This is the first year I've been serious and dedicated to training properly for the season. I've got a good coach, who has me lifting for strength during these early months, on top of plenty of base miles and endurance rides. Our early race season is coming up really soon, and because I've been lifting, I don't have any speed right now. My legs are just too worn during the week. This month I have started doing a little more interval work, which should be helping my speed. This month I've also gone down to 1 hard day, and 1 easy maintenance day of lifting a week. But I still feel sluggish, which my coach told me is to be expected as long as I'm lifting. My question is how long should it take after I stop or severely slow my lifting before I notice my speed bump up to race level? These early season races (late Feb, early March) are not the most important to me, but it would be nice to do well in them. My race season and A priority races range from March to August, so it's a pretty long season... not to mention cross in the fall. Should I just suck it up, be patient and continue lifting till the end of February, or would it be advisable to ease off on the lifting, and be prepared to do well in the March races?

If you've got a late Feb race, start tapering off the weights NOW. I hear you that the first races aren't that important. But there's lots of controversy out there to begin with about how much weight training helps in races. What almost everyone agrees on is that saddle time plays the biggest part in performance.

Personally, I'd start focusing on low cadence, high intensity rides, keeping your heart rate relatively low. I've heard this helps incorporate the newly-expended muscle cells into fast twitch fibers. After 10-20 hours of this, mix in high cadence intervals and get some quality riding in. Balance this with proper recovery and I'll bet you'll get the snap in your legs back in a few weeks.

My speed, both sprinting and natural cadence goes up when I lift. I lift until the end of April, and then do maintenance lifting during May, then quit. Lifting really does put a training load on a person, doesn't it? In a way, that's good, because it's like adding mileage. Builds base.

You could try adding fastpedal (115-130 cadence) for 15-45 minutes during your recovery rides. You are doing recovery rides, right?

But why are you talking to us? You've got a coach. Hopefully he/she has a track record with other cyclists you know. Either have faith or quit paying. Sounds to me like you should be bringing these concerns to your coach and following whatever modifications they make to your plan.

Hey, it's only early February. As you say, a long season. I wouldn't be in any rush to do a lot of intervals and compromise your performance later.

Ok i'll bite. What is a low cadence, high intensity that keeps heart rate low?

Low cadence high intensity to me wouldd be hill climbing in a low gear so you cant spin up a hill, but that'll give a heart rate far from low.

Over what time frame are you measuring this "speed"?

Over-geared high-force efforts from a stop, aka stomps. Once you get on top of the big gear you stop. The low gear climbing you mentioned can be an example if you just lower the power; but then I agree you shouldn't call it an "intense" interval, high-force would be more appropriate.

I set PRs on my leg lifts 2 nights this week. 40 minutes of one-legged pedaling on Tuesday. Tonight I did the first steady state zone 2 (75%) workout on my rollers in a long time. Far from having HR drift, after 75 minutes I was still accelerating at constant HR. The game is on! Just had to tell . . .

40min per leg!?

I wish! No, my routine is 2 min. each leg, then 2 min. legs together recovery, repeat.

That's still really impressive. I can only do 30-45sec per leg right now.

You gotta do it until you bawl, then the other leg. Try some at 50 cadence, same gear as legs together or maybe 1 cog smaller, and some at 80-85 cadence, tiny gear. The more intervals you do, the easier they get until you get exhausted. It takes a couple intervals before my legs start working properly. Open those blood vessels, get nutrients on site, etc. Keep a tight chain, that's the main thing. I guarantee results. Cheaper than buying Powercranks.

Thanks for the replies. To answer the few questions-- yes, I do have faith in my coach, and have been discussing this with her. I just wanted to see what other people's experiences are, as this is my first year seriously training. Also, I am doing recovery rides, the program and coach appear to be great. She's assured me that once the main race season is here I should surprise myself...

Like I said, my lifting has already tapered some this month, and is supposed to taper much more in March. She did suggest that I could start doing low cadence (~50rpm) hill intervals in my endurance HR zone instead of the lifting for on the bike strength work.

As for how I'm measuring speed, I basically just feel sluggish on the rides. My legs have to be getting stronger, so I'll just keep having faith that this will work out in the end. I also race XC mountain bike, and am definitely looking forward to more power strength that I should have in those races.

Oh man we better start riding again....good job with following the training plan, I am sure it will work if you follow it. As you know I come from the other side: power but no endurance. Those Nike boys whipped me in shape in the fall. I have been doing some spinning classes to avoid the weather, will see if those work. As for lifting and feeling slow, it is normal, same is for when you run in the fall. Just do it until you want to go faster and don't worry about the first races, as you said the season is way long, especially if you include cross. I would like to be ready for the short track season, like last year and than carry on for cross, in a way be ready later since I fell I was already going down in the last few cross races.
See you soon.
Ciao
Paolo