Winter training questions.

YellaBelly

Hi guys, after a wee bit of training advice. Basically I have got into XC racing this year, but Im coming into my first winter of training and Im feeling a little bit lost.

At the moment Im feeling a little bit inbetween race season and winter. Im still doing some cyclocross and theres the Thetford Winter series on the calendar. I'm intending to have approx. 2weeks rest off the bike over christmas.

Should I be dropping back my training now and aiming for bigger mileage and low heartrates. And over winter, should you avoid higher intensity workouts and focus on lower intensity base training, or still throw some more intense sessions into the mix? I do the bulk of my training on a road bike, but will probably do some more offroad stuff and maybe some weights over winter.

I've got Joe Friels training bible but find it a bit difficult to use. All the periodisation stuff is a bit more serious than I feel I need, and I have no idea of next years race dates to start backworking timeframes etc.

Any help appreciated, Im sure training tips etc can be a sensitive subject as nobody wants to give away their successes. All I can say is, I doubt I pose much of a threat!

njee20

Different schools of thought - old school was about long slow rides all winter, then shorter, more intense stuff come spring.

Current thinking is that actually mixing it up a bit is probably a better idea unless you have 20+ hours to spend every week grinding out the miles. That said... you don't want to be doing all your speed work now if you want to be going fast in July.

You say the periodisation is a bit too serious, but unless you have at least a vague idea what you're aiming for you're not really training, just riding your bike. That's not a problem, but a bit aimless.

mpatts

My week is a mix of runs (one long run a week, the rest 30 mins), 1-2 hour rides (often on the MTB), and home gym, with a weekly yoga session thrown in sometimes.

Basically, I'm aiming to keep the weight down, and keep the base CV at a decent level.

YellaBelly

Thanks for the help guys much appreciated.

Njee, when I say the periodisation stuff is a bit too serious, I guess what I really mean is it looks quite daunting to a relative novice. It's not easy for me to prioritise races and build a training schedule around them. A lack of experience means I don't know what my chances would be like, which courses would suit me, and how competitive I could be in, for example, the nationals over more local series. So, Id have little to no idea which races I would want to "peak" for. Even trickier when I dont have most my race dates yet.

Ive been doing "structured" workouts so to speak, using HR, intervals etc to target specific things, rather than just going out on the bike and peddaling. But I guess those have been done individually, rather than looking at all my sessions as one bigger picture. I suppose I should look more closely at the periodisation idea to help me give a framework to those sessions.

Sorry thats a bit rambling. Just trying to get my head around training properly, rather than riding my bike. Thanks again for the input!

njee20

YellaBelly wrote:

Njee, when I say the periodisation stuff is a bit too serious, I guess what I really mean is it looks quite daunting to a relative novice. It's not easy for me to prioritise races and build a training schedule around them. A lack of experience means I don't know what my chances would be like, which courses would suit me, and how competitive I could be in, for example, the nationals over more local series. So, Id have little to no idea which races I would want to "peak" for. Even trickier when I dont have most my race dates yet.

Ive been doing "structured" workouts so to speak, using HR, intervals etc to target specific things, rather than just going out on the bike and peddaling. But I guess those have been done individually, rather than looking at all my sessions as one bigger picture. I suppose I should look more closely at the periodisation idea to help me give a framework to those sessions.

And you don't need to know exactly what. You just need to give some thought to what you want to be at your best for. Are you doing National Champs next year? Mayhem? MSG? Or actually do you want to be at your fastest for the Winter Series? You can do some rough periodisation working back from that - it doesn't need to be a specific race.

Then as you say, just give it a bit of thought. The 4-week cycles in Joe Friel's book isn't a bad idea, use it to give you a flavour of the sort of stuff you can do - a lot of the cruise intervals and things are good. When I was at my fastest I spent my winter mainly doing 3 hour flattish rides with 3x 15 minute efforts at TT pace in the middle and hilly road rides, plus 'negative split' rides - ride in one direction for 1:35, turn around, ride home in 1:25, adjust splits to suit.

Come spring I introduced some shorter, faster stuff, hill reps etc, and basically carried that on throughout the year.