Can't stay with the pack - why?

Birdthom

I can't help but feel this has all become rather overcomplicated.

1. You have 6-7 hours available for training per week. You can certainly race 4th cat on that much.
2. Stop riding to targets and power etc - you aren't at a level and you don't seem to have the equipment to enable you to do this properly, and it sounds like it's just taking you off on a tangent.
3. Ride your 6-7 hours on the road every time, even if it's raining or dark. Just go out and smash yourself for an hour or two each time. Throw in plenty of hard sprints, but in the main just make sure you beast yourself as much as possible all the time. Even if you're stiff to start with, that will settle down over a few weeks and I really don't think you'll suffer overtraining on 6-7 hours per week.
4. Make the session the day before your race a 1 hour easy spin at low effort. That's all the recovery you need.
5. Pick some easy flat races.
6. Don't hang at the back - get further up the pack where it's much less work.
7. Stay away from beer and cheese.

This won't be the 'best' training by any means, but it's much more likely to work than what you're doing at the minute by the sound of it. Keep it simple and work harder, all the time.

Hope that helps. Fair play to you for asking on an open forum.

Kryton57

Two interesting reads amongst a plethora about indoor vs outdoor:

http://www.victorysedge.com/article_indoorbiking.htm

and

http://highlandtraining.net/indoor-cycl ... tside.html

Birdthom

Indoor training can be great, and it certainly has its place, but we're talking 4th cat here. I'd ditch the reading and just go out and ride more and ride harder on a normal bike. You don't need power measurement, sexy training plans or fancy kit to be effective at 4th cat, just time effort and perseverance on the bike.

It's a really simple sport at 3rd/4th cat level - I feel very lucky that I can just go out and ride a bike to make myself stronger. If your races are going to be 60 minutes of intermittent hard efforts and threshold riding then go out and do exactly that for 90 minutes. Chuck in some hill sprints. Repeat them. Put in some sustained 5 minute hard efforts as if you were trying to make a break or chase back onto a pack, and ride hard inbetween as well. Then repeat it again and again. Keep doing it and you will get stronger. It's not the only way to do it, but it will work and it beats the hell out of sitting on a turbo in the garage.

Kryton57

Ok, appreciated thanks Birdthom. I'll perhaps leave the Turbo for times when I can't get out. But located in London does have drawbacks of Traffic, Lights etc - albeit I am able to get half of a 1 hr ride over an Essex / Herts border.

Birdthom

Kryton57 wrote:

Ok, appreciated thanks Birdthom. I'll perhaps leave the Turbo for times when I can't get out. But located in London does have drawbacks of Traffic, Lights etc - albeit I am able to get half of a 1 hr ride over an Essex / Herts border.

I take your point, I wouldn't fancy training in London. Sounds like you are somewhere in North London? My brother in law faces a similar problem. He rides with London Phoenix and they seem to have some pretty good group rides going which are ideal training.

Kryton57

Funny you should mention LP ;-) The Group rides I refer to are thier club rides.

You see my example of yesterday is a good one - all day working in Oxford with no time to ride - so at 7.30 I hit the Turbo after getting home and seeing the kids to bed.

Today I'm due another set , I could get out as I'm wfh, but I really need the time to compete some urgent work - and again will default to the turbo later.

Friday I should be able to get outside for an hour and I'll be on the club run Sunday.

jordan_217

Are you staying at the back of the pack when you race? Where are you positioning yourself? How big is the field?

Edit: My positioning and race craft is piss poor and I'm 100% confident that my 'tactics' have caused me to get dropped/binned in races rather than my training.

okgo

You think the other 13 thousand riders from e-4 cat don't have jobs and commitments?

Birdthom

okgo wrote:

You think the other 13 thousand riders from e-4 cat don't have jobs and commitments?

Might sound harsh, but it's a very good point. It's very easy to make an extra 90 minutes per day if you never watch any TV for starters.

JPJ001

I'm in a similar position but with 3rd Cats, 2 races in and dropped twice.

I've done turbo sessions over the winter and FTP looks fine but did my 1st mid week chain gang of the year last week and can easily see this is the sort of training that is needed to stick (and be at the front) of the pack.

Kryton57

Birdthom wrote:

okgo wrote:

You think the other 13 thousand riders from e-4 cat don't have jobs and commitments?

Might sound harsh, but it's a very good point. It's very easy to make an extra 90 minutes per day if you never watch any TV for starters.

If you'd read the thread, you'd find that between the work and the kids you'll note I'm knocking out rides/intervals in evenings and lunch hours. What is this TV you speak of?

Birdthom

Fair enough. I'm in the same boat as you on that front - 3 young kids and a fairly demanding work life. I'm not complaining that I don't have enough time to train though ;-)

okgo

And as Jim said, correctly, its not doing much for you. So its time to try something else perhaps.

Not sure what the LP rides are like, I only know two of their members, one of which went to a very strong race team and the other is doing well getting results at places like HH (is on here too), so perhaps if you can get to it, they do a chain-gang (this evening I think it is) that would certainly be good training (not sure if you've done this already, or its possible?) and was what I needed to get myself competitive in a similar level of racing to the ones you describe.

jgsi

Mid 40s...no mention of LVRC age relatd racing..?. beats me why someone would want to mix it up with solely BC races as the make no effort at all to support or encourage the veteran rider.
Having said that it might take a full season or even 2 to get up to speed anyways you sound very impatient.. however, it is very easy to get disheartened when being spat out the back ...
Just stick at it.. I dont have too much trouble in 3/4 races at Darley Moor even at my age, if I bother with BC during the season.

Kryton57

Birdthom wrote:

Fair enough. I'm in the same boat as you on that front - 3 young kids and a fairly demanding work life. I'm not complaining that I don't have enough time to train though ;-)

Neither am I. I presented a picture for people's understanding, I'm complaining about not be able to keep up with a cat 4 bunch.

Kryton57

JGSI wrote:

Mid 40s...no mention of LVRC age relatd racing..?. beats me why someone would want to mix it up with solely BC races as the make no effort at all to support or encourage the veteran rider.
Having said that it might take a full season or even 2 to get up to speed anyways you sound very impatient.. however, it is very easy to get disheartened when being spat out the back ...
Just stick at it.. I dont have too much trouble in 3/4 races at Darley Moor even at my age, if I bother with BC during the season.

I am only 3 races in..... One of which was LVRC. However, riding on your own after being spat out after only a lap and then being told you are riding against the likes of Bob Downs and other ex Elites seems a pointless waste of money. I want to be able to at least try to ride with the bunch of similar ability, not enter a race which is totally beyond me.

Dark prince

Birdthom,hit the nail on the head really..go out an smash yourself..and forget heart rate moniters etc..do 3hr ride and the last hr smash it as hard as possible..you will soon harden up and a good chain gang will do the world of good..and last of all during the race,ride at the front of the main field in the top ten.

DeVlaeminck

Kryton57 wrote:

JGSI wrote:

Mid 40s...no mention of LVRC age relatd racing..?. beats me why someone would want to mix it up with solely BC races as the make no effort at all to support or encourage the veteran rider.
Having said that it might take a full season or even 2 to get up to speed anyways you sound very impatient.. however, it is very easy to get disheartened when being spat out the back ...
Just stick at it.. I dont have too much trouble in 3/4 races at Darley Moor even at my age, if I bother with BC during the season.

I am only 3 races in..... One of which was LVRC. However, riding on your own after being spat out after only a lap and then being told you are riding against the likes of Bob Downs and other ex Elites seems a pointless waste of money. I want to be able to at least try to ride with the bunch of similar ability, not enter a race which is totally beyond me.

Yes the fitness demands of a decent LVRC are closer to a 234 race. However LVRC do encourage riders to ride in a category to suit their current level of fitness, you just wont get any prize money if you ride above your age group. You could try starting with the over 50s.

Kryton57

Ok I may try that thanks. I'm not worried about prize money.

It'd be rare that I can fit a 3hr ride into the week, but I'd get a 100k in a group ride at the weekend. Fwiw I've scoped a 1hr route for Friday which consist of (from start to end):

8mins out of town (warm up)
A 3% 3/4 mile drag which I lost a strava KOM on in December
A 150m 12% on which I hold a joint strava KOM
A long 3-4m almost continuous climb of various percent.
A 1% down flat about 1m long, with a strava sprint section
3-4 miles 3% toward home, an opportunity to crack a > average to get top 10 on strava

So with all that I can get a pretty hard working hour with demonstrable challenges to push my self on climbs and on the drops a la rouleur or TT at pace.

I've done that whole ride at a 30kmph average last summer so that's another incentive to beat.

Patron

I was in the same situation last season and the simple fact was that I was not fit or strong enough. I tried 3 or 4 races and got dropped in the first 2 laps in all of them. Sunday club runs(in the fast group)and a few largely unstructured interval sessions were nowhere near enough. I have worked bloody hard all winter putting in the miles and have been doing intervals from Carmichaels tccp for the last 6 weeks. It is possible to find a couple of extra hours each week if you are committed enough, even if it means 6am on the turbo or 9pm on the road in the middle of winter when it's fxxxxxg freezing. So 8 hours a week through the winter mainly on the road and 6-7 at the moment, mainly on the turbo(I know it sounds arse upwards but I find that it's easier to get to exactly the right level of intensity and stay there for the correct period of time on the turbo) has got me to the point where I have been comfortably finishing in the bunch in the LVRC races at cyclopark and Hog hill in the last few weeks. Feeling stronger each week and will be disappointed If I don't get a top 10 this weekend. I am 49. Get stuck in properly and you will soon be able to stay in. The TCCP has been a real eye opener as I now realise that what I previously thought were hard intervals near or at my limit were nothing of the sort and that my body(and mind) is capable of taking much more than I was giving it. Average speed was 25.5 at Hog Hill on Sunday btw

Kryton57

Hmmm I used the tctp last July to Oct pre Chilterns sportive always on the road as I didn't have the turbo then. I was 6th fastest.

I've only been I pushing the turbo with Trainerroad for 5 weeks. Today I did another on plan session - 140% FTP intervals x 3 and 130% x 6. The plan is getting harder, I too didn't think I could go harder after yesterday's intervals but obviously I did - garmin showed 40kmph sustained for 2 mins at a time!

I think I'm behind your curve patron, but will stick with the idea of riding my loop outside as hard as I can and using the turbo where I can't for sprint intervals or over unders. Maybe a few training cycles will see me fitter.

My week 8 has my target event - a 90k road race. I'll see how I get on. Thanks for posting that, it's lifted me a bit to know that a similar setup to my own does actually work.

Pross

Obviously 'speed' on a trainer doesn't mean much in comparison to actual speed by 40km/h for 2 minutes doesn't seem a lot. Then again, the resistance on the trainer is the key so maybe it's very high on your set up.

gattocattivo

Patron wrote:

Average speed was 25.5 at Hog Hill on Sunday btw

On the lower circuit only, I presume

okgo

Can only assume lower circuit. Winner of the elite race was 24.5 avg on the full circuit on the Saturday.

bigmat

I think LVRC always race the lower circuit only?

RE TCTP, I don't see how you could do it without an accurate power reading. Its so zone specific, I just don't think the exercises would have the desired effect if you were just estimating. Take over-under intervals, basically just under and over lactic threshold? If you end up over-over you can't do it, under-under then they lack the intensity required. Even moving from one Wattbike to another I find the variation in readings throws me off completely. I haven't even bothered doing any sessions on my (no power meter) regular bike, save for a few long steady tempo rides.

Not sure whether it has been any help to be honest as racing season so far has been hampered by poor tactics and punctures. Did stick in the bunch in an E12 a couple of weeks back (until I punctured) which I maybe would have been spat out the back of last season...

Patron

You are spot on Big Mat. That's why I do the TCTP on the turbo. I have a tacx fortius vr and use it in free cycling mode which shows power, speed etc. Even if the power reading is incorrect it is consistent as long as I use same bike with same air pressure. I tried the plan on the road using HR last year and it was pretty well impossible to get the intensity level correct.
Was the lower circuit at HH btw.

racingcondor

Krypton57 - I think much of your problem is that your work pattern is such that it's hard to be regular about what you're doing. With 6-7 hours a week though I'd aim for 3 x 2hr rides and then if you can a Tue or Wed Turbo session with an easy spin the following day.

I think anyone suggesting that genetics is holding them back (couple of pages back) before they're 2nd Cat or above is deluding themselves. I'm pretty sure that my genetics suck for both sustained and max power (fine for 150 mile rides though so it's not all bad news) but the couple of times I've consistently applied myself for a 5-6 week block of training I've improved leaps and bounds. This isn't a forgiving sport though, the level of fitness needed to hold your own even at 4th Cat has gone up and up over the last 5 years so if you can't get consistent miles in you will struggle.

wallace_and_gromit

racingcondor wrote:

I think anyone suggesting that genetics is holding them back (couple of pages back) before they're 2nd Cat or above is deluding themselves.

This isn't a forgiving sport though, the level of fitness needed to hold your own even at 4th Cat has gone up and up over the last 5 years so if you can't get consistent miles in you will struggle.

That was my comment re genetics...

There's two ways to get to be able ride at a particular speed on a bike. One involves being naturally gifted and doing little training. The other is to be not very gifted naturally and do a shed load of training. If you're not gifted and for whatever reason aren't able to do a shed load of training, then you won't be able to ride at that speed.

Perhaps I should have said "Given the amount of training I am able to do, my genetic makeup does not make it easy to hang onto the bunch in a windy Cat 4 crit race."

If I could get my wife to give up cycling so that I could double my road riding time then life would be a lot easier! My big issue is access to race training / chain gangs as this is a pretty unique form of training that is hard to simulate without a fast-moving wheel to follow. I go out alternate Saturdays with my club, and am then away on Tuesdays when all the local clubs do their chaingangs. If Strava is to be believed then the average Cat 4 racer I'm following does chaingangs once or twice a week, not twice a month as I do, so all other things equal, they should be better than me. (And generally seem to be!)

I'm not complaining though, just clarifying my point. There are worse things in life than struggling in crit racing. Hill climbs for one!!

racingcondor

Fair enough. That was sort of why I extrapolated with my personal experience re lack of accelleration. I suspect though that more than genetics what it slowing my recovery/adaptation down is more that I'm a lot closer to 40 than 20.

I think what we're really saying is that we need to find a less popular sport where 5-6 hours of unfocussed 'training' a week is enough to be considered really good unlike cycling where there are way too many racers with enough free time to ride 150 miles a week.

I'll stick with my mantra of: Ride lots, get brutally strong, ride everyone off my wheel. Has the great benefit that it's also REALLY fun being 'that person' in a race (however rarely).

wallace_and_gromit

racingcondor wrote:

Fair enough. That was sort of why I extrapolated with my personal experience re lack of accelleration. I suspect though that more than genetics what it slowing my recovery/adaptation down is more that I'm a lot closer to 40 than 20.

I think what we're really saying is that we need to find a less popular sport where 5-6 hours of unfocussed 'training' a week is enough to be considered really good unlike cycling where there are way too many racers with enough free time to ride 150 miles a week.

I'll stick with my mantra of: Ride lots, get brutally strong, ride everyone off my wheel. Has the great benefit that it's also REALLY fun being 'that person' in a race (however rarely).

Age certainly does me no favours, being nearer 50 than 40. I did a lot of running in my 20s to support rowing training and the comparison of top speed and accelation compared to my running now is dismal to contemplate, even though my endurance has held up quite well.

Re the bold bit, until I ruptured a disc in my back 8 years ago, my main sport was racing on rowing machines. Race distance was 2000m, so you could easily (if painfully) train to be very competitive on 6 sessions of an hour per week. Strangely, Mother Nature did me a favour in rowing terms, as my ratio of limb length to back length was particularly suited to the sport, so I could go faster than my basic aerobic capacity suggested. I guess she's paying me back for this now on the bike!