how about a pointer

[leanman]

being new to posting, but reading lots of these posts, i am calling on all the smart coaches and experienced racers for a pointer or two. i sure cant afford a coach, power tap, heart rate monitor, ar even fancy wheels, but i do have a strong work ethic and strong mind to endure the hard training.
i'm just a weekend warrior, putting in 10 hours a week max., trying to get better, and trying to stay up with the 20-30-40 year olds.
once the base miles have been laid, the 5 month season is ahead me, with nothing big to taper for, just a race every sunday for 2 months before the bigger races appear, what would a good training weekly schedule look like?
with a race every sunday during june and july, nothing big till aug, sept, whats a typical week training like?season starts march 1st. we all want to be good at every sunday race, as getting dropped sucks, so racing march- april, a bit of a break in may then race june- july, with the biggies aug, sept, whats a typical weeek look like??
what i did was race sunday. monday was an ez hour.. teusday was an ez hour. wed was intervals, 5 four minute intervals with 4 minutes rest done very very hard. or 20 minutes very very hard after a few short sprints and a warm up..
thursday and friday an ez hour.. saturday off.
thats roughly a week in my life.. just wondering what the good guys on the board and coaches say to do in a weeks time with no big races coming up, but we all still wnat to be in the main break in all our races. thanks alot for any comments.

 

[SolarEnergy]

If I understand correctly, you are wondering about how to prepare for racing season 2010.

Based on result obtained during season 2009, what would you say your strength / weaknesses are? In which area do you feel you need to improve? Anything wrong with training season 2008/2009 you think?

 

[leanman]

solarenergy
thanks for the reply.
i thought i would have got a lot more pointers by now from some of these guys that always post, but i understand not everyone of us weekend warriors is wanting to share their training secrets..
per my post, i was just asking what some of the fast young guys that are pretty good, do mon-sunday in a normal week, once the season has started and the base/foundation work has been laid.
i have a friend who in very good, that rides a lot of miles. maybe 300+ a week, lots of them hard miles. never seems to overtrain himself. another friend trains hard ez ez off hard ez ez off. and is very good. i just wanted a detailed weekly schedule , if anyone whats to share, how they train during the race season, but with no reason to peak for months down the road..just a simple hard in season weekly schedule.
thanks

 

[fergie]

I do the opposite and train hard nearly every day. Some form of hard riding in relation to the racing coming up. I mostly do time trials and track pursuiting and I would class myself a weekend warrior as my own racing is varies between 4-7th priority so I like to make the most of my cycling time available. Each ride is somewhere between levels 4-5 and if I have some decent road races coming up will build up the volume carefully so I am doing at least one ride a week over race duration and at average race power. If my coaching and study permit and I get a good run of training I make really good progress and the weight comes off. Some people look at base as 3000-5000 miles under the belt. I look at it as lean, healthy, uninjured and a good 60min power (or at least ability to push hard aerobically for 60min). YMMV.

I have recently been thrown into some longer races that I haven't had sufficient time to prepare for so recovery has been longer. So last weekends race took so much out of me that I have only done one hard session this week. So while not going backwards, I'm not going forwards either. Plan was before getting sick in our winter to slowly build up the volume of going hard time to 3 hours so doing 3 hour races would take so much out of me. But life happens.

 

[curby]

when I was young:

Mon 2hrs easy, chatting and making fun of whoever got dropped Sun
Tues Long road ride 3-4hrs, fast when the feeling strikes (tailwind, subtle descents) shut it down before it hurts
Wed Intervals; Early season: 10min/2min x 5 Mid season: 4 x 15min or 3 x 20min
Thurs Sprint workout or motorpacing
Friday Long road ride 3-5hrs: Climbing
Saturday Tune up ride, double check all equip on race bike for Sun
Sun Training Race Criterium (1hr plus a lap) attack, go for primes, ride at the front (no sitting in, since you ride easy on Sat and Mon)

this was 'seat of your pants' training, no heart rate monitors or power meters... although some of us would use the old resting/rising pulse to gauge how hard to train on a particular day...

all's'miles

curby

 

[Bailsibub]

Leanman, you sound motivated.

When you say 'good' training program, I'm guessing you mean 'effective' (because 'good' to me would be so far from effective! -think lots of beer, noodling around on the bike path, etc.)

For me, level 4 training is the cornerstone to an effective program. That means doing threshold work, in some form or another, multiple days a week, all season. It could be 2X20, 3X20, up to 5X20 even. It could also just be 1X60. The intensities would be 92 or 93% FTP to over 100% FTP.

If you're recovering well, you could do these workouts on back-to-back days. I'll do three days of threshold work (with Sprints and also Microintervals thrown in at the end of the workouts once a week) and then take a rest day usually.

I'm also on a racing team, and while I would prefer to address my weaknesses by just training on my own most of the season...we are required to train together, so there's that ride once a week, too. But the training stress of that isn't usually so high that I can't recover and do more threshold work on the next day.

I consider this all my 'base'. When the racing season is coming up, I do weekly VO2 workouts for a couple months. If I didn't get them in team rides, I'd do 1-minute flat out efforts (but I get them in pre-race period team rides, so....) This work seems to give my FTP a little boost going into races.

If I were you, I'd find a way to get a powermeter and WKO. Sure, they aren't cheap, but the prices for a used Powertap these days are doable for most. It's all about commitment and investment. By investing in yourself and your training with a powermeter, you will gain much more. Just like you commit your time to your training, sometimes you've gotta commit a little bit of cash. It pays off.