Masters rider seeking training advice

I turn 54 later is summer and I have recently returned to competitive cycling after a nine year hiatus. I compete in our local racing club events: Time trials on Tuesdays (10 or 20 milers) and road racing on Thursdays (25-30 milers). I expect to occasionally participate in 3 or 4 weekend races over the summer. These weekend races would be open / citizen’s / one-day license types of events. As one could guess, I am not a licensed USCF rider.

I have found that I am doing OK in our local road races, even against USCF guys 30 years my junior and some juniors! For the last two weeks I have managed to finish in either the lead group or the chasing peleton. On the other hand my 10 mile time-trial results have been disappointing. I only average 21-22 mph over flat to rolling courses. My average speeds 9-years ago where 2-3 mph faster.

I do not have a true training plan per se, but I try to never have back-to-back hard days. I ride on average 5 times per week, including the club races, and log about 100-125 miles per week. I ride up-tempo two days during the week (1-2 hours) and I try to put in one 3-hour ride with as many hills as I can pack in on the weekend. I wear an HRM that will log my heart rate, but one of my many questions is what to do with that info.

I have read several publications on cycle specific training, but in all honesty I find many training systems/suggestions fairly complex for my meager mind. Much of what I have read seems to be designed for a rider with a PhD, unlimited time/resources or someone trying to make the National team.

I am looking for some basic suggestions or a plan on how to improve my time-trial results and shorten hard effort recovery times. I fade a bit on the climb in the last several laps of our 20 lap circuit race with a small incline in the middle.

Thanks in advice.
Joe

Search these forums for SST (Sweet Spot Training) and workouts like 2x20 Threshold training.

Basically you want to raise your sustainable power and should incorporate some add some workouts to your schedule where you go out and ride sustained submaximal efforts for at least 10 minutes and 20 to 30 or more is preferable. These shouldn't be right up against your best pacing for the duration or you probably won't do more than one or do them very often. Back off just enough so you can do a few per session and do them once or twice per week, that usually translates to riding these at 85-95% of your best one hour power (your FTP). If you don't have a power meter then ride at a pace that gets you breathing deeply and steadily, requires a lot of focus, is uncomfortable but easy enough that you can finish the target duration without backing off your pace. Exchanging a lot of O2 during these efforts but not gasping is a good sign that you're stessing your muscles a bit beyond their comfort zone which is how you encourage adaptation and improvement.

Do another day or two where you do longer rides in the 2 to 3 hour range ridden with steady focus that don't kill you but aren't easy social rides either. Ideally these are ridden as much as possible at Tempo or above which means you'll be breathing steadily, they'll require a lot of focus to avoid dropping back into slow cruising pace but you'll be able to complete the rides with a lot of solid focused work.

These workouts will steadily bring up your sustainable power which will help both your time trials and your ability to quickly recover from frequent high power surges. They'll also lead to greater endurance as you'll be able to ride at a lower percentage of your Threshold power during most rides or races which means you'll burn more fat, preserve more glycogen and last longer.

There's all kinds of ways to build more snap, higher peak power, better tolerance to anaerobic efforts, and other high end work. An awful lot of training advice focuses on these which are important for all around road racing but only if layered on top of solid sustainable power. Start with the steady power building work and you can always transition to specific high end work when you're achieving your TT goals and you have no problem riding steady hard pacing for the entire race.

It's really pretty simple, do good solid work sustained for relatively long intervals, do enough of them in a given session and over the course of days, weeks and months and your sustainable power will increase. Not much magic to these methods, but they work.

Good luck,
-Dave

Dave,
Thanks very much for your helpful advice. I don't have a questions at this moment. I obviously need to do a bit more reading/research.

Joe