Elite road racer with 3hrs weekly training?

warrior4life

Just read a bit in cycling plus about Henry Furniss, Say's he keeps his elite license on only 3hrs a week (Give or take) training.... This seem's to go against pretty much everything I've read.
Is anyone else a succesfull racer with minimal training?

phreak

Has he always trained for 3 hours a week? It might be possible to maintain a level with such a low amount but I'd be surprised if he could get up to a high level given that kind of training.

warrior4life

Just been on a link to maximuscle who he's sponsored by and he used to do way more.
Still pretty impressive though.

dennisn

Here's a question. Once you get an elite license, can you be downgraded, or do you just keep it by continuing to pay for it without reguard to your actual prowess as a racer?

warrior4life

No idea, He says he's able to maintain an elite license on only 3hrs a week training, I guess you still need to be able to place sometimes and race at that level.

dennisn

warrior4life wrote:

No idea, He says he's able to maintain an elite license on only 3hrs a week training, I guess you still need to be able to place sometimes and race at that level.

The only reason I asked is that I used to be a USA cycling official. I let my license lapse for 3 years or so. The local race club called, the other day, and asked if I would be their "Official of Record" this year so they could get their USA cycling race permits for this season. I sent my application in to the governing body and they were more than happy to reinstate me so long as I paid the $60.00 fee. That's what got me thinking that as long as you pay the price(and at one time you were qualified) that the license is yours whether you race or not. :? :?

warrior4life

Interesting, Maybe an elite racer will stumble across this and enlighten us.

Down the Road

Intensity v junk miles

With a decent base this could be done. Especially once race season kicks off if he races twice a week as well he'll be fine. Most races are only a few hows long anyway in the UK

Homer J

You still need to get the points. a few in our club have gone from cat 1 to elite and back. I think you need 400 bcf points

ju5t1n

You need to score a minimum of 300 points during the season to keep hold of your Elite licence

Tom Butcher

If you believe everything others tell you about their training you'd think road racing was the easiest sport on the planet to be competitive in.

Pokerface

Tom Butcher wrote:

If you believe everything others tell you about their training you'd think road racing was the easiest sport on the planet to be competitive in.

For the very lucky and talented few..... it is. For the rest of us mugs, it's one of the hardest things to do!

Garz

How's your preparation going Colin?

Pokerface

Garz wrote:

How's your preparation going Colin?

Absolutely superb. Leaving on Wednesday, competition in 12 days from now. The planets will all have to align perfectly for me to medal this time, but it could happen with the perfect ride.

Garz

Well good luck from me anyhow, if you can enjoy it please do so!

See if you can obtain some footage for us regular folk to experience some of it pal.

mattshrops

apologies to op but id also like to say good luck to pokerface- win or lose youre making memories that will last a lifetime. 8)

eh

A few points:

1) If you are racing then you have to count this in the time training as it impacts fitness, you can't just discount it.

2) Elite licenses aren't only about points, you can get BC to give you one in certain circumstances without the necessary points.

3) If he is only doing 3 hours a week, then he may be ok for short races, but don't expect him to be up there in long races e.g. Premier Calendars.

4) You'd need to have years of big hours behind you, to even contemplate this.

ozzzyosborn206

i know hutch only does about 7 hours training leading up to big races, he just knows what works for him and what doesn't and that is time trialling which you only need to be able to hold a steady pace to do not need to train yourself for hills and sprints etc. But 3 hours is not possible if you include the racing time i wouldn't have thought and if it is true it begs the question how far could he go if he trained more?

SBezza

I think Hutch will do more than 7 hours for alot of the time though, when he has mentioned doing 300+ miles a week, that means more than 7 hours. Leading up to the Nationals of course he will taper down, and this will mean less miles and time.

For 3 hours a week, you can get threshold training in, but you need volume as well, it maybe the guy has a very good base from previous years, or is extremely talented, and a few more hours he might be even better. Then again he might be telling porkies.

amaferanga

I think the clue is in the 'give or take'. Give or take what? 5 hours? 10 hours?

shockedsoshocked

Either he's hoovering up points in a winter series somewhere when everyone else isn't racing, or he's lying.

Plus, all cyclists lie about their volume of training. Even if they've done 500 miles that week, when someone asks they'll invariably say "not much".

vorsprung

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

Either he's hoovering up points in a winter series somewhere when everyone else isn't racing, or he's lying.

Plus, all cyclists lie about their volume of training. Even if they've done 500 miles that week, when someone asks they'll invariably say "not much".

Or he might be talented with a high natural v2o max

Training can't turn everyone into a Pro

So Pro-material is not necessarily trained

eh

Or he might be talented with a high natural v2o max

Training can't turn everyone into a Pro

So Pro-material is not necessarily trained

And we have the winner of the worst post on BikeRadar ever :!: What a load of tosh.

Slow1972

Not completely - you can't polish a t**d. So someone without the necessary physical capabilities will probably never make elite, no matter how hard or how many hours a week he trains.

Likewise, a particularly gifted rider can probably work his way up through the rankings in the UK without needing to put in too many hours training.

If someone is physically gifted and has been training and competing at high level for a number of years I would have thought that an elite rider with a decent sprint and targetting the right E/1/2 crits for his points could keep an elite ranking on relatively limited weekly training.

But they would be the exception rather than the rule.

Would be different if he was looking to get his points from Prems, can't see that happening on 3 hours a week as you need the volume as well, but then there's not that many elites who would keep their rankings relying on Prem's alone, no matter how much training they are doing.

warrior4life

True, You can't polish a turd... but you can roll it in glitter.
Such a fantastic saying.

This is the guy who said he maintained his elite racing license with 3or hrs give or take.

http://www.maximuscle.com/henry

There's lots about him online, I'm still pretty impressed by his claim.
I just found it pretty intersting, He obviously did way more miles in the past but as a cat 4 racer its good to know that you dont need to be doing 300 miles a week to be competitive (unless he bikes at 300mph)

irezumi

It mentions on his day's off that he cycles around London for work commitments.

If he's anything like most kitted up cyclists that means lots of sharp accelerations and bursts of speed. Almost like doing interval training, and normally with a rucksack/panniers so carrying extra weight. He may only do 3 hours dedicated cycling a week but there's a lot of training going on. Add to the fact his work is very active instead of most peoples 8 hour sit down at a desk and it's easy to see how he can perhaps maintain fitness better than most.

Although being talnted and very driven are probably attributes that have helped him alot.

warrior4life

In this months cycling plus the 3 hr comment was made, Perhaps thats what he does now and a while back he was doing the big miles.
The more I've checked him out he actually looks like a very good personal trainer.

shockedsoshocked

warrior4life wrote:

True, You can't polish a turd... but you can roll it in glitter.
Such a fantastic saying.

This is the guy who said he maintained his elite racing license with 3or hrs give or take.

http://www.maximuscle.com/henry

There's lots about him online, I'm still pretty impressed by his claim.
I just found it pretty intersting, He obviously did way more miles in the past but as a cat 4 racer its good to know that you dont need to be doing 300 miles a week to be competitive (unless he bikes at 300mph)

Looks like a far more realistic week to be honest.

Bronzie

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

he's hoovering up points in a winter series somewhere when everyone else isn't racing

Ahem............
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/points ... r=2010&d=4

shockedsoshocked

Bronzie wrote:

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

he's hoovering up points in a winter series somewhere when everyone else isn't racing

Ahem............
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/points ... r=2010&d=4

Does that mean I was right???

Bronzie

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

Does that mean I was right???

Well, not putting down his performances, but nearly 40% of his points were from the Hillingdon Winter series.