Training for a junior (cat 4) 17 year old boy. Need Guidance

allexthomas

I'm a 17 year old boy from Wales, just finishing my A levels for the summer. Just starting my first proper season of racing as a cat 4 in the UK. I'm still learning a lot every time i ride. This still leaves me wondering why i'm getting dropped in cat 3/4 criteriums as I have put in a lot of hard training. My winter training included a lot of turbo training as I broke my wrist skiing. I would have been out doing lots of miles, if i was allowed. This still left me with 4 hour "rides" on the weekend and 2 hour rides in the week. When I got back on the road I was feeling good and just learnt that I should be taking in 3-4 gels on long rides to keep me from blacking out...ha! I was riding with an ex-pro, a 21 year old and a very fit 40 odd year old. This was part of the local "team" I saw very rarely.
Now, in the summer I have learnt that I should be doing short, fast training along with long and recovery rides. Is the answer to just race myself fit and to keep learning? I've always been a fit person, coming from a competitive swimming background. Just a guidance of my fitness - On the weekend I had a new pb for a 5km run, this time was 19:12.
I have a garmin edge 500 with a HR monitor, cadence etc. No power meter though due to the cost haha. I have raced twice this season in a local criterium and got dropped both times after around 15 minutes. The second time I wore the HR monitor and it showed a MAX HR of 203.
I'm currently wondering if I'm doing the right thing before I blow my weekly earnings of my part time job on entries to races i'm just going to be disappointed with. My current training plan is as follows :

Monday : Easy spin for 1.5 hours. HR no more than 170. Cadence at 95rpm plus.
Tuesday : Chain gang for 50 mins down local industrial estate. Very high pace, I sometimes get dropped. Average speed of around 25mph.
Wednesday : Long ride for 3-4 hours. Could include 20 minute climb.
Thursday: 2-3 ride taking it easy, maybe with a coffee.
Hill intervals in the evening, depends on how legs are feeling.
Friday : Rest up. Make sure stretches and foam roller session is done.
Saturday: Long early morning ride. 3-4 Hours slight push.
Sunday: Very long ride with local triathlon club. Could be up to 6 hours with big climbs.

I would really appreciate a response on the topic as i'm not improving as fast as I would like. Thank you for taking your time to read this.

antfly

How many days do have off the bike before you race ?

allexthomas

antfly wrote:

How many days do have off the bike before you race ?

If I was to do a race I would rest the day before. Is this enough?

jibberjim

There's two things you need to not get dropped in a race, the skills and the fitness, you've only described the fitness. If you're getting dropped on a small club chaingang, it suggests your skills are not right up there, since while that can often be harder than a race, it's also a lot more predictable because you know everyone etc. So start describing that.

However your training also looks way too slow - riding around easy for hours and hours a week, just helps you ride around easily - some of that riding needs to be faster, much faster.

For me, I would be more likely to perform badly if I rested the day before a race, so it's very unlikely to be as simple as that - you need to know what works for you. However what you need first is more knowledge about why you're getting dropped etc. Don't describe your training, describe your racing. Why you get dropped is what happens in your race - until you know that, you cannot know how to change your training to rectify it.

antfly

allexthomas wrote:

antfly wrote:

How many days do have off the bike before you race ?

If I was to do a race I would rest the day before. Is this enough?

Try 3 days taking it easy before a race.

lyn1

jibberjim wrote:

However your training also looks way too slow - riding around easy for hours and hours a week, just helps you ride around easily - some of that riding needs to be faster, much faster.

Agree with Jim. Looks like you are doing close to 20 hours a week as a novice junior. At this time of year you are probably doing more than many of the pro guys in the UCI Conti teams. Unless you are riding 200k stage races there seems little value in riding for 6 hours. It's difficult to be prescriptive as people have different ability levels and adapt differently to training volumes, but I would half your time...around 10 hours a week....longest ride 3-4 hours....and add more quality to the remaining rides. You may be struggling in races because your body is not adapting to the high volume of training (it takes time to do this) and where it is adapting it's doing it to the slow pace.

Tom Dean

^ agree with this.

Assuming you haven't already, try to find a local club, ideally one with some other junior riders (not a triathlon club).

jgsi

jibberjim wrote:

There's two things you need to not get dropped in a race, the skills and the fitness, you've only described the fitness. If you're getting dropped on a small club chaingang, it suggests your skills are not right up there, since while that can often be harder than a race, it's also a lot more predictable because you know everyone etc. So start describing that.

However your training also looks way too slow - riding around easy for hours and hours a week, just helps you ride around easily - some of that riding needs to be faster, much faster.

For me, I would be more likely to perform badly if I rested the day before a race, so it's very unlikely to be as simple as that - you need to know what works for you. However what you need first is more knowledge about why you're getting dropped etc. Don't describe your training, describe your racing. Why you get dropped is what happens in your race - until you know that, you cannot know how to change your training to rectify it.

With Jim... your plan... whoever wrote it , seems poorly designed for a junior racing cyclist... maybe ok for an aspiring triathlete... what is it you want to be?

imposter2.0

antfly wrote:

allexthomas wrote:

antfly wrote:

How many days do have off the bike before you race ?

If I was to do a race I would rest the day before. Is this enough?

Try 3 days taking it easy before a race.

At this time of year, if you took it easy three days before a race, you'd never get any training done.

Pross

Yep, ditch quantity for quality I would say. The chaingang will be good for your ability to hold a decent pace but road racing is all about changes in pace which is where intervals play a part. Also as Jim said work on your skills. I'm not sure what club you ride for but in my own club we have coaching sessions for the young riders and all the focus is on learning the skills they only start on the fitness side once they hit their mid teens and then usually when they get pick up by Welsh Cycling. By that stage their handling is excellent and they are all far better than I have ever been at getting around corners quickly. Obviously you are a bit older and coming into the sport late by comparison so will be racing against people with those skill levels ingrained in them but you can still work on improving these things. The main things will be cornering and group riding - you can save so much effort if you get around a corner quickly and are comfortable following a wheel very closely. If your club has a coach ask if they can do some sessions with you (they may need a minimum of 3 to coach in compliance with BC requirements).

allexthomas

Thanks for all the replies guys! It makes sense to me that I'm not doing enough fast stuff. I can easily be the fastest rider/climber on a long ride but when the intensity is high for 20mins I really start to struggle. I have only just started doing the shorter, faster training so I shall definitely make a habit of it and cut down my miles and increase the intensity. I've done quite a bit of research into racing and it does seem normal to be dropped in the first block you do. I've learnt a lot of skills such as not touching the brakes and it makes so much difference as I just glided towards the front of the peleton with ease. Also, to try and stay towards to the front in a peleton to avoid the knock on effect of needing more acceleration towards the back. I wrote the plan myself but with not much experience I expected that it wouldn't be great. Keeping the legs spinning a day before a race seems to make sense too. Thanks everyone.

mentalalex

Drop me an Email, welburn.alex at yahoo dot co dot uk

i'm 2 years older than you, so i can give you some advice etc

i race Elite MTB currently and raced as a junior at road/cx and mtb.

happy to help you out!

Grill

Where are you in Wales? Loads of training options with local clubs in Cardiff...

DavidJB

When you're getting dropped imagine freddy star is bringing up the rear. That should get you moving.

ollie51

I'm also 17 and fairly new to the whole road racing thing... I typically do 6-8 hours a week on average, sometimes 10-12 hours. So much less than you, but I'm getting points here and there so I can't be doing too much wrong?

I was once told: train hard, rest harder, race hardest - and I think it's a pretty good phrase in general. You're quite clearly breaking that.
I'd say you're not resting enough, and doing too much volume when you do train, with too little intensity. I'm yet to ride for more than 4 hours in one go yet, I'd say 6 hours is pretty much a waste of time to do, particularly on a regular basis.

That said, i've sat in 3/4 bunches at hog hill at an average <150 watts (nb I weigh sod all), you're probably getting dropped due to race craft - you don't need that much fitness to stay with the bunch in a 3/4 race. When I first started racing, I basically followed an experienced rider for an entire race and noted what they did. My race craft improved a lot after that and I spent a lot less time being that fool who chases every break that goes up the road and more time grabbing a point or two at the end of a race.

So in summary:
-Train less
-Train harder
-Rest more