talbert

Hey all,

Old school of thought typically says to put in lots of lower intensity base miles during the offseason then as the racing season approaches the mileage decreases as the intensity increases with hills / intervals etc. I'm in a bit of an unsual situation in that I'm only interested in Time Trials, Du's and Tri's (Occasionally).

That being said, and with an average bike race distance of 16 - 24 miles.... what should my training weeks be like this year? Should I bother with 40, 50 and 60mi + rides? Do I really need that kind of time in the saddle or should I be focusing more on just speed work and intensity along with some leg power (hills maybe)?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks

mollusk

Forget miles and think about time instead. It looks like you need to be focusing on 40 minute to 1 hour rides as your race season approaches because your races will be that long.

kudude

don't think your situation is unusual. Lots of ppl want to race but don't want to race WITH others. Unfortunately, if you only ride for 40 minutes (a little longer than the length of an average 20-30k TT) your ftp is probably not going to increase all that quickly. no base = bad, is my thought

Ston_ar

If you have the time it's not a bad idea to pile the miles up a little. Doing too much speedwork too early has a tendency to burn people out. Also with a good chunk of base miles you'll be able to work harder later in the season because of your increased recovery rate from all the base building.

DrWJODonnell

About the only thing I would do different from a "normal" plan is, if you want, forego the one 'long ride' of the week. Chances are, even if you do short TT's you will still be on the bike for ~1.5-2 hours with warm up and race.

YMCA

Are you trying to find an excuse from not having to do any extra hours?
There are no shortcuts.

If you lack time available, then say so.
Otherwise train like bike racer of at least your level, recover and then reap the benefits.

ZeCanon

I really need to post up the Graph. Still haven't figured out how to make it make sense on the internet though.

There are adaptations which occur during long ride which occur nowhere else. These adaptations make you significantly faster. For a highly fit cyclist, this means rides in the 5-7 hour range. I'm not saying you need to go out and do 5 hrs a couple times a week, but rides that are long enough to push your endurance limits are highly beneficial.

The whole "train 20% longer than your longest race" thing is garbage. Yes, you can get fast but gains from high intensity work are fleeting, and your peak still won't be as high as it would be with a big base PLUS high intensity work.

procrit

Yes and yes!

rydaddy

Question: Can long endurance rides carry over into the next season? For example, most of my riding last year was long 5-8 hour endurance rides. I do plan to mix in a lot of intensity this season, however.

(sorry for the thread jack)

DrWJODonnell

I agree with this, but I assume the OP was asking because he wanted to cut time out of his weekly rides. Maybe I was wrong to assume that. But you are right and I didn't mean to imply that long rides have no value. My bad!

ZeCanon

Absolutely. Greater capillary density (I think that's the term?) and an increase in the percentage of slow-twitch muscle fibers stay with you for long long time (forever?). And those are just two of the benefits of long rides...

rydaddy

Thanks.

YMCA

Yes, but he must keep doing what got him there.
IOW - he'll need to keep up the hours, otherwise lose all the benefits he spent a year gaining.

Fat Boy

This is really true. There's something about turning out a consistently long ride maybe once a week that really does give you a fitness bump nothing else will.

ZeCanon

I'm not sure if I completely agree... yes he'll lose a lot of it, but some of those adaptations will stick around. Fewer long days may result in the same fitness I think, and there is something to be said for that.

You are 100% correct that if he wants to continue building, he needs to keep the volume high.

mike868y

You are one of the people of bf I respect the most, but I think this statement is incorrect. I could be wrong (only a high school level biology education). IIRC, fast twitch can be trained into a sort of middle ground between fast and slow, thus benefitting slow twitch efforts, but slow twitch fibers do not have this ability. The # of slow twitch fibers you are born with is how many you will always have. For this reason, a naturally talented sprinter could train themselves to be a better long distance athlete than a long distance athlete could train themselves to be a sprinter.

What you may have meant is an increase in slow twitch muscle fiber recruitment, which I believe is definitely valid.

Sorry to be a jerk, and if I'm wrong then oh well. Just though I'd flex my anatomy and physiology muscle a little ;P

rydaddy

Yeah, volume will be high... maybe not as high, but I intend to add more quality workouts to make up for it.

I could be wrong... but I think you have your twitches backwards. More fast twitch = better sprinter. No?

mike868y

d'oh! The first sentence of my post pretty much supported everything ze said. So yes, fast twitch=better sprinter and ze was correct, you can increase the number of slow twitch fibers (well fast twitch will never fully become slow twitch but they get somewhere in between). Sorry, I am an idiot haha.

ZeCanon

I read your post and my brain said "wüt?"

Now I understand

ridethecliche

Aw.
You guizzz.