Some thoughts on training to race.

 A number of people have asked me about training. I am somewhat reticent to wade into an area that has been pretty exhaustively covered, and so the thoughts below are my own experience. I do not profess to be an expert, nor a scientist. The results of my training you can read about in my other posts.

Context and backdrop are both probably useful here. My background is as a cyclist. I raced 20 years ago, and was schooled in the old-fashioned way of training – miles, miles and more miles. Having come back to the sport in the last few years, I have tried to overlay this with some of the more recent scientific thinking. I own and use a power meter. I do interval training regularly. I also run, swim, use a power plate and lots of other unconventional “cross” training.

This year I have had one very specific aim – to road race – and so my training has been structured accordingly. If you want to ride sportives, or time trials, or even just to get fit then there may be better ways of doing so I started training for cycling more seriously late in 2010. I was already reasonably fit having run a sub 1-30 half marathon, and cycled extensively for fun during the course of 2010.

I approached winter the old fashioned way. By that I mean I rode miles - lots of them, and not particularly quickly. A typical week would be 150-200 miles between November and February. Many of those miles were on my commute to work. It is about 30 miles, has 1600ft of climbing, was often VERY cold, and was done on a empty stomach. I would also run once a week, swim at least a mile once a week, and do a core session in the gym. Typically I would not ride a long way at the weekend as family commitments make the time away difficult for me.

Some people like to vary their training around different routes. I don’t, as it means I can get away with thinking less, and also means I can directly compare from ride to ride. I perhaps have three standard circuits from home with distances varying from 30 miles, to 60 miles. There are various loops I can add too to make up almost any distance. All the routes contain at least 3 decent climbs which I always ride hard. I almost always time my rides, and have good records of my best times over the various distances.

Around the end of February as I looked forward to my first race, I started to vary my training a bit, so did less cross training, and more intensive bike specific work. To my mind there are several elements you need for road racing, and you will only win if you can do one or two of them well. Clearly you need to be able to ride 60-80 miles at a reasonably pace. I suspect that 95% of people who start the race have the capability to do this, and yet 20%+ will get dropped, and all but one won’t win. In my race reports I have tried to explain my aim for a particular race. In some races that aim was simply to get round and finish.

Races are typically decided in relatively short periods of time, when attacks happen. It might be the wind direction on a particular part of the course. It might be a climb, or a drag, or a sprint out of a dead turn. Or, it could be a bunch sprint. What all of these events have in common is that they will be very hard, and relatively short. As you move up to higher levels of competition so the intensity gets higher and the period longer but the basic premise remains.

Including some sort of intervals in your training is the best way to replicate the maximum heart rate / recover / max HR of a race. The mistake many people make is not pushing themselves hard enough in training, and intervals are perhaps the best way to do so. I would typically do one or two interval sessions a week, to the point where I was riding myself to a standstill. I have three sorts of interval sessions to keep it a bit varied. Intervals hurt a lot, and will make you want to vomit.

1)In the gym / turbo trainer. 5 x 30s at max effort, with 30 seconds recovery between each, followed by 5 x45s, recovery as before, then 5 x 60s, recovery as before. Then repeat in higher gear / with more resistance. I would combine the last 2 one minute sessions into one massive 2 minute effort.

2) Hill repeats. I have three climbs and would do 5 repeats on each. They are all about 2 minutes of effort. The first is about 6-8% gradient with a max of maybe 10%. The second is shorter and much steeper – max 26%.  The third somewhere between the two with a max gradient of about 16%.

3) Spinning classes. Although full of women who have vacuum packed themselves into ¾ length shorts they are good fun and can be very good training. Remember, the point is to push yourself as hard as possible, as it is particularly easy to be distracted into not working hard enough.

The latest fad in cycling is for power meters. My view is that they represent another string to the bow, rather than being the holy grail. At the risk of repeating myself ad-nauseam, the issue that most people have with training is thinking quantity is a substitute for quality. 40 minutes of intervals is likely to be far more beneficial than another 4 hours at 18mph. That said a power meter is useful for measuring progress, or on the Turbo Trainer.

There are two old adages that I think are apposite; Firstly, train hard, race easy which I think it is fair to say I’ve covered. Secondly, the best way to get race fit is to race. Most people find it easier to push themselves with a number on their back, and in doing so get fitter. My advice to most people with a basic level of fitness is to enter a race. Enjoy it. Try and learn some racecraft. Have realistic goals (you are unlikely to win first time out). And then do it again. Have fun, and good luck.