when to start training for next race season?

patbriggsmbr

I raced for the first time this year, well at least half the season. I was wondering when is the best time to start training for next year. I'm riding just steady at mo but I can tell my race fitness is dropping, which worries me! Obviously I don't want burnout but I see others really for it but I'm still going steady. I was wondering what others views are! !!!!!!!

danowat

My training for 2013 started about a week after the 2012 season finished...........

TakeTurns

If it's race specific training you're talking about, then I'd alter my training 2 months in advance and work my way up with the intensity as the date draws in.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Now.

Herbsman

I started mid-October.

patbriggsmbr

I'm going too concentrate on crits cat 3, but not sure of the level I need to start training at, any advice and is there any sites which explain how to organise your training? I've looked but found it difficult to find any specific for crit races.

Herbsman

patbriggsmbr wrote:

I'm going too concentrate on crits cat 3, but not sure of the level I need to start training at, any advice and is there any sites which explain how to organise your training? I've looked but found it difficult to find any specific for crit races.

The answers to these questions will give you a clue:

How long is the average crit race?
What abilities do you need to be competetive in crit racing?
Out of those abilities, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?

TakeTurns

As mentioned above, the best training you can do is to reenact what a crit race is like. If it's just crit racing you want to do, then I wouldn't see much benefit in riding any longer than 2h.

You're going to be riding at high intensity most of the time during the race, so work on that. Things like explosive power during a crit is the make or brake. Do things which would help you to improve that. A good way would be to sprint up a hill like this: http://app.strava.com/segments/2621289

It's a little over 100m, short enough for a hard sprint effort and not too steep. A couple efforts like that is what you need to be doing.

For simplicity sake, lets say a crit is 1h long. Work on doing a 1hour +15min ride at TT effort. This would give you that extra little kick when you need it at the end of the race.

patbriggsmbr

Many thanks for the advice. I had been doing long rides, say 4-6 hrs long so looks like I'm doing things wrong. Will start doing shorter faster rides incorporating sprints. How many times a week would you recommend. And should I incorporate weights at gym on opposing days?

Mettan

To give you an idea, I'm doing 200-250 km a week on the road at the mo (and a bit on the turbo) - get a base then up the intensity in a month or two.

displacedaussie

Don't do weights. Sprint intervals are good. I like doing 30-60 second short uphill sprints, combined with similar high RPM efforts (I get to about 180 on my singlespeed, but do whatever you can manage). You don't _have_ to go all out though. At this time of the year I don't even wear my heart rate monitor - I just get out on my bike as often as possible, push things a bit, and pay attention to my legs.

Don't burn yourself out by January. You want a base that you can keep building on when the racing actually starts. 4-6 hour rides aren't necessarily bad, but think about what you're trying to get out of them.

I found this article useful: http://inside-out.tv/Winter-Training

Herbsman

patbriggsmbr wrote:

Many thanks for the advice. I had been doing long rides, say 4-6 hrs long so looks like I'm doing things wrong. Will start doing shorter faster rides incorporating sprints. How many times a week would you recommend. And should I incorporate weights at gym on opposing days?

Fuck weights, ride the bike!

As to how many times per week you should train... it depends. Only you can know how quickly you recover from training. I could tell you to do six sessions a week, or 12 hours a week, but this could make you suffer and actually hinder your progress.

Obviously you can't do more training than you have time for, so I would start by looking at how much time you have available for training every week. Do a bit less than the maximum you could fit in. See how you feel after a few weeks. If, like me at the moment, after two weeks you wake up one morning feeling lethargic, you have lost your appetite and your motivation for everything in life, and even in your smallest gear you can't even get halfway up a hill that you normally urinate all over while making your cranks beg for mercy and causing your chain scream due to the unbelievable strain, you may need to back off a bit, or start going to bed earlier, or just see how it goes over the next couple of days. However if your legs feel really good, and you are performing well, you could try gradually increasing the time you spend training every week, and see if your performance increases as a result.

patbriggsmbr

Many thanks for the information. I'm going to start this coming week. Will forget the weights and just concentrate on riding and combine sprints in to the ride. I've been doing high cadence As I've been just relying on my leg power to get me through races.
I feel that it's sprinting that lets me down in races. So will do more sprint training.