Enduro: help me go from 10th to first! in 6 weeks!

samsemtex

Well hello, I am hoping that one of you fine gentlemen or ladies who knows about the intricacies of cycling training can help me get to where I should be finishing in races! At the top!! ;-)

Throughout the course of this years enduro series I have routinely finished way down on where I think I should be. I ride with some very fast enduro riders in the pro category and can easily keep up with them when we ride but when it comes to races I'm getting smoked and I'm not racing pros even! I can't understand it and the guys I ride with can't understand it and its annoying me. So I'm trying to come up with a training plan for the last two events of the year. Unfortunately I don't know where to start so I'm hoping someone here can help give me ideas.I think I'm relatively fit or at least I should be as I have done a lot of mileage this year but I'm lacking somewhere as I find I'm completely out of gas half way thru the stages. Then I just blow up and can't pick lines or ride smoothly etc. And my pedaling power goes out the window then.

Any tips on getting my race speed up over the next 6 weeks. I appreciate all help!

MikeMc

Without knowing what your actually doing in training it's hard to say what to change. But reading between the lines maybe your doing to many miles. I find once I have good base fitness I cut back the miles and do shorter rides with a lot more intensity e.g flat rides at close to max and hill reps with maybe one good distance ride a week.

samsemtex

My training up until now has been pretty all over the place. I'd ride my local loop at a relatively fast pace which is around 25km. some days I'd do the longer loop which is 35km. Lots of seated climbing in them. Occasionally I might do one race style run as I could get to one of the race stages on this loop. But that's about all the training Ive been doing.

njee20

So you don't train, you ride your bike.

6 weeks isn't long, you're unlikely to make massive gains. Try doing a steady road ride and putting in some 20 minute hard, but not flat out, efforts. Try 3x20 minutes, with 10 mins rest each time.

Stu Coops

So you say you ride with pro-cat riders who obviously have a wealth of training knowledge between them and there all head scratching about why you place further down the field when racing. mmmmm now I have raced road for the last 15yrs and train with E/1/2 guys, over the years and in the early days if anything was going sideways with my training any one of them new exactly what was wrong.

And 10th to 1st ever thought there are perhaps better riders out there than you in your category, sorry to say but posts like this just don't ring true to me as if you were riding with the guys you claim you wouldn't be on here asking basic questions like training plans.

mattshrops

Or maybe you just go off too hard and then blow up?

If what you say is accurate it sounds like 2 possibilities

1 you need to taper for the event
2 Its in your head, calm down dear its only a race.

Or both?

samsemtex

Stu Coops wrote:

So you say you ride with pro-cat riders who obviously have a wealth of training knowledge between them and there all head scratching about why you place further down the field when racing. mmmmm now I have raced road for the last 15yrs and train with E/1/2 guys, over the years and in the early days if anything was going sideways with my training any one of them new exactly what was wrong.

And 10th to 1st ever thought there are perhaps better riders out there than you in your category, sorry to say but posts like this just don't ring true to me as if you were riding with the guys you claim you wouldn't be on here asking basic questions like training plans.

Whatever, I couldnt really care less what you think my motivations are. I've come second in one round but the others have been relative disasters so i know what im capable of when it comes together. The title was tongue in cheek but I know what I can do. Also, you mention E/S1/S2. This is enduro not XC or road so unless you have raced enduros or endurance DH I would take your opinions with a grain of salt.

Anyway, i'm beginning to think it's not just down to fitness. Anywhere it's only gravity and no pedalling is required I'm very fast and consistent but the flatter sections are a complete mystery to me. Fast one day, really slow the next.

Yesterday I set a strava PB when I rode behind my friend in the pros(he does exist Stu, I swear). The segment is pedally but has a downhill gradient overall. I was keeping a steady distance and I was just riding my own lines. I didnt really feel like I was pushing and set a PB/KOM beating my previous time by 2 seconds (which i set riding on my own). I thought I rode it only okay by sliding a bit in one or two corners and didn't pedal like crazy. Went back today and rode it in the exact same manner only i hit all the corners well without sliding out and it said I was 28 seconds slower! 2.24 as opposed to 1.56. How dafuq is that possible? They felt almost identical in terms of speed. 28 seconds is absolutely massive!!

All the rounds have considerable pedally sections so if I dont get up to speed consistently I'm never going to do well.

This is kinda just venting really as i don't know if anyone can help with this. It's this massive inconsistency that is getting to me.

samsemtex

njee20 wrote:

So you don't train, you ride your bike.

6 weeks isn't long, you're unlikely to make massive gains. Try doing a steady road ride and putting in some 20 minute hard, but not flat out, efforts. Try 3x20 minutes, with 10 mins rest each time.

Cool, thanks. I'm gonna try incorporating more sustained efforts such as this. Also gonna throw in some power intervals by pedalling hard for 10 seconds then recovering and going again.

njee20

Try doing 15 seconds flat out, 15 seconds spinning, repeat for 5 minutes. Your HR wont quite come down, so by the end you're hanging. Good race simulation. 10 second sprints with good recovery won't do much.

Stu Coops

samsemtex wrote:

Stu Coops wrote:

So you say you ride with pro-cat riders who obviously have a wealth of training knowledge between them and there all head scratching about why you place further down the field when racing. mmmmm now I have raced road for the last 15yrs and train with E/1/2 guys, over the years and in the early days if anything was going sideways with my training any one of them new exactly what was wrong.

And 10th to 1st ever thought there are perhaps better riders out there than you in your category, sorry to say but posts like this just don't ring true to me as if you were riding with the guys you claim you wouldn't be on here asking basic questions like training plans.

Whatever, I couldnt really care less what you think my motivations are. I've come second in one round but the others have been relative disasters so i know what im capable of when it comes together. The title was tongue in cheek but I know what I can do. Also, you mention E/S1/S2. This is enduro not XC or road so unless you have raced enduros or endurance DH I would take your opinions with a grain of salt.

Anyway, i'm beginning to think it's not just down to fitness. Anywhere it's only gravity and no pedalling is required I'm very fast and consistent but the flatter sections are a complete mystery to me. Fast one day, really slow the next.

Yesterday I set a strava PB when I rode behind my friend in the pros(he does exist Stu, I swear). The segment is pedally but has a downhill gradient overall. I was keeping a steady distance and I was just riding my own lines. I didnt really feel like I was pushing and set a PB/KOM beating my previous time by 2 seconds (which i set riding on my own). I thought I rode it only okay by sliding a bit in one or two corners and didn't pedal like crazy. Went back today and rode it in the exact same manner only i hit all the corners well without sliding out and it said I was 28 seconds slower! 2.24 as opposed to 1.56. How dafuq is that possible? They felt almost identical in terms of speed. 28 seconds is absolutely massive!!

All the rounds have considerable pedally sections so if I dont get up to speed consistently I'm never going to do well.

This is kinda just venting really as i don't know if anyone can help with this. It's this massive inconsistency that is getting to me.

Read your original post your the one who claims you EASILY keep up with riders in the pro category when training so whether it's Road XC Enduro it's completely relevant to each discipline dreamer

samsemtex

Stu Coops wrote:

Read your original post your the one who claims you EASILY keep up with riders in the pro category when training so whether it's Road XC Enduro it's completely relevant to each discipline dreamer

Interesting that you are calling me dreamer and you are more interested in attacking me than reading the content of what I have said. As I said in the rest of the post I set a time 28 seconds faster one day than another. Going 28 seconds faster would consistently put me with the pros, the following day I went way slower. If i was a dreamer I would never be able to ride at that pace. I dont understand what i'm doing wrong as this is my first year racing enduro and this is what I want to find out to consistently get me in that category. As I said, ive come second in one of the races so no I'm not a dreamer.

So unless you have anything positive to contribute then...ya know see yourself out.

mattshrops

Interestingly you were 28 seconds faster following the pro rider than when on your own. If I follow "faster" riders I have a similar experience. You see a line you might not normally do, or hesitate less etc?? I remember when I was first learning and some parts of the trail I would not have even ridden on my own, when following someone else I just did exactly that and followed. Not saying you're just learning(although we all should be )but you can see what I mean??
I would suggest picking a section of trail that you know you're going to ride with the fast mates and hit it a few times on your own, and then when you hit it with them really try and go quick. It is possible, as an alternative to my first paragraph, that when you focus on speed -you may be tensing up and slowing yourself down.

to paraphrase the best mtb skills book I've ever seenhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Mountain-Skills-Brian-Lopes/dp/0736083715/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377723834&sr=8-1&keywords=mastering+mountain+bike+skills

"Stay low, stay loose, Now STAY LOOSER.... " (Or something like that) 8)

samsemtex

mattshrops wrote:

Interestingly you were 28 seconds faster following the pro rider than when on your own. If I follow "faster" riders I have a similar experience. You see a line you might not normally do, or hesitate less etc?? I remember when I was first learning and some parts of the trail I would not have even ridden on my own, when following someone else I just did exactly that and followed. Not saying you're just learning(although we all should be )but you can see what I mean??
I would suggest picking a section of trail that you know you're going to ride with the fast mates and hit it a few times on your own, and then when you hit it with them really try and go quick. It is possible, as an alternative to my first paragraph, that when you focus on speed -you may be tensing up and slowing yourself down.

to paraphrase the best mtb skills book I've ever seenhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Mountain-Skills-Brian-Lopes/dp/0736083715/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377723834&sr=8-1&keywords=mastering+mountain+bike+skills

"Stay low, stay loose, Now STAY LOOSER.... " (Or something like that) 8)

Yeah I thought about that possibility but I asked strava about it and they said the time was wrong so just disregard it. Also this is trail centre so there are no lines on it and cornering is one area I have my friend beat all the time! I also set my second best time on it when I was riding on my own which was only a couple of seconds slower but that was more than likely also wrong. They said it cut off earlier than it should have. As I suspected there is no way in hell i or anyone I suspect could have rode it 28 seconds faster, its just not technical enough to make up that kind of time. Strava is just a load of shite on occasion. There are two segments in particular where this seems to happen (both have tight switchbacks on them which seems to confuse it) so I'm just ignoring them from now on. I think we need to go back to the stop watch.

I have that book, its a great read.

However I have been working on race pace lately and I noticed that when I was trying to ride as fast as I could and pedaling really hard ala my race runs I was letting my technique go to shit. I wasnt really pumping and therefore having to work a lot harder for my speed, I was just focused on pedaling as hard as i could and hoping that my technique would take care of itself. So I decided to do race length runs but really just focusing on pumping and cornering and straight away I have started noticing improvements. Ive been bettering times I was setting when just pedalling as hard as I could. And I'm not completely drained so early in the laps so when I get to the tech stuff I can really attack it. So now I'm going to try putting the two together and see what happens.

Also I've been doing those intervals of 15 secs on/off for five minutes repeated 3-4 times and I think they are helping. Definitely feel stronger on the pedals and more ready to go when I do push hard. Hanging by the end of em alright

I think it's true what they say sometimes you have to go slower to go faster. Big race this weekend so hopefully it will show an improvement.

njee20

Unlikely to be honest, takes a good while to make any real in roads into fitness, particularly if you're 'knocking on the door' so to speak. Starting from scratch you may see gains quickly.

Woodmonkey

If you can keep up with pro cat riders and beat your own times by 28 seconds on occasion I would suggest fitness isn't the issue. Look at your race plan (maybe use a garmin watch to regulate your pace) and look at diet and supplements in the build up to a race and recovery after training/riding.

njee20

Sod that - sections are so short you want to be going balls out, recover on the linking stages.

samsemtex

Well, I had a race today and had a massive improvement in prosition. I wont say where but it was around the top 5 and I know for a fact that all the riders who beat me live at that place and i had never ridden there before so im pretty pretty happy. Not taking anything away from the lads who beat me as a couple of them are properly fast and i am under no illusions that it would be really hard to beat them in any circumstance.

njee20 wrote:

Unlikely to be honest, takes a good while to make any real in roads into fitness, particularly if you're 'knocking on the door' so to speak. Starting from scratch you may see gains quickly.

I dont know if there was any tangible difference in fitness but i think what it did do was teach me that i could actually go a lot harder than i thought i could. I was being a bit of pussy to be honest and not pushing to my limit. Even today one of the stages had some big pedalling sections and a friend was roaring encouragement at me as about 40 seconds of pedalling was visible from the point he was at. It was by far my best stage, if he wasnt shouting at me i dont think i would have pushed as hard as i did. Still a lot of room for improvement but i was definitely happy with it.

Gonna try keeping it up for the very last race in a few weeks.

samsemtex

Well that was the last enduro of the year and I definitely learned a lot in the last few weeks. Got another solid top 5 and realised it was probably a bit wishful thinking that i'd be winning the category in my first year of racing Enduro when everyone that beat me has years of XC or DH experience and I have almost no race experience. But I was definitely letting myself down earlier in the year by not trying as hard as i thought I was. When pain would start to kick in I was backing off but in the last two races I really tried to kick on when it got tough. I also was pretty bad for letting self doubt creep in when something would go wrong and was always trying to downplay any good achievments.

I definitely just didnt have the fitness/strength to push any harder today or in the last race. But they were definitely the first two races where I felt I did myself justice and had no regrets about wishing i pushed harder and the improved result shows it I think. It's so nice to come out of a race and know you actually did your best as opposed to thinking about what ifs. The mental side of racing is just huge but so is the physical so I'm looking forward to a winter of training. I want to be fit enough to actually be on the edge of my riding ability and scare the shit out of myself during my race runs next year

mark0191

Just a thought but you might un knowinly get a bit anxiety before a race its not somthing you can control until u realize it but it has massive efects on your physical ability. Some people can use the addrenalin to there advantage others are weakend by it. I used to suffer from this in my first few amature boxing bouts luckily my trainer picked this up and made me realize i was too het up before a fight. He taught me how to calm down while still determined and focused i went in much stronger and with increased confidence and stamina. I might be wrong but might be worth looking i to

mikeyj28

njee20 wrote:

Unlikely to be honest, takes a good while to make any real in roads into fitness, particularly if you're 'knocking on the door' so to speak. Starting from scratch you may see gains quickly.

I totally agree with njee here. 6 weeks is nowhere near enough time. Especially to go from 10th to 1st.Very small gains yes but you need a good few months behind you to see a good improvement and to go from 10th to podium. Also, what you have at the table will play a big part in how you perform too.

samsemtex

mikeyj28 wrote:

njee20 wrote:

Unlikely to be honest, takes a good while to make any real in roads into fitness, particularly if you're 'knocking on the door' so to speak. Starting from scratch you may see gains quickly.

I totally agree with njee here. 6 weeks is nowhere near enough time. Especially to go from 10th to 1st.Very small gains yes but you need a good few months behind you to see a good improvement and to go from 10th to podium. Also, what you have at the table will play a big part in how you perform too.

I think with the benefit of hindsight I can see that the training I was doing last year was totally inadequate for where I thought I should be. As someone said on another forum the word "should" only leads to disappointment. I had no base training last year, no race experience and no plan and there was no comparison to my training this year. I think it took a a while for me to realise that these gains are not made quickly.

Right now I'm working on fitness a lot and unfortunately not getting out on the trails much but the road bike a lot. Last year I was trying to improve my speed and make huge improvements in fitness at the same time and its just not possible. Fitness let me down last year more than bike handling skills so I think it's the right way to go about things. My naive 6 week plan has turned into a 2 year plan.