To all you budding coaches out there – I’m facing my first stage race in 6months time. I’m 6ft, 82kg’s and fairly fit (ride 4hrs mtb rides regularly on the weekends and could fairly comfortably do a sub 11hr SDW, maybe a sub 10h30 on a good day. Ive done some big training weeks during the summer and have come away with a fairly solid base). Been doing some research on training and programmes and have come up with the below as a general plan – what do you boys reckon?

Nov/Dec – get on the bike loads. Commute 50km per day with one longer ride during the week of around 80km (mostly road but will switch between that and mtb on the towpath when weather allows). Weekends will comprise of one long day (5hr mixed terrain mtb ride). Will also do core work twice a week. Once a month will have a training weekend. This will focus on long easy back to back days. Fri – 4hrs, Sat 5-6hrs, Sun 5-6hrs (road and mtb depending on weather). Towards the end of Dec may look to get in a few races and maybe the odd interval session too.

Jan/Feb – continue with the above but build in some interval training into the commute (also have access to a watt bike so may do some power specific interval sessions to work on FTP). Again one training weekend a month. Feb will also include a mini training camp – 4 or 5 days of back to back 5-6hr days – mixture of road and mtb (effort will be easy but focus on stage race skills – food/liquad consumption etc etc).

March – keep going with the above but try take in a few spring races.

April – ease off on the distance but work on intensity

Work on 4 week cycles with the 4 week following a training weekend and a 25% decrease in distance.

Thoughts?

You’re going to have to be very careful not to over train, that’s quite a training load, 16 hours in 3 days at the weekend particularly, and you don’t mention rest days at all.

You’re presumably looking to do well, rather than just complete? If you’re already capable of long rides then I’d be wary of doing so much base, I’d be more inclined to do more speed work myself from earlier on.

Sounds good but maybe more rest days/active recovery.
Also throw in drills Nov/Dec.
Get some more specific training instead of just commute. 2 x 20’s, Hill Intervals 5 x 12 LT, etc, etc whilst still keeping plenty of base.

What njee20 said. Quality over quantity too.

njee – valid point regarding base. Will throw in some rest more days (currently one day a week plus a few days after a training weekend) and at least one day a week will be active recovery (still commute but light and easy). Guess I’m just worried about the back to back days. I can ride one long day but can I do 9 back to back days – not convinced I could.

Maybe the training weekends are overkill in their current form. Perhaps look at a few more races on those weekends and follow it up with a long(ish)recovery ride.

Want to complete first and foremost but ideally finish in the top 50%

Put the date down and work back, youre gonna need a BASE, Condition, Speed and Top End and a taper prior to your goal. Within this a few skills sessions.

You dont mention what the event is ? It could be your under/over estimating yourself.

Finally make the training look like the racing.

As long as the “Base” is “Base” then its all good, think of it like a traingle the wider the bottom the taller you can go.

Todayscyclist – Transportugal – agreed that I’ve got no benchmark for anything like this. Long one day races is all I got (came just in the top 50% in Bristol 12hr 2009 – including bailing after 9 odd laps because of a torn sidewall). The last year with the arrival of our new family addition has meant no racing but a few long rides (SDW) and some training weeks (Corsica – spent 23hrs on the bike in a week). So hoping I have some base from which to work. Think I should maybe look at starting to add some more high end tempo and racing into the plan.

What do you quantify as conditioning vs speed?

I personally think you can (and a number of people do) overdo base, I’ve had good winters before with lots of steady miles, but found it can just turn you into a diesel engine; you can keep pootling forever, but you lose the top end speed.

I think there’s merit in doing some hard riding throughout the year. Not saying that you should be doing 5 interval sessions a week, but I’d be inclined to include one hard session a week or something. Racing is a great way to get that, either ‘cross, MTB or road.

A True Endurance event, get a good base.

Crossing Portugal in 9 days , north to south; finishing in Sagres  – the southern west point of Europe; 1 150 km of off-road racing across forest tracks, gravel roads and steep single tracks on clifftops.

Racing from hotel door to hotel door, overnight stays in the best hotels in the region, excellent food and relaxed atmosphere all around.

No signs, ribbons or arrows to indicate the way. Intuitive flawless GPS guiding. You can never get lost and you are always sure you are following the right race track.
An innovative way of racing where each participant follows a virtual marked track on the screen of his GPS receiver.

Always racing across very isolated and peaceful landscape and in self sufficiency, no aid stations and all external support is forbidden  

Staged in-line race; one stage a day; one category only classifying racers individually; allowances for age and gender

No signs, ribbons or arrows to indicate the way

An innovative way of racing where each participant follows a virtual marked track on the screen of his GPS receiver.

Can’t see that working! If I’m racing the last thing I want to be doing is looking at a GPS!

Ok, so BBF09, even including the torn sidewall you’d have only got one more lap and been one position higher. What are/were your weaknesses? That’s what you want to train! Your first lap was a little slower than most of those around you, do you struggle with the all out speed?

Cyclists Training Bible is a great book, I am working my way through it at the moment. Its an easy way to start with your main goals and then break your training down/back to the basics required to give you a result. You really need to be honest and self-coach yourself, you will learn a lot from it.

njee – appreciate your time. Think the idea is that its more of a adventure than an out and out race (which appeals to me) but that said I want to give a good account of myself. Agreed re Bristol – would have got one extra lap in at most so not sure I could have done much better (to be fair that was a poorly executed race on my part so perhaps not best suited to comparison – wrong tires/wrong bike position/wrong nutrition). I’m feel stronger/fitter than I was then, but havent raced this year so nothing to benchmark against (SDW in 10h47 is the best benchmark I have this year – which I would say was average at best). That being said I hear what you are getting at. Could easily have gone harder in the first part of Bristol but was holding back then just didnt have it in the tank really during the last 3hrs. perhaps I need to get a race booked in for next month to really test where I versus my peers. Any ideas for enduro’s in the South East?

Merida Brass Monkeys? Only a 4 hour, there’s not that much that’s going to be longer in winter. Good distance though, not so long that you’ll ruin yourself for weeks, but long enough that you’ll have to fuel yourself properly. There’ll be some good riders there too to gauge your speed.

Appreciate that I need to perhaps be a bit more realistic about my goals. Didnt mean to imply that I consider myself to be anything but mid pack at best – that being said I would like to be on the right side of mid pack. Thinking about it I have actually raced very little in the last 5 years (since living in the UK). Rough ride 2008 (but cant find my result – I was around the 6h30mark), Spring Merida 2007 (257 of total 800 odd riders – not divided by cat so suggest I was perhaps just above 50% in my cat).

njee – brass monkeys sounds good for me. Got December date locked in (nove wont work for me). Might also try get out to the Whyte winter enduro being hosted by trailbreak next weekend.

If you’re not used to riding that amount then the chance of over training is even greater. It’s a very ambitious plan, and would undoubtedly have you do very well if you execute it right, just make sure you don’t over do it, listen to your body.