Last year was my first year of road racing. I didn’t really have a plan other than just dong the training rides with my club and going to the local Tuesday night races. This year, I really want to do the best I can do in the GC at some stage races. For now as the snow is melting away, I’m just trying to get an hour or two in on the trainer 4 times per week substituting in road or trail rides as weather permits. Starting mid-February, I’ll begin building for four weeks prior to overload. A week of my building phase looks like this:
Mon- Short, consistent ride, (25-45 minutes Z2) + TRX core work
Tue- Team interval ride or hill repeats (1-1.5 hours Z3/5)
Wed- Early morning group ride. (Fairly fast, but not too strenuous) (1.5-2 hours Z3)
Thu- Solo ride W/ some big climbs and speed intervals on flats (2-2.5 hours Z2/4)
Fri- Easy spin @ high RPMs (1 hour Z1-2) + core work
Sat- Long club ride (3-5 hours Z2-3)
Sun- rest
March 11-13th I’ll use my team training camp as my overload; three consecutive days of long/hard rides.
One week recovery (2 easy rides + the weekend club ride)
One week maintenance
One week taper (3 short/easy rides during the week prior to the race.
1st stage race-Apr 2&3- 12mi tt/50mi RR, 1-hour circuit race
One week maintenance
One week taper
2nd stage race- Apr 15-17 (Long RR, TT/crit, short RR (exact distances
TBD)
I’ve got a few more stage races I’ll be doing in June/July for which I will basically repeat this process for a second peak.
This is a tweaked version of the plan in “The Cyclist’s training Manual”, which my wife gave me for Christmas (I asked for the “Bible”, she thought they were be the same). Not knowing much about the credibility of the book I read, I’m looking for constructive criticism. The book didn’t say much about maintenance, and how it should be different from the building phase. How would you do a maintenance week with this kind of a plan?