As mentioned in a previous thread last night I’m going to be racing next year. Being naturally competitive I want to approach it with the best prep I can manage. Will be a mix of road and mountain bike racing btw.

At the moment I ride mainly road and have a good base fitness. I ride three times a weeks which consist of a social medium paced Tuesday ride, Thursday closed circuit training ride and a longer social ride on Sunday’s if I’m not racing *cyclocross.

I haven’t specifically trained for it, just taking part to get a feel of racing.

For the competitive racers out there, when do you start to increase training intensity for the new season and how do you go about it? I have road, mountain and cyclocross bikes available as well as a turbo trainer. Do you mix turbo sessions with riding or concentrate on one or the other?

Apologies for the long winded post.

I’m due to start on December for next season. Will be doing mainly endurance (zone2) rides but 2 interval sessions a week (1 threshold and 1 sub threshold)

This will be for 3 months and then i’ll step it up for pre race prep.

The sessions for the next 3 months will be progressive (e.g I’ll do 3×4 mins threshold following week 3×5 which will eventually build to 2 x15)

have a load of info on this if you want (email in profile)

Cheers Tricky. ygm.

YPM TD.

I’m racing cross for another two weeks then its down time till Christmas, then 2012 season starts.

I’ll be interval training throughout the year, working on both threshold and sub threshold, so twice a week, with a minimum of two more sessions of 90 minutes and 3 hours. This will see me through till April time, snow depending.

Training with my club twice a week from Spring to Fall was the key to my improvement this year. Better technique and increased confidence in riding fast off road were worth at least the fitness gains I achieved through training.

Mulletus Maximus – Member

At the moment I ride mainly road and have a good base fitness. I ride three times a weeks which consist of a social medium paced Tuesday ride, Thursday closed circuit training ride and a longer social ride on Sunday’s if I’m not racing *cyclocross.

If I were you I’d be increasing frequency and duration of rides before adding any more intensity. Unless you’re very talented 3 rides a week won’t get you very far. Now is the perfect time to get a good foundation of hours on the bike as you don’t have races getting in the way (assuming you’re doing cross for fun).

A lot of people, myself included, will follow a 12 week training plan or training period.

The idea being that you have:

– 3 weeks build, 1 week rest
– 3 weeks higher build to peak, 1 week rest
– 3 weeks tapering, 1 week low intensity ready for main race.

Have a look at the Joe Friel training bible, and check out http://www.chriseatough.com he has some 12 week training plans, that work wonders for people.

Why did I open this thread?

I must have been missing a trick. Why have I not been doing more mtb racing? I have become a bit fed up with cost of triathlon, but enjoyed doing an XTT. Then started mtb in earnest this year. Thought about trailtrax kind of thing before, but missed the whole idea of XC racing. Looks a blast and great value for money.

Bllx though – I was going to upgrade my basic Trek 6500 hardtail to a stumpy. But that would be bllx for VC I guess.

The Gorrick stuff looks great.

Gorricks are excellent fun, as are their aphiliated Brass Monkeys winter enduros. A Stumpy will be fine, even if not ideal, all depends how seriously you want to take it.

On the OP I’m commuting 3-4 days a week at the moment, totalling 120-150 miles, plus a decent 3-4 ride at the weekend. 2 rides with two 20 minute FTP intervals, not a lot else until February time when I’ll start doing shorter stuff, but it’s generally my FTP that needs improving, my shorter efforts are better.

I’ll be aiming for early season road races in March, but these will be testers rather than have an expectation to do well. I hope to be fully race fit mid April onwards.

So following cross season I’ll be looking to build a bit of base. Steady miles basically, 1 x 3hr long ride at weekends, 3-4 other rides during the week. Will do this until mid Feb (with a week off riding altogether at Christmas as I’m away skiing). Towards the end of this period I’ll possibly turn one of the week day rides into a hard effort.

From mid Feb I’ll add in a couple of hard rides a week, and start increasing the length of the long ride until end of March.

From then on the battle will start in balancing regular racing and training.

As above, Friel’s book is a good read.

I started my training yesterday based on his book.

You need to identify when you want to Peak and work backwards from then.

Basically though it begins with low intensity base training and some cross training (as in other sports not CX!).

Agree it is a good read, some good workouts in there, even if you don’t continue to stick to the plan.

No idea why I spelt affiliated with a ‘ph’ incidentally.

So next season will be your first?

I wouldn’t get too hung up about it. Do some traning/continue as you are.

You’ll need a season under your belt to make an assessment of your strengths. Do some races, analyse where you need to improve, train to improve.

Plus, it takes two or three seasons to develop your heart.

SB