going would be good. Come the new year I would be trying to get 2 weekend spins in every 2 or 3 weeks. I am hoping to be ready for racing in March.

I have a good book on turbo training so I will follow that religiously. The main thing I'm looking for here is a schedule and target dates ie what level I need to reach by say Christmas.

Any help or links would be great and I apologise for the ultra long post!

Anthony

DirkVoodoo

Or hire a coach.

chakattack

Slo_Rida wrote: »

Hey all
I do a bit of cycling and have entered a couple of A4 races this year - one DNF and and one finish in a chasing group. So next year I plan on making a season of it and entering more races with the view of being competitive.
I have no misconceptions about the training required to achieve this in the first season so at the minute, I am trying to put together a plan for winter training. I am starting with a reasonable level of fitness but I don't have the years of cycling miles in my legs that most others would.
Some of my questions are:
When do I "start"?
How often do I train?
When do I ramp it up/down etc?

My rough plan so far is to start proper in October with at least one long spin at the weekend and a turbo session suring the week. Then in November do 2 mid week turbo sessions all the time making the weekend spin longer. December can be tricky with family commitments so to keep that amount training going would be good. Come the new year I would be trying to get 2 weekend spins in every 2 or 3 weeks. I am hoping to be ready for racing in March.

I have a good book on turbo training so I will follow that religiously. The main thing I'm looking for here is a schedule and target dates ie what level I need to reach by say Christmas.

Any help or links would be great and I apologise for the ultra long post!

Anthony

You'll need to train more than that to be competitive. Most would be on their bikes 4-6 days/week.

Lumen

It's a long season.

Dubba

I'm in a similar situation Slo_Rida, I started open racing this year and did good in my first race - loved it, but got dropped in my second and really struggled.
I don't think there's a good reason to wait for winter to start training for next year, especially if not racing any more this year.
As for training frequency/volume, I'm no expert but aiming for 10hrs per week (give or take a bit) when done consistently will bring improvements.

Etc

Best advice is to join a club, learn to cycle in a group and build your core fitness. Get miles in your legs now and research intervals. Try to vary your routes taking in different terrain. Do as much as you can now while the weather is good because once you have a good base it will encourage you on ****ty days and evenings.

There really is no better thing that you can do than to join a club. The support, good advice encouragement and experience will ensure that you have a great time next year.

And take time every now and then to remember why you are doing it, cause it's hard but brilliant ! Best of luck.

Plastik

Join a club that has a good racing side to it.

To be honest, I fell for the hullabaloo about that Joe Friel book, and y'know what, it's not all that good. Actually, I'm sure it's probably very good, but it's not the book that you should worry yourself with at the moment. I improved immeasurably since January when I joined a club with a very active and large racing contingent and taking part in the winter training spins, which mainly involved interval training of different sorts.

First year racing A4 and, in general, have been doing about 8/9 hours a week on the bike. Can hold my own perfectly fine in A4 races and but for maybe a little improvement in a few areas or some extra racing nous might have gathered a few more points than I have so far.

manwithaplan

chakattack wrote: »

Most would be on their bikes 4-6 days/week.

A4 riders? Don't frighten the man!

I did one long spin each weekend and two 60k or so spins midweek over the winter. That was enough to be competitive in A4 in my first season and get upgraded. I had the base of a season of club league racing though.

If anyone needs to be on their bike 4-6 days over the winter to be competitive in A4, they're a bit ****e.

I would replace the turbo sessions with a couple of half decent spins on the road (buy some decent lights). Mostly steady enough but with a bit of seated big ring climbing to build power. Make sure your long weekend spin is long enough. More intensity - TTs, intervals etc - coming into the spring. The turbo can come in handy here. Use early season racing to get to your peak. But mostly try to enjoy it. You would be amazed how many eternally grumpy and miserable bastards you will meet racing.

And join a club. You will also meet lots of people who are only intermittently miserable.

Lumen

manwithaplan wrote: »

If anyone needs to be on their bike 4-6 days over the winter to be competitive in A4, they're a bit ****e.

By that argument almost everyone in A4 is "a bit ****e", assuming "competitive" means placing with some regularity, since almost everyone doesn't place and those who do place after a winter of a couple of rides a week would be in a small minority.

From the perspective of this mediocre cyclist I think going into the first full season with expectations of winningness is setting yourself up for failure unless you have some great unrealised talent, regardless of how much training you do (in fact the more training the worse it'll be, since the extra commitment may just gold-plate your talentlessness).

If "competitive" means "not getting dropped from the main bunch" then I think the reality distortion field needs re-calibrating, because that's what is normally called "packfill".

fixie fox

manwithaplan wrote: »

You would be amazed how many eternally grumpy and miserable bastards you will meet racing.

Hey, there's no need to get personal - I didn't insult you:D

I have to agree with the post above though - you seem to have got upgraded with a limited enough programme bit most mortals will have to do more than that to 'compete' as opposed to survive.

Lusk Doyle

manwithaplan wrote: »

If anyone needs to be on their bike 4-6 days over the winter to be competitive in A4, they're a bit ****e.

Harsh.

manwithaplan

What I meant is that you don't need to kill yourself over the winter to hold your own. I suppose "competitive" does mean getting up regularly enough, which is tough enough to do in a first season of racing.

To counteract my carefully crafted persona of effortless gentleman racer, I should point out that I posted that not too long after coming home from a spin. It does take a certain amount of dedication to wash and put the kids to bed after an evening trip to the beach and then reach for the bike rather than the fridge.

But do most people really train 4-6 times a week over the winter? Consider me disabused.

chakattack

manwithaplan wrote: »

What I meant is that you don't need to kill yourself over the winter to hold your own. I suppose "competitive" does mean getting up regularly enough, which is tough enough to do in a first season of racing.

To counteract my carefully crafted persona of effortless gentleman racer, I should point out that I posted that not too long after coming home from a spin. It does take a certain amount of dedication to wash and put the kids to bed after an evening trip to the beach and then reach for the bike rather than the fridge.

But do most people really train 4-6 times a week over the winter? Consider me disabused.

I'm sure 4-6 times/week is common including commutes and easier spins. Many ways to skin a cat, you can do lots of volume with only some intensity or a few shorter very intense sessions.

Did you do 3 spins + commuting? Weekly hours/distance?

Depends what you want to do. You can train like an A1/A2 with a view to getting there or train like A4 packfill and stay there.

It's very easy to sit in an A4 bunch on a flat race but hard to attack and get clear or get up in a sprint.

Oh and I don't think anyone advocates a winter of killing yourself, but the more miles you do the better your aerobic system will be when you want to start speedwork in spring.

joker77

manwithaplan wrote: »

But do most people really train 4-6 times a week over the winter? Consider me disabused.

I would have assumed so, if you want to be competitive?

I had a training plan for last winter which had sessions 4 days a week. That didn't include me commuting in and out of work maybe 3 days a week, and going to the gym maybe 2-3 days a week (on lunchbreak). So is that 4 times a week, or 13 times a week? (with each commute journey being a single session)

I think to be racing and to be competitive - the 10-12 hours per week is a good indicator of what you should be doing, rather than how many individual sessions you should be doing.

morana

I suppose it depends on what you do with your 10-12 hours a week. Sometimes in Ireland we go overboard with the miles thing focus on the efforts that make you more efficient.
The miles are great if you are doing big long races but for the messin around we do, you dont need to go nuts on the km's.

good club is essential it will keep you motivated when you dont want to get out.

Lusk Doyle

morana wrote: »

I suppose it depends on what you do with your 10-12 hours a week. Sometimes in Ireland we go overboard with the miles thing focus on the efforts that make you more efficient.
The miles are great if you are doing big long races but for the messin around we do, you dont need to go nuts on the km's.

good club is essential it will keep you motivated when you dont want to get out.

Is that the official Cycling Ireland position for the amateur racing that we do here :eek: :eek: :eek:

Lumen

joker77 wrote: »

I think to be racing and to be competitive - the 10-12 hours per week is a good indicator of what you should be doing, rather than how many individual sessions you should be doing.

There are A2s doing substantially less than 10 hours a week.

I think prescriptive answers are not particularly useful, since (a) it's quality that counts, and (b) different people are able to absorb different volumes of "quality" before breaking.

For instance, I have wondered how fast I'd be if I did 3 VO2Max interval sessions a week and nothing else - that would take only 3 hours. I'm probably never going to find out because if I did attempt such a thing, after 2 weeks I'd be in a wheelchair and the bike would be on Ebay.

manwithaplan

chakattack wrote: »

Did you do 3 spins + commuting? Weekly hours/distance?

Yes but my commute is very short. Only 5k or so - hardly long enough to get warmed up.

I used go out early (maybe 6am) and meet up with the club spin starting at 8.30 on a saturday. Maybe 5 hours there covering 130-140k. Week night spins of about two hours each covering 60k. So about 9 hours covering about 250k in total. Make that 300k if the commuting counts!

petethedrummer

Just keep racing this year. You'll get better much quicker. It can take along time to get match fit if its you're first foray into a sport, no matter what the sport is.
Turning up fit as hell is no use if you don't know when to apply your effort and when to doss.

Racing in my limited experience seems to be made up of alot of peaks and troughs in effort. I was a bit surprised in my first couple of races at the intensity of the high efforts and i'm not sure its something you can really mimic in training. Maybe its less peaky at the front of the group but I am usually languishing at the back.

chakattack

manwithaplan wrote: »

Yes but my commute is very short. Only 5k or so - hardly long enough to get warmed up.

I used go out early (maybe 6am) and meet up with the club spin starting at 8.30 on a saturday. Maybe 5 hours there covering 130-140k. Week night spins of about two hours each covering 60k. So about 9 hours covering about 250k in total. Make that 300k if the commuting counts!

So in other words, a reasonably high volume of training to not be sh*te

morana

Lusk Doyle wrote: »

Is that the official Cycling Ireland position for the amateur racing that we do here :eek: :eek: :eek:

No! thats the official morana position!

velo.2010

Lumen wrote: »

There are A2s doing substantially less than 10 hours a week.

Details please. No names just the plans!;)

Lumen

velo.2010 wrote: »

Details please. No names just the plans!;)

Actually, I should rephrase what I wrote to say "there are A2s that claim to be competitive on 8 hours a week".

As MWAP has proven, competitive cyclists are a bunch of sandbagging liars for whom "a couple of spins a week and a longer one at the weekend" actually means "over 300km a week". :pac:

morana

velo.2010 wrote: »

Details please. No names just the plans!;)

I have coached lads using 2 x3 hrs at the weekend with 3 x 45 mins on the turbo during the week and the were competitive. As I say its all about what you are doing with your time. As Lumen pointed out about the VO2 stuff it needs to be controlled and incremental.... Anyway there is tons of stuff here in the training section.

killalanerr

i would say 9ish hours is the magic number ok. This would change up or down week on week depending on the time of year and allowing for recovery easy weeks .it never gets easyer you you just go faster "quote"

Beasty

What I find amazing is how secretive some are about their training at this level. I think it's refreshing when I see some of the guys share their data - it's not as if everyone is going to "steal" the training plans. I see no harm in allowing racers to try and benchmark themselves against others - seeing what they are doing differently and perhaps giving some of it a go themselves. It's not a "one size fits all" sport anyway - what works for one rider may not necessarily work for another. I personally don't mind if everyone around me improves - that's can only lead to a pickup in the sport generally and hopefully a few more coming through at the highest levels

Lumen

Beasty wrote: »

What I find amazing is how secretive some are about their training at this level

Some might call it "modesty" or "privacy". I for one, etc...

Slo_Rida

"The main thing I'm looking for here is a schedule and target dates"

So I'm guessing this is the wrong approach. I should just keep doing weekend spins, the couple of races that are left and try get out mid week?

I find it easier to train when I have a target and thought if I could measure what level I was at or what improvement I had made I could tailor my training accordingly. Otherwise I'm just plodding along and I fear I COULD lose interest.

ratracer

Slo_Rida wrote: »

"The main thing I'm looking for here is a schedule and target dates"

So I'm guessing this is the wrong approach. I should just keep doing weekend spins, the couple of races that are left and try get out mid week?

I find it easier to train when I have a target and thought if I could measure what level I was at or what improvement I had made I could tailor my training accordingly. Otherwise I'm just plodding along and I fear I COULD lose interest.

Have a look at some of the training logs in the sub-forum, might give you an idea of what you should be getting up to...

thebouldwhacker

Ya gotta laugh, 8 hours, 9 hours 16:39 hours.

I can do now in one hour what used take me 3 hours to do.
I live at the bottom if a hill which I do repeats on, one hour of that is different to an hour on the flat land of the midlands.

Measuring training in hours is like measuring art by its size.... This is a good painting because it is big.....'

petethedrummer

Slo_Rida wrote: »

I find it easier to train when I have a target and thought if I could measure what level I was at or what improvement I had made I could tailor my training accordingly.

How you perform in the race is an accurate measurement of where you are.

Do you have any idea why you are not getting the results you want? Why you DNF'ed or why you didn't make a lead group?

Slo_Rida

petethedrummer wrote: »

How you perform in the race is an accurate measurement of where you are.

Do you have any idea why you are not getting the results you want? Why you DNF'ed or why you didn't make a lead group?

Absolutely...I had no winter training done at all, only took out the bike in late February and trained mostly on my own. Unprepared is the reason I failed but I knew this was a possibility going in, I just wanted to get a feel for racing before I dedicated a years training to it. I have played rugby up until now and I've had to retire for a culmination of reasons (a shoulder injury that won't go away being the main one). And I did get a feel for racing...it was great...even getting pasted!

A reason I may sound over-ambitious is that I can throw myself 100% into something and commit every bean of energy to the cause. That's why I have (misplaced in some posters opinions) confidence in racing next year.

It's hard to know who's/what advice to follow, a high-flying A1 or an A4. I guess someone with coaching experience would be the ideal source.

Diarmuid

Lumen wrote: »

There are A2s doing substantially less than 10 hours a week.

Looking at my training log this year, I have done about 7-8hrs a week and I've gotten around in the A2 bunch in the few races I have done. However once the race goes over 100-120k, I suffer.

If you want to get ready to race next year, keep doing open races until the end of the season and join a club with a club league. At least it won't be a shock when you turn up in Carlow next March to ride the Des Hanlon

petethedrummer

Slo_Rida wrote: »

Unprepared is the reason I failed

I meant more specifically where did the races go wrong? did the pace suddenly go to a level you couldn't keep with? did you get dropped on a hill? Did the changes of pace wear your legs down?

Also, these weekend spins you go on? What do they consist of? are you going for a 5 hour ramble or are you going training?

Slo_Rida

Diarmuid wrote: »

Looking at my training log this year, I have done about 7-8hrs a week and I've gotten around in the A2 bunch in the few races I have done. However once the race goes over 100-120k, I suffer.

If you want to get ready to race next year, keep doing open races until the end of the season and join a club with a club league. At least it won't be a shock when you turn up in Carlow next March to ride the Des Hanlon

I did some league races this summer and really enjoyed them. Some of them I got spat out the back and some I hung in for. So I do have a bit of an idea of how the burn in your lungs feels :eek:

Diarmuid, that sounds like a plan although there is only one more race (and a TT) that I can realistically enter. After that it's train train train!

Slo_Rida

petethedrummer wrote: »

I meant more specifically where did the races go wrong? did the pace suddenly go to a level you couldn't keep with? did you get dropped on a hill? Did the changes of pace wear your legs down?

Oh, apologies. There was a significant climb that I was dropped on, I just couldn't possibly live with their pace up the hill. And for my dnf it was on the first lap of Fermoy and I just couldn't get comfortable in the main bunch. I fought and was dropped and fought and was dropped and then after one of the drags I pushed the chain out over the big ring (a combination of rider fatigue and a bike that's not quite up to racing) and was too far into the red to catch up. If I can say this...my lungs seemed to cave before my legs...definitely the lungs.

petethedrummer

Slo_Rida wrote: »

Oh, apologies. There was a significant climb that I was dropped on, I just couldn't possibly live with their pace up the hill. And for my dnf it was on the first lap of Fermoy and I just couldn't get comfortable in the main bunch. I fought and was dropped and fought and was dropped and then after one of the drags I pushed the chain out over the big ring (a combination of rider fatigue and a bike that's not quite up to racing) and was too far into the red to catch up. If I can say this...my lungs seemed to cave before my legs...definitely the lungs.

Sounds like you need to hit the hills and do some repeats of long and short hills. Recover in between. Get yourself used to the high intensity efforts. You can do hard intervals on the flat but it's mentally difficult to do. It's much easier to push yourself up hills.

I've done very few races myself, 4 to be exact. I got dropped in the first two in similar circumstances to yourself and got points in the last 2. I was in very bad shape (asthma) for my race on Sunday but with the little bit of knowledge from previous races, I knew bit better how to pace myself. I'll do a couple of spins (hard commutes) mid-week and go again next week. I should be much stronger with the work of Sunday's race in my legs.

chakattack

If you're as committed as you say then get some good training books and become a student of the sport, then apply what you learn. Joe Friel is a good start.

Much better to learn a few things and become your own coach than relying on tidbits of online advice.

My 2c is that if you're not cycling consistently you need to get aerobically fit before you start bursting up hills. You can ride them but at a comfortable hard pace, the pace that hurts your legs before your lungs. The recipe for this is lots of miles (increase progressively) and consistent training at moderate pace, not too hard, not too easy.

Your original question about schedules, you should aim to be fairly fit by Feb/March. 100km solo on rolling roads at > 30 - 32kph is a good test. Get stuck into racing and some intervals mid-week and you'll get faster.For now I'd say just ride your bike as much as you can for the rest of the summer then get going on a plan from mid-oct.

Found this somewhere and think it's a good general advice without getting technical:

For those of you who want to get faster this year, I have a little list of five things to consider. I was somewhat fast last year but I'm going to be really fast this coming year, and I'm going to do it by following this list myself. For those who want to keep up, I suggest they consider this list as well.

Intervals

You may have heard me say this in the past: "If you want to go 30 miles per hour, you have to go 30 miles per hour." What it means is that if you want to go faster than you can now, you need to spend brief but intense periods of time fighting to go at those faster speeds, even if you can't keep them up for very long. This is what intervals are. The result is that your body starts getting closer to being able to do those faster speeds more easily. This applies to both hill climbing and flat riding. In talking to the best cyclists in the area one thing that is common amongst them and perhaps the thing that most separates their training from others is their adherence to interval training. Anybody who complains about being slow but doesn't do intervals needs to stop complaining.

Do we need a refresher on how to do intervals? Practically every book on training discusses various types of intervals, particularly in terms of cycles, heart rates, on/off times, etc. That's fine and I'm not going to bore you with more of this. But I will say that if you are not sure how to start getting into doing intervals or find the thought of them boring, try one of these techniques:

1. Climb a 30 minute hill in 3-5 minute bursts with 2 minute super easy rests (still riding).
2. Climb a 3 minute hill 5 times in a row has hard as you can staying seated in the biggest gear you can continuously turn.
3. Go to the front of your local group ride and pull as hard as you can, regardless of the punishing outcome.

Intervals should only be done once a week, as any more would harm most more than it would help them. You should easily see noticeable improvements within a month of doing this.
Distance

The twin brother of intervals is distance. Needless to say, this means doing long rides. For most this means rides of 50 miles or more and for those interested in competitive road racing this often means rides of 80 miles or more. These should be done roughly once a week during the primary season. Doing long rides builds your glycogen (energy) storage capacity, burns fat, promotes increased metabolic rate, and just plain allows you go to longer.

Here are some ways to get in these distance rides without getting bored:

1. Do organized centuries. Ride them any way you like. Many top (category 1/2) racers do these to add fun to their training.
2. Do longer group rides. There's almost always some long ride going on every week.
3. Do a double ride. For example, do a 20 mile ride at 7 AM with your buddy before doing a group 50 mile ride at 9 AM.

Rest

Rest is every bit as important as intervals and distance. The day after you do intervals should be easy or none. The day after you do distance should be easy or none. "Easy" can be defined in terms of heart rate but if you don't have one handy I can tell you now that it means no hard sprints, no big gears, no big hills, and no major distance. Also, if you can find the time, take an hour long nap after doing intervals and take a two hour nap after doing a century. Your body is especially active in rebuilding while you are sleeping.
Sugar and Protein

During your rides you need to be in taking a water bottle per hour and the equivalent of a gel packet every half hour. While fast-acting sugar is not a good idea during your working day, for the love of God get all the sugar you can while riding -- it will only help you. And the first thing you should do when you finish the ride (before taking a shower or anything) is consume carbohydrates and protein, in a roughly 4:1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein. These carbohydrates include sugars; a smoothie with a protein boost is almost ideal, as are commercial recovery drinks such as "R4", etc. Your body is particularly receptive to carbohydrates and protein in the first hour after exercise. Some people drink only coffee when they get back from rides. If you enjoy doing this, that's fine, but you are not maximizing your recovery and energy storage.

The bit about sugar might be contentious but until you get better at burning fat it's probably ok.

8kvscdpglqnyr4

Sound advice from chakattack.

I think you should be getting lots of low intensity base mile between now and Christmas ... i.e. keeping your heart rate <70% of you max. I wouldn't bother with really hard intervals until closer to the racing season for 2 reasons:

1. You need a foundation to build on before doing high intensity intervals. You risk injury if you don't have a good base before doing them.
2. It's a long season - if you start doing intervals now in preparation for next season, you'll be burned out by the time the first races comes along next Feb/March

December might be a good time to start intervals.

pprendeville

morana wrote: »

I have coached lads using 2 x3 hrs at the weekend with 3 x 45 mins on the turbo during the week and the were competitive. As I say its all about what you are doing with your time. As Lumen pointed out about the VO2 stuff it needs to be controlled and incremental.... Anyway there is tons of stuff here in the training section.

are you still coaching? i got that cyclists training bible and couldn't stick to it. had a bit of a disaster of a year this year what with college and family so would like to have some form next year by getting in a good winter.

Lumen

Declan Unkempt Starfish wrote: »

I think you should be getting lots of low intensity base mile between now and Christmas ... i.e. keeping your heart rate <70% of you max

No intervals at all for 5 months?

If you do no high intensity (over threshold) work for any period of time you lose aerobic fitness. So the value of the "don't do intervals for 5 months" strategy over the alternative "ignore nothing" (e.g. intervals once a week) strategy hinges on whether:

(a) intervals done once a week are harmful over an extended period of time
(b) intervals done once a week prevent you from adequately stressing some other system (like fat burning)
(c) it is possible to regain between Christmas and March the lost fitness from five months of twiddling the pedals.

I would say "no" on all three counts.

morana

Lumen wrote: »

No intervals at all for 5 months?

If you do no high intensity (over threshold) work for any period of time you lose aerobic fitness. So the value of the "don't do intervals for 5 months" strategy over the alternative "ignore nothing" (e.g. intervals once a week) strategy hinges on whether:

(a) intervals done once a week are harmful over an extended period of time
(b) intervals done once a week prevent you from adequately stressing some other system (like fat burning)
(c) it is possible to regain between Christmas and March the lost fitness from five months of twiddling the pedals.

I would say "no" on all three counts.

I would agree. you will often here dont use the big ring which again is a nonsense. Now I would say the really high end intervals dont need to be done but the aerobic intervals a must.............

Slo_Rida

Ok so I know races are the best test of ones fitness but I said I'd go out on my new racing bike yesterday to see how I was. I'll start by saying the last 2 or 3 weeks have been disasterous in terms of fitness ie poor sleep, poor diet and NO training! But anyway I did a modest 62km of flat-ish (sometimes rolling up and down) terrain in about 2 hours 10. I wasn't wrecked after it by any means but I'm thinking it's not a bad starting point...please correct me here if I'm wrong.
About 29kmh average I think. Again, I didn't kill myself but if I did this distance every weekend for a while until the time became less "old-ladyish", I could increase the distance and by October be doing decent 80-100km weekend rides.
If you can give me a quick opinion on this point then I'll stop the talking and start the walking (I mean cycling!) and start a training log.
Thanks again.

Slo_Rida

Started training "officially" Sunday week. I created a training log Training Plan for first season racing and will put up a comment on sessions I do. Hopefully ye will be able to give advice here and there as you see fit. I dumped in my first few sessions there today. The training will settle into a routine soon enough and I should see a pattern then.
Thanks all!
Slo

Idunnowho

For the longer milage spins I swear by the '2 gappers'... cycle over Sally, down to Laragh (coffee and cake) then over the Wicklow Gap and back by the N81 (or lakes for 5km but few hundred metre rise extra if youre feeling fitter). Round trip this is about 105km (from Rathfarnham say). Target at least 10 of those between the clock changes (Oct, Mar) and 80-100km flat spins on alternate weekends. If you're not at that mileage yet then build up dont just jump in. Runners use a 10% per week ramp up limit; I'd imagine cyclists could possibly do 20% as its a lot more forgiving.

I did only that (or similar) once a week over the Winter (along with 80km of commute per week) and that got me through the first season of racing. I picked it up a little come Feb or March to be ready for the Des Hanlon. Also cyclling with a small group (2,3,4) gives you more chance to 'cycle' and front the wind and other elements. All that said I hope to build up from one cycle per week this Winter.

Also as others have pointed out its beneficial to throw in intervals from time to time although rarely more than once per week. On the days you only have an hour then go for a threshold spin - ride hilly terrain hardish but steady for an hour.

12 sprocket

THeres a link to a number of coaching articles by on Irish cycling by Paddy Doran , should be something for most peoples needs in there.

Its a good time of year to be asking the questions

12 sprocket

sorry omitted the link on my previous post, heres the link to the training coaching articles,
http://www.irishcycling.com/publish/news/Paddydoran.shtml

spoke2cun

Can someone explain the categories to me? This way I can determine if its worth my while to train for competing or train to just stay in shape. Thanks in advace.

pprendeville

Kind of off topic but here's a good podcast on how to become a climbing machine: http://everydaycyclist.podbean.com/feed/

Slo_Rida

Just listened to that pod cast. Interesting stuff.

pprendeville

Aye I think it's very good. I'm working on my core now as per tip number 1. I remember I had done a nice bit of core work in 2011 and was able to climb out of the saddle for long periods and last year I did practically nothing in any area and couldn't stay out of the saddle for long so it seems to make sense. Will work on muscular endurance next. Nice to have a purpose to training as well.