duncanblkthrne

Been racing for 4 years now.
I'm trying to write myself a training plan using Base Building for Cyclists and The Cyclist's Training Bible.

I had a coach for 3 years writing my training plan for me, but I absolutely can't afford that anymore so I need to do it myself now. I understand how to create the plan and weekly schedules, but where I'm getting stuck is determining the number and length of the intervals themselves.

Please don't tell me "just ride your bike", or "ride as hard as you can every time you ride", or "you don't need a plan". I've done very well with a structured, targeted approach and would like to continue doing things that way.

Thanks.

Drumnagorrach

I find that I improve by using hiit a couple of times during the week and riding 50 odd miles one of the days at weekend. I use the weekend ride to asses how well the weeks hiit has been. My 30 second "burst" has to be so hard as to only just be achievable,at 15 seconds I can't spin the pedals above 60 but just push on barely able to turn the pedals at the end and feeling like I'm suffocating from lack of oxygen,fairly unpleasant for 30 seconds or so of my recovery time ,but it passes.
It works for me,have a look at the work Mac master university in Ontario has done on the subject ,start off with maybe 3 reps with 4 mins in between for recovery and reduce the recovery time each week ,just give yourself time for your breathing to return to near normal .
Just my opinion,

duncanblkthrne

Thanks for the info, I'll check that out.

**************

Perhaps I should expand on my original question:

What resources do cycling coaches use to create a training program?
That's what I'm really after here; I would much rather learn to be my own cycling coach, even if I can at some point afford a coach again, rather than pay $100 per month (or more!) for someone to do it for me.

As an example of the type of training program I'd like to be able to create/maintain for myself, here's an example of what an early base training week has looked like:

Sunday: Long ride (3-5 hours, Zone 2, a few thousand feet of elevation gain)
Monday: Strength/flexibility training in the gym
Tuesday: 4x10x5 Zone 2 50-60rpm
Wednesday: Strength/flexibility training in the gym
Thursday: 4x10x5 Zone 2 80-90rpm
Friday: Strength/flexibility training in the gym
Saturday: 5x12x5 Zone 3 70-80rpm

Of course there is a full season training plan outline behind this, and everything is broken down into 4-5 week blocks (with the last week being a recovery week); all of that I can figure out. I already have an effective strength and flexibility training program. It's the number of intervals and length of intervals per training ride on the bike that I need to figure out.

I currently have "Base Building for Cyclists" and "The Cyclists Training Bible". I don't seem to be getting all the information I need from just those; what other resources do I need to figure out the rest?

Carbonfiberboy 

Everything you need to know is in Friel, except for your personal response to training. That's the service a coach helps you with and getting to understand that is what holds the self-coached back. Having only one data point, one's self, makes for slow progress in understanding. This is the essence of your question.

So Friel says, train your weaknesses, race your strengths. What are your weaknesses? What do you need to improve? Friel gives a pretty good explanation of what different workouts do. He explains about time and reps in the Planning Workouts chapter.

The BF recipe book is here:
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ut-recipe-book

Carbonfiberboy 

Or you could try something like this for Build 1:

Sunday: Long ride (3-5 hour group ride, Zone 2-5a, a few thousand feet of elevation gain)
Monday: OFF
Tuesday: 1-1.5 hrs. Z1 with 15'-45' continuous pedaling at 115-120, Z2. Strength/flexibility training in the gym after = 1-3 sets of 30 reps per Friel, circuits.
Wednesday: 1-1.5 hrs. Stepmill in the gym, Z2
Thursday: 1-2 hrs. Z2 endurance ride or spin class. Strength/flexibility training in the gym after, same as above
Friday: .5-1 hr. Stepmill in the gym, Z2.
Saturday: OFF

Do a couple of 4 week mesocycles of this and you'll notice the difference.

duncanblkthrne

I've read and re-read that entire chapter. The closest it comes to talking about number of intervals and length of intervals is "duration, high/medium/low".

I have 3rd Edition of that book. Does the most current (4th Edition) say something different in that chapter?

There has to be some sort of starting-point for determining number and duration of intervals, am I right? From there you progress them dependent entirely on how you respond to them, right? What's the procedure, here?

Carbonfiberboy 

I have the second edition, c. 1996. F.E. A2 SE Intervals: "do five work intervals of three- to six-minutes duration each. Build to the 5b zone on each . . ." Each workout in my book has similar directions. I would start at whatever level you feel you can do well, and then try to progress. If you guess too high, you won't get 5, right? So then you know to cut them back a bit. You have to coach yourself and decide on your own where to start and how to progress. You can also look at the link I gave, which has some fairly precise directions.

duncanblkthrne

OK.

If someone needed some electronics designed and built, or some fairly simple software/firmware written, I can do that sort of thing in my sleep. This stuff? It's still such a total black-box to me, and that's frustrating.

Thank you for the help. The struggle to understand continues..

Carbonfiberboy 

Maybe this will help a little or confuse you more. Base takes the longest time to build, so we start with that. Muscular strength is probably next slowest, so that's next. Then we get into LT work. Then zone 5 work. Then sprints. It's really not quite that simple, because it's good to mix it up and not just pyramid it. Between now and The Season, I usually do a couple of builds, then start over. Lessens the boredom.

Another thing that's rather new is that it turns out Friel was a pioneer in training the amateur athlete, the average Joe. What he did was to take a pro's training schedule and methods and just reduce the time spent on everything proportionally to what the athlete's time availability or goal was. But it turns out that doesn't produce enough high end to achieve the best fitness. So you'll notice on my rewritten plan of yours, I say go to 5a on the weekend rides, not just stay in zone 2. That's been proven more successful. I'll do .75-1.25 hrs. of zone 4 or sub-threshold work every week, all season long. I'll do some sprinting, too, just a little, on .5 - 1 minute hills. That's very stimulating and won't kill your base training as long as you don't do too much of it, just a couple sprints/week.

duncanblkthrne

No, none of that confuses me at all. I get the "big picture" just fine; I can write an annual outline, I understand periodization, mesocycles, etc. I can be honest with myself about where I'm lacking and therefore what needs to be addressed. I can put together what areas of fitness need to be worked on for a particular day, what days of the week things should go in, and have a very successful Fall strength training program in the gym (I can leg press more than 3 times my bodyweight). It's just really been the two parameters of an interval training workout: sets, and duration that are tripping me up. I'm not a big fan of things that are so "organic" as determining those, my brain isn't wired so good for it. I suppose it'll take time and experience to be good at determining those factors, but in the meantime I don't want to screw myself up and either end up having a crappy racing season where despite my best efforts I'm falling off the back all the time, or end up in overtraining syndrome, or worse, injured.

Carbonfiberboy 

S'good. You can adjust your program to fix weaknesses. You'll have a fine season. Right now I'm sledding 90, real slow. In March, I'll be sledding 600+ at 150 lbs.

Hermes

I totally get the problem. It is not lack of literary resources or ability to assimilate the information but, in my case, the lack of a database of athletes' responses to programs based upon athlete type, goals and personality. In other words, tactical weekly training plans are based upon experience with many athletes and how they respond. Hence, I read Friel's stuff and others and could not turn it into an operational racing and training plan for myself. Hence, I hired a coach.

My take is that it is not easy to do and many coaches use a coach for their racing.

What I suggest is that you take the training plan and database that you have from the previous three years where you had a coach and lay that out. Then put in the races / events for the upcoming year and see how that compares with the past.

Based on your response to various weekly training routines, adjust the old program to accommodate the new racing goals.

duncanblkthrne

That's more or less what I'm thinking is going to be my best bet.
Last year, I used the same exact 3-year-old training plan, and just added time to each interval (about 10-15%) and resigned myself to doing them the best I could, and if it seemed like it was too much training load, re-evaluate. Turns out that was fine, but I'm also cognizant that maybe I could do more still without pushing myself over the cliff into overtraining. What I can do with a totaly from-scratch program is use how well I responded to the intervals I was doing and use that, in some form, as a starting point.

I think I've got it figured out enough now that I can hack together a workable program. I can always make adaptations/adjustments/course corrections along the way if it's either seeming to be too hard or too easy.
I also think I need to be less literal about this. There is much more wiggle room with this than I have wanted to admit.

Hermes

I have found that there is a lot of flexibility in training programs. For example, one can to 2 sets of (4 to 6) 90 second anaerobic efforts with 5 minutes rest between each interval and 10 minutes between each set. I might do 4 intervals on the the first set and maybe only 3 on the second or maybe all 6 depending how I feel. Some days the chain is gone and other days it feels like a gorilla jumped on my back.

I do not know if you have a power meter but the power manager in WKO is great for managing training stress. It can also be done with Trimp scores for heart rate. Good luck and have a great season.