Winter Training Plan

shinsplint

Apologies for yet another winter training thread, but i'm really hoping to get some guidance for my specific circumstances.

Background:

I'm 31, and been cycling for 3 years. I have many sportives under my belt, and have recently started training with a local race team/club.

I had my first dabble at racing the summer, with a couple of circuit races, and soon realised that the endless hours of "sportive" training since I started is not really doing a great deal for my racing game. I decided to reduce my long hours in the saddle and concentrate on flat out commutes, high geared strength work, intervals, seated acceleration, out-of-saddle sprints etc, in an attempt to boost my overall performance for next season.

Now we're in October, the racing lads are having a months rest, and will start back in November. Which leaves me wondering what to do myself...

So for the last 3 months i've been training hard through the week, with one or two longer endurance rides (lower heart rate). Should I give my body a rest and go easy for a month or so, or should I just keep at it?

Come november i'll be out once a week with the team, covering probably 3 hours or so at a fast pace. Other than that, should I ride easy throughout the week?

The awkward thing is, although I want to improve my racing game, im still interested in the sportives next year. Am I right in thinking that I can't train to an optimum level for both?

I typically ride about 12 hours a week, and would really appreciate any advice.

Oh, and although I have a turbo trainer, i've bought a winter bike and will be out on the roads in all but the severe conditions.

Thanks very much in advance

Tom Dean

When you start training with your club you might need to adjust your week around it. No need to ride easy though.

How fit do you need to be for sportives? It sounds like you are at a good level already, if you concentrate on racing and keeping up with the fast boys, sportives should be easy.

shinsplint

Thanks Tom.

Regarding sportives, I know they are do-able, but I usually go for the longer routes and I like to do them as fast as I can, racing against my own times really, and therefore ideally like to be as fit as possible for sportive-style riding.

But as you say, if I stick with training with the lads I should be up to a good sportive standard.

I think i'm going to go easy for about 3 weeks, just to give my legs time to recover properly from the strength training. My ride home last night (hard session with sprints etc) told me that I need to let my legs recover a tad.

KnightOfTheLongTights

you sound like in a similar position to me: I've been out on a couple of club runs recently with a club that I'm probably about to join. Think you could probably do a bit more than one hard ride if you want to progress.

I'll probably go out twice a week with them from now on: one shorter weekday evening ride (30 miles), one longer weekend ride (40-50), but even the latter will be fast.

I think there's then room for one more hard session - whether that is on the road on my own or the turbo. So three hard rides a week.

Plus maybe two gentler rides or turbos. i.e., five days in total. Some people ride six days a week, but I think 4 or 5 is plenty in the winter!

As Tom says, those two club rides (if you're out with the faster lads) will be the ones where you really push it and travel at high speeds so I will try not to do my hard turbo session the day before or after those.

MatthewBulmer

From what you say it sounds like you already have the first component of sucessful training nailed: consistency. I would say the next thing you would need to concentrate on is progression. I don't think that riding hard for 3 hours a week with the club, and then riding easily for the remaining 9 hours will provide you with this progression. With that volume of training I would say that, at this time of the year, increasing the weekly amount of time you spend at a 'tempo' intensity would really improve your FTP. I'm not sure how that 12 hours is divided between your rides, but including regular blocks of time at tempo within your rides, and then gradually increasing the length of these blocks could be a good way of ensuring progression. At a later point in the year you could devote more of your time to improving the other aspects of your fitness that will help your road racing such as VO2Max and anaerobic work capacity (although I always do a bit of this work throughout the year.) In any case the approach that works for one person will not always work for another. Even if you don't have a powermeter, I've found 'Training and Racing with a Powermeter' by Hunter and Coggan a very useful resource when it comes to planning your training year.

Good luck!