Training direction for new rider
 

So I am pretty new to riding, my goal is to race in the near future and I was looking for some advise on where I should take my training.

I have been riding about 6 months and have ridden about ~2000mi/100hrs, I just recently purchased a HRM and decided to test my LTHR. I did the test by warming up 30 mins then doing a 30min ITT and took my average HR for the last 20 mins. My average speed for this was just under 23mph. I weigh ~148 at 5’10”, LTHR: 186, Max HR: 202, Age 24.

According to a website I found basing off of my LTHR these would be my ‘zones’
Zone 1: 113 – 150
Zone 2: 152 – 163
Zone 3: 165 – 174
Zone 4: 174 – 184
Zone 5a: 186 –189
Zone 5b: 191 – 195
Zone 5c: 191 – 202

Can anyone recommend how much I should be riding and in what zones? I am was thinking about just working on my base mileage more riding 5 times a week about 12hrs.

M – 2hr
T – off / recovery
W – 4+hr
T – off / recovery
F – 2hr
S – 2hr
S –2hr

I just need to find some direction, a plan… Right now I think I ride too hard all of the time, every ride I am pushing hard focusing on maintaining the max speed I can attain instead of endurance. Sometimes this causes me to burn out quickly, I have done a few 70+ mile rides and they were hell at the finish so I am pretty sure this is where I am lacking.

TIA,
Mitch

buy the lance armstron performace tringing book . has great heart rate training scedules in there. get it for $4 used off amazon.

riding for 6 months, and you can do an ITT at just under 23 for 30 min? Just keep riding, you're doing fine.

If you are new to riding, just ride a lot. Don't worry about intervals or heart rate. Just get lots of time riding all of different terrain around your house. Do some group rides and get a feel for where you need improvement. once you know what you want to work on, build a training plan off that.

For reference, my homemade training plan includes 2-3 SST rides a week, 1 day of hill intervals, 1 day of 1125211 pyramid intervals and 1-2 long (60-70 miles) on the weekends. I wouldn't make a concrete plan like "monday I'm going to ride 2 hours, wednesday 4 hours, etc. etc." as you never know what is going to come up throughout the week. Just figure out what workouts you want to do each week and try your hardest to fit them all in.

Most importantly, don't stress about about missing a workout or two, especially at this time of year. Just try to have fun with it, hopefully you will see some improvement.

Thanks for the advise Mike, unfortunately I live in FL so there is only flat terrain for me. What are SST rides and pyramid intervals? Concrete plans work for me, between full time work, full time student and wife I have to plan out my time wisely.

You need to establish what your goals are first. You can't make any plan without goals. You also don't say what your background is pre-cycling, which can determine greatly your ability to handle a structured training plan versus just learning to be consisten with training.

6 months, 100 hours total means you're looking to start doing weekly what you were doing in 3-4 weeks. That's a pretty sizable jump unless you come from a relatively strong endurance background already.

Building a long term aerobic base takes time, and you need to be patient. If you're going to make that jump in time on the bike, you need to be smart about holding back on intensity. Begin by starting with those 12 hrs per week at the mid-upper zone 1 range only. Doing that for 3-4 weeks, then change one of the 2 hour days and do a focused 1 hr effort in upper Z3/low z4 (SST) (30 min warm up/30 min cool down). Another 3-4 weeks, make a second 2 hr day an SST day. 3-4 weeks, stretch one of the 1 hr SST's to a 90 min SST day. You can also make one of your 2 remaining 2 hr days a short interval day at this point (4-5 minutes).

3-4 weeks:
All days mid-upper Z1. These days will feel pretty slow/tame at first, my guess. This is more about getting used to saddle time, but it's an important part of making the jump from 16 hours per month to 12 hrs per week.

3-4 weeks:
M/W upper Z-1
F - 30 min warmup/60 min upper Z3/low z4/30 min cool down
S/S - upper Z-1

3-4 weeks:
M/W upper Z-1
F - 30 min warmup/60 min upper Z3/low z4/30 min cool down
Sat - upper Z-1
Sun - 30 min warmup/60 min upper Z3/low z4/30 min cool down

1 week - All days low Z1, shorten the 4 hr day to 2 hrs
3-4 weeks:
M-3-4x5 min intervals (adding, preferably 1 more interval per week up to 6)
W - 4 hrs
F - 15 min warmup/90 min upper Z3/low z4/15 min cool down
Sat - upper Z-1
Sun - 30 min warmup/2x20's/30 min cool down

You start this next week, you're at the end of March on this plan. IMO - 12 hrs per week is a weird range for training. There's enough time to get the steady state threshold training, but not enough time to get all the effects from endurance training that you might want from Z1 riding. But if you raise the intensity of the Z1 days, you end up being more fatigued than you'd want to be on the harder days.

This comes back to what are your goals though. It also isn't a great variety of workouts - which may be a deterrent to getting motivated. For that you can grab Friel's Training Bible or any of the other books in the Amazon inventory that provide training for the appropriate zone/system. There's nothing specific in this plan on sprints, force/power, or technique.

Last - you're probably going to see results just getting on the bike 12 hrs per week doing anything you want completely unstructured. It will be a year or more before you see a plateau on a totally unstructured training plan, so you can just continue doing what you're doing and have fun on the bike. A lot of people I have met in the last couple years have come and gone in bike racing because it got to be a chore long before it became a passion.

Great post WV. IMO this is the best advice for a new racer. Just start riding your bike, then start racing, and the rest will become apparent in time.

+1 on Nomad's remark on just riding the bike.

Heck, I kinda sorta do that anyway. I'll do 20 minute tests every now and then, and try to go hard for a minute, and chase trucks like a doggie would, and that's pretty much it. I race, do a group ride sometimes, and things seem to be going reasonably well.

I actually think the OP's initial plan is reasonable. If Tu/Th are non-riding days due to schedule, fine, but if you can ride, don't force yourself to take a day off. Likewise, don't force yourself to ride if you don't want to.

Right now I'm riding when I feel like it, not riding when I'm sleepy. Falling asleep on the steps watching the cats eat = too tired to ride. I'll ride tomorrow.

4 two hour rides in a row can be hard, if you have other things to do. However, although most people may disagree with a 4+ hour ride, I think they're good for developing form. If you ride long enough to fatigue your "normal" muscles, you start recruiting other muscles. You lean over more, to recruit your glutes. You pull up more. Etc etc. I think long rides really help develop form.

Lemond writes that he likes doing one day of sprints even in the winter. 53x15 or 14 or something, blast away a few times. I'd do this for kicks on one of your 2 hour rides.

cdr

Pyramid intervals mean that you steady increase the length of your intervals. For example, you would start with a 1 minute hard interval, then a 5 minute rest. Then another 1 minute hard interval and another 5 minute rest. Then increase it to a 2 minute interval followed by a 5 minute rest. The top of the pyramid is a 5 minute interval followed by a 5 minute rest. Then you go back down to a 2' interval w/ 5 minute rest, a 1 min interval w/ 5 min rest and your last 1' interval w/ 5 min rest.

So it goes 1' on 5' off, 1' on 5' off, 2' on 5' off, 5' on 5' off, 2' on 5' off, 1' on 5' off, 1' on 5' off.

SST stands for "sweet spot training" It basically refers to training between your power zone 3 and 4. I don't have a powermeter and I assume you do not either, so you will have to estimate power. I feel that I am pretty good at this and for me SST is going just hard enough that it hurts, but now so hard that I am trashed before the end of the ride. I try to pace my SST rides so that I just have enough left in the tank at the end of the ride.