Some advice on devising a training plan?

g00se

Hi,

I'm a time-crunched cyclist, looking to get my fitness up for an event in the first week of June. In previous years, I've concentrated on my threshold so I do reasonably OK in the alps and middling in the odd TT - but I've always suffered when racing when things hot up. So I want to concentrate on more harder intervals, so I can better deal when riding in the red and recover more quickly after these efforts.

I have a little bit on knowledge on threshold, VO2max etc. but not sure how to structure training over the next 20 weeks. With work and family commitments, I'm pretty much limited to an hour a day indoors during the week - maybe a couple of hours on the road midweek - and a few hours on a Sunday morning. Because of this, Carmichael's Time Crunched Cyclist looks a good bet.

The 'New Competitor' plan on TP looks the right one for me - http://home.trainingpeaks.com/products/trainingplans/plans/new-competitor

But with it being 11 weeks - that'll leave me with about 10 weeks to kill before that starts (if I want to hit the first week of June for the event). Now, does that mean with the time I have, there are better plans for more effective training but with similar time constraints - or should I fill the first 10 weeks with more winter work? Should I be looking to design a bespoke training plan and what references would you suggest I use for this?

Ideally, I'd like to start the over threshold improvements ASAP - what with occasionally riding with others who are generally better than me, so I suffer when things push on.

Any thoughts welcome.

supermurph09

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19772219#p19772219]g00se[/url] wrote:

Hi,

I'm a time-crunched cyclist, looking to get my fitness up for an event in the first week of June. In previous years, I've concentrated on my threshold so I do reasonably OK in the alps and middling in the odd TT - but I've always suffered when racing when things hot up. So I want to concentrate on more harder intervals, so I can better deal when riding in the red and recover more quickly after these efforts.

I have a little bit on knowledge on threshold, VO2max etc. but not sure how to structure training over the next 20 weeks. With work and family commitments, I'm pretty much limited to an hour a day indoors during the week - maybe a couple of hours on the road midweek - and a few hours on a Sunday morning. Because of this, Carmichael's Time Crunched Cyclist looks a good bet.

The 'New Competitor' plan on TP looks the right one for me - http://home.trainingpeaks.com/products/trainingplans/plans/new-competitor

But with it being 11 weeks - that'll leave me with about 10 weeks to kill before that starts (if I want to hit the first week of June for the event). Now, does that mean with the time I have, there are better plans for more effective training but with similar time constraints - or should I fill the first 10 weeks with more winter work? Should I be looking to design a bespoke training plan and what references would you suggest I use for this?

Ideally, I'd like to start the over threshold improvements ASAP - what with occasionally riding with others who are generally better than me, so I suffer when things push on.

Any thoughts welcome.

*** disclaimer - I'm no expert ***

There's no reason not to do the plan now, I did https://supermurph.wordpress.com/ , I'd think if you follow it well you will improve then you can revisit things again after 11 weeks to look where you are at and then focus on your event.

g00se

Cheers - I'll check out your blog.