LT Intolerant

ZeCanon

I abandoned the 3:1 recovery schedule some time mid summer last year, and have improved considerably since then. I tend to work in shorter blocks, spreading out my recovery days during 3-5 blocks of hard training (depending on the time of year). I follow these blocks with 3-5 days of good recovery, then start the cycle over again.

The reason for this is simple: 6 days on, 1 day off weeks don't work for me. By days 5 and 6 I'm simply digging myself a hole that is far too big to get out of with only one day off. Without good recovery, I never get any stronger. If I do a 3-4 day block, I can usually recover from it in a day, and then get back to good hard training. So over time, I'm getting more quality riding in while also recovering better. When I finally take a few days off at once, it is more for mental recovery than physical.
The trick for me is to stop thinking of my training in terms of weeks and start thinking of it in terms of blocks. Doesn't matter if the block starts on monday or thursday or sunday. Of course this has to be adapted once racing starts, but for winter training it works perfectly.

Anyway, to your question: I don't think there is any benefit to a staggered/pyramid approach to block training. The purpose of that, I assume, is to slowly adapt your body to increased intensity and volume. If you're body is already adapted, why bother?

gsteinb

good point.

ZeCanon

To the talent question - the "talented" like to think it's hard work, the less talented like to think it's all genetics. I look at my own ascension through the cycling ranks compared with others who began riding at the same time, and trail equally, and can only come to one conclusion. Genetics helps, training is required. Can we call it a day with that?

UGASkiDawg

Amen..... and the same can be said in any sport or even academic pursuit

umd

Yes, basically. But I believe that they are both required to get to the top.

LT Intolerant

Well said.

Greg180

Don't forget discipline, passion and drive...

Bnjmn

Me randonneuring? You are the one on the bike for 4 hours a day to train for park races (for those from out of the NYC metro area- these are mostly flat races around 35-40 miles long, nearly always won by sprinters, in relatively flat Prospect or Central Park ).

Good to see that post hoc ergo prompter hoc still has some ardent followers.

gsteinb

I don't race in the parks much, no. I think I've done 11 park races and I'll end up with about 60 races. I could debate my
training based on my results, but since you seem to have a handle on how and what I'm doing (despite the fact that you
seem to have my priority races wrong) maybe you could just help me out instead?

So in your omniscient universe where you know how I train, let me know what I'm doing wrong and what I should be doing instead.

When you get around to it post your race resume as well.

You didn't answer the question either. How much do you suppose the best riders in a region train?
What do you suppose it would take to ride regional and national races with the best masters in the country? Name the five best riders in NY and tell me how much you think they train.

And after that why not take a deep breath and if you don't have anything to add that's actually on the topic
go piss in someone else's sandbox.

here, same question as in the OP....600 hour schedule

12
14.5
16
8.5
12.5
15
17
8.5
13.5
16
18
8.5
15.5
15.5
15.5
8.5
14.5
14.5
14.5
8.5
13
10
8.5

Aren't you the guy who rode across the country?

I'm sorry that the point of this thread is apparently so obtuse. Guys who follow Friel's hour plans tend to pick their yearly
schedule based on the third week of base III. That's the longest week and the thought process goes something like

[thought bubble] What's the most time I can spend on my bike so that my wife kicks me to the couch for a month, but
doesn't divorce me.....hmmm....sex doesn't really make me faster, does it? [/thought bubble]

If one simply follows the hours in a given block, and averages them out of the three weeks their longest week is shorter
but ultimately they're putting in the same overall hours. Theoretically one could do more hours a year in this manner
based on the 'couch' limiter described above, but still stay in the marital bed.

MDcatV

I dont know who the best racers in NY are, but I do know who the best masters racers in mabra are.

Two of them train about 10 hrs/week, lots on the emotions rollers. That's the low end. The other 2 I know really well are at about 12 - 15, and 20 - 22 hrs/week respectively. give or take of course. One of the 10 hrs/week guys has some stars and stripes jerseys. The 20 + guy is also among the top Cat 1s in the country.

I also know a pretty mediocre masters racer around here who trains about 8 - 10 hrs/week

daytonian

i'll see your VO2 and raise you a natural hematocrit of almost 50.

fatallightning

Just for my own knowledge, what kind of weights do you do and you think it's worth the time.

Greg180

What is that 10 races a month? I'm not playing in your sand box...

gsteinb

I started a weight lifting thread.

ldesfor1@ithaca

I think if anything can be concluded here, it's that different training programs work differently for different trainees.

I think that learning to listen to your body (and taking fastidious records, a la NomadVW) and then, learning how to adjust training appropriately is invaluable to success.

Many of us can NOT handle the volume+intensity that you can, Gsteinb, but YOU can!

And the results show.


I would consider, if I were you, identifying any limiters you may have and using some of your available training time to work on them.

I personally have spent the entire season trying to boost my LT as high as possible, with decent results, and will take this off season to develop other, weaker areas while doing just enough to maintain my FTP (or at least keep it from dropping off more than 30w or so).

As far as hours/year goes, I'm similar to ZeCannon in that I also prefer to think of my training in blocks and am finding that I do better, mentally with 2:1 or 3:1 or 3:2 onff blocks depending on intensity/volume.
I find that a huge part of my success this season has been focused on having fun/loving the bike-time as much as possible and it sounds like you may do slightly better in that department by keeping your hours steadier, as opposed to staggered.
Like you said, 18 hours/week is cool, but 24/week might be overkill, both physically and mentally.

That said, congrats and keep the useful threads coming.

-Leo

gsteinb

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...weight+lifting

NomadVW 

pm for paypal address

carpediemracing 

I've been missing this thread for a bit because I'm still recovering from "hour shock".

For those that don't race around here in the extremely competitive Masters races, gsteinb races pretty aggressively. Races where I thought for sure it would be blown to pieces (I would have bet tons of money), he was not only near the front, he lost out only to a former-top-area-pro by something like half a wheel. Or less. (Naugatuck Crit).

It's one thing to sit in like me and wait for 1 or 2 or 3 to go. It's another to launch attack after attack, chase down the missed breaks, and then "sit and recover" for a lap and then annihilate all in the field sprint (including yours truly, who didn't poke his head out in the wind at all). I'd hate to be in a break with him once it hits about 3-5 miles to go because you know he'll go flying off the front, and if you get him, he'll kill you in the sprint.

As far as distance, yes, I firmly believe that training short distances does not allow you to see your true potential. There is a lot that longer rides do. They allow you to lose weight, recruit more muscles significantly (and train them), and force you to become a smoother rider (try thrashing the pedals inefficiently for 6-7 hours - no way, you'll be exhausted after 3 or 4).

I refer to a local rider somewhat frequently because he's extremely talented and I've watched his riding deteriorate significantly (he'll be mad if he sees this in print ). He got 3rd at Nationals in 2002 I think (I have to look it up and I'm being lazy). His dad and grandfather were top level racers, grandpa a pro track racer back in the day. Before the Nationals where he placed (I think it was 125 miles?), he was motorpacing 4-5 hours a day, 2-3 days a week, behind his dad's moto. This is the "Greg Lemond" method of peaking for a race, what he did before his 83 pro worlds win. This local racer also did a similar amount of motorpacing before Junior Nationals, and he got 5th or 7th or something.

He's placed 15-25th in pro level races (Tour of CT in its early years), able to hammer and climb a bit. His forte are solo/small breaks, where he typically averages 28-30 mph for extended periods of time (like when he soloed about 40 out of 50 laps in a crit like New Britain).

You can say that he's older now, weaker, but he's just a touch over 30 years old. The biggie is that he can't do the big hours like he used to. Over the last 4-5 years he's cut down significantly, from the 20-25 hour weeks to 15 to 10 and now even lower. He's literally sometimes down to 3 hours a week, even less than me. He still rides like the old days, attacking and stuff, but he can't ride a whole P123 field off his wheel like before - in fact, he often can't get away, and sometimes he even gets shelled. This is HUGE for this guy, because he's held off literally teams of P12s chasing him, by himself, for long periods of time.

He tries to tell me that doing shorter rides will work fine, but I look at my best years, and I rode a lot during them. I look at even the most focused short-ride periods of my life and forget it, no good. I could do a decent 1 or 2 minute effort, great jump still, but I lacked all of the razor sharp edges I got with lots of hours - the top 2-3 mph in a sprint, 3-4 mph in an anaerobic pursuit (sub 1 minute bridge effort for example), even my 3-4 mile solo efforts dropped significantly in speed, like 2-3 mph, as well as distance (from 3-4 miles to less than 1 mile). With a lot of hours I monitored the front, launched attacks, bridged to breaks, and could still do a good finish.

I'm just astonished at the sheer volume of hours being tossed around. I would do 150 hours a year, and in 2008 I did a ton of (unemployed) training, and did 150 by the beginning of March or something crazy like that. It took me pretty much the rest of the summer to get another 150 hours. 600 hours for one cycle, jeepers.

cdr

NomadVW 

Just finished planning the rest of this year (Oct-Sept) and its my lowest year of 4 @ ~650 hours. I had almost a full month off in December.

Hoping to turn it back up to the mid 700's next year, as I did notice a significant difference in recovery ability at the end of the summer.

gsteinb

shucks.Thanks. Avoid my year end post if you don't want the spoiler on how many sept-sept hours I really put in.

YMCA

CDR, I actually made it through one of your posts!
I have to agree.

When I put loads of hours in, I won races, made it to cat1 and overall enjoyed the strength to sit at the front of any group ride.

When I stopped training and still tried to race a bit, hanging with the pack fodder became my m.o.

Simple as that.

Racer Ex 

It would appear we race a lot alike, both from a style standpoint and from a number of races.

This season we went to a much more "feel" based approach, as opposed to a more structured number of hours that I stuck to last year. The schedule was the traditional Friel micro/macro cycles, but I'd skip workouts or increase intensity or volume with how I felt.

The constant from the last three years has been focusing on quality rather than quantity. And trying to manage recovery and keeping the blade sharp between races.

2008 I finished with just over 400 hours, and it looks like this year will be the same. The rolling average was more or less 12-13 hours on the bigger weeks, 8 on the smaller for both years.

This year I was able to hold form longer (and seemed to be stronger towards the end); the mental fatigue stuff didn't kick in as hard and rather than stinking hugely after my break, I only just stunk. I was able to come good in a couple of post-break races where last year I couldn't pedal out of a paper bag.

The SRM is a pretty big tool here, especially for judging fatigue and when I should be backing out of a hard interval day. PE and HR can fool ya, a watt is a watt. Not saying you should go run out and get one, but mentioning it as it relates to my training.

I don't think I'd go a lot better matching your yearly hours, but I think there's a bit of the age difference factoring in there. I'm focusing on Gila and Nats next season, I may change things up a bit and go to some longer hour weeks in the build up; we're going to try a little of that in the coming month.

If it's working well and you're mentally OK with what you're doing, I'd be leery of changing things, especially stacking on more hours to a week. For me mentally those long weeks can start to grind unless you've got some cool fresh surroundings, an unhappy head affects the rest of the training and racing down the line.

Not sure if this was much of an answer to your original question, but hope it helps.

gsteinb

I suppose the question doesn't really revolve around switching the total volume, but in the friel approach the upper end hours get difficult to squeeze in. I certainly wouldn't try and add more hours, but with an averaged period or steady hours approach it's easy to get the same amount of hours in without having those few arduous max hour weeks. Of course, any approach needs a heavy handed emphasis on recovery.

Grumpy McTrumpy

I can't really say much about hourly training load, but this might be germane:

I've been visiting a teammate in the hospital every day this week. His son is a 20 year old neopro on Kelly Benefit who just returned from Greenville. His season has been filled with ups and downs (Greenville was a bust, he worked really hard to chase down Zabriske, and then got dropped soon after lap one, but he's also had a few really great results this season as well as doing very well in Portugal).

I asked his dad what his training load was like and he estimated it at around 25 (!) hours/week. I thought that might be part of the reason why he was showing signs of overtraining. Mainly due to the whole thing of being only 20 years old.