Trackliche

Right on. Welcome to the Sprint Club, then. So what's your question, exactly? If you want to know whether or not to ride lots of miles in order to train for your new event, the research says no.
Read the rest of the UpUpUp site. The first few sections telL the story: You don't gotta ride far, you just gotta ride fast.

TC

TDinBristol

I'm on it - that is certainly an amazing resource, as all of you on this site have been. I guess the specific question is more what people are typically doing (not pros or elites, but maybe people with jobs, families, etc). Is fitting in 15 milers three days a week (on top of 2X weekly lifting and 2x weekly specific sprint workouts on a turbo or at the velodrome) too little? Is doing a 50 miler club ride on Sunday more than what people do? Is jumping into a club 10-mile time trial Monday nights just for fun impinging the effect of the speed work? I'll go through Up!Up!Up! Thanks!

Trackliche

The typical response is "everybody is different". There's no truer statement. This applies in particular to someone who isn't necessarily 100% focused on a single event. If you're 100% on the 500 (or sprint events in general), then yeah; that's WAY too much road.
For instance, I'm all into sprint events. That's the only riding/training I do. 70% of my efforts are 30sec or less. 20% are 30 to 65 seconds. The other 10% that are over 65 seconds are probably because I lost track of time approaching the 65 second point. That said, this is not my social outlet- I ride to train, not to chit chat. I'm 100% focused on sprint biking. It's a different sport than road riding- I'd might as well be playing soccer or whatever, so far as the local roadies are concerned.

If you aren't 100% focused on the 500, then do whatever you want. If you like riding road and you like doing 500s and you like Monday night TTs and you like group rides with the boys, then do that. Understand you're likely not living up to your *full* potential in the 500, but who cares?

I vote you dedicate as much time as you find enjoyable. Not a second more or a moment less.

TC

BTW edit: Most trackies have families and jobs. Even the pro guys are regular joes. The trackies who are at the level of a "Continental Pro" roadie likely have zero support, next to zero sponsorship, and zero notoriety outside of their regional velodromes. Hell Francois Pervis (current 200 and Kilo WR holder, multiple World Champion) is supported by his wife. It ain't all wine, women, and song.

carleton

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Most dedicated masters train about 15-25 hours/week. Almost all of those who specialize in Sprinting lift weights. That 20-25hrs includes gym, track, and road time. So, if you are gonna keep your road time, then you will have to take it from your gym and/or track time.

As, Trackliche mentions, road miles will diminish your strength and power. Studies have shown that there are 3 basic muscle fiber types: Slow Twitch, Fast Twitch, and an adaptable type that can go either way depending on how you train them.

Our basic muscle fiber type percentages won't change for the Slow or Fast twitch, but the aim of training is to get all of the adaptable type to move in the direction we desire. If your desire is to specialize in the 2nd shortest event in the sport*, then you'd probably want those to go towards fast twitch.

*Man 1 of team sprint is shortest. Flying 200M is not. Flying 200M is a 1 minute effort that is only timed during the last few seconds

Riding long road rides will make it difficult to lift heavy and vice-versa. Plus it will also kill your power and speed. Some elite sprinters only ride road as active recovery for an hour or so or during the off-season for fat burning. Some also ride local crits for fun and to supplement training.

For all of you guys out there who ride lots of road miles/week and are really fast 500M riders...you could be faster

Team Sprint and 500M are pure power events...more so than the Flying 200M and Kilo.

carleton

I know that it's difficult to "give up" your road miles and live the lazy sprinter life. But, that's what it takes to be as fast as you can.

As gtrob says:
Plus, as a Sprinter, you get to eat chocolate ...DURING THE SEASON...between events, no less!

dunderhi

I'm an enduro and I've been eating plenty of chocolate during the season. Oh wait a minute... I now think know what I have been doing wrong.

taras0000

Simply put, you only need to do enough aerobic work to be able to do an effective sprint workout. What does this mean? Well, if you've been riding for years, then you'll have built up quite an aerobic base that will allow you do more work in any given workout. If you're fit, you can do more sprints before you get tired. If you're out of shape, doing one or two good sprints before you start to dwindle isn't going to make for an effective sprint workout. Depending on your muscle make up, 5-10 efforts spread out over a long session is where you will see gains. If you're fit enough to pull off consistent times over 5-10 reps, then all you need to do is maintain your aerobic base. You can easily do this with 1 or 2 short but intense rides per week. 15 miles would be fine for this. Ideally you would get your intensity through a FEW (emphasis on few, don't do too much work, it takes away from your ability to recover over the course of the week) short intervals, with the rest of the ride done at an easy pace. Really look into the UP, UP, UP! article to gain an insight into how sprint training works.

Quick tip - When Hoy was starting to make inroads into the podiums at the Elite level (he was world class, but not knocking of podiums for quite some time when he was in his early 20's), the Brits were cutting their workouts short at either of two things: any PB achieved in training; or any drop in time/wattage. The idea being was that you just got better than you ever were, so no point in tapping further into reserves that could be better used to recover. If you PB'd in the first go right after your warm-up, your workout was done. The idea was to train speed, not train yourself to ride while tired. There are more effective ways to target work capacity without taking away from speed training and recovery. If your performance dropped off, STOP. To keep going only trained you to race slower while fighting through fatigue. Again, better ways to train that without detracting from speed.

Trackliche

Now there's something I've never been able to figure out. How in the heck are sprint guys getting in 20-25 hours and still doing quality efforts? Even with a good warmup each session and loooong rest periods, I rarely find my workouts past 2.5 hrs. Even then, Proper CNS regeneration calls for 36-48 hours between craziness, so it's not like that can happen seven days a week.
Including gym time and the very occasional toodly road ride, I've found it tough to much exceed half that amount of time. Even then, those are big volume weeks that make me fear the Type IIb to Type IIa conversion that studies show come with volume, two-a-days and not enough recovery between efforts and sessions.
You got any insight, Carleton? Anyone else?

TC

Trackliche

Woo! This was always one of my favorite topics over on FGF. It would get heated! It's tough for text to come off with the friendly discussion tone I'm trying to use. Keep that in mind here:
What is your rationale for your statement?
It's my understanding that the whole point of high intensity, short time efforts is to train the alactic and glycolytic energy systems. Or alternatively, to train like you fight. Recovery from each effort relies on the recovery of those energy systems, not on the ability to run aerobically. Power lifters don't run- they lift. Power riders don't ride- they sprint.
What's your take, taras0000?

TC

carleton

20-25 hours includes prep, travel, and breakdown, too. From the time you walk out the door of your home till the time you are out of the shower. Basically, how much time is missing from your life

Gym days are easier because you don't have to deal with loading up a bike, unloading at the track, etc... It's usually just travel to the gym, lift, travel home, and maybe a shower.

Even a 2hr road ride takes 3-3.5 hours depending on what it takes to get going. Some can ride from their driveway, others need to pack up the car and drive to an area to start their rides.

EDIT:

Then there are power files to analyze, forums to read, etc...

Trackliche

Hahahaha- Sprinter Lifestyle for teh win. Heck, if time pondering my kilo bars setup or surfing on here counts as time missing from my life, I'm probably up to 30 or 35 hours a week. I would think you're still getting in way more "training" than me, though, Carleton. ;-p

TC

carleton

Hahahaha...

Well, the saying used to be, "Chamois-time is ride-time." Now it could be, "Forum-time is ride-time"!

I came up with those estimates based on what me and my friends would notice. For example, a typical race night's events would start at 7:30PM and end at around 9PM. Paceline at 7PM. I'd arrive at like 6PM to do my own warmup and not feel rushed. Traffic is 30-45 mins. Getting dressed, packing a bag, and loading up the bike in the car is 30 minutes. Racing ends at 9PM, then I have to pack my gear up and load the car (15 mins) there is the drive back 30 mins no traffic. Add 1 hour if I join the gang for pizza afterwards.

So, from the time I started moving at around 5PM till the time I got home at around 10PM is 5 hours. That's a typical race day. Training days would be less.

dunderhi

Some of us old still guys still think chamois-time is ride-time, so my jaw dropped when you said 20-25hrs per week for a sprinter. Using my method, I'm doing 10-12hrs/wk as an enduro. Let me add up the hours using your method: I start to load up the RV around noon on Friday, drive 2.5hrs to Ttown, train on the track for about an hour, eat, watch the Friday night races, sleep, get breakfast at the farmers market, warm up on the track, race for a few hours, do some volunteer work at the track afterwards, eat & sleep again, get on the track in the morning followed by a road ride, eat, and then the 2.5hr drive home. That's more than 50hrs of riding Fri-Sun without including my weekday training. That sounds much more impressive than my lowly 10hrs/wk.

Trackliche

Alright. I'm up to 40 hours a week now. I should probably cut back on my riding time so I'll have plenty of time to "train"!!

TC

Trackliche

Hahaha. Love it. We're basically Elites now, dunderhi!

All in good fun,

TC

carleton

I guess I should have rephrased "train" to something like, "set aside 20-25 hours/week for training and related activities".

Ask your significant other and they will be able to offer a much more accurate estimate of how much time you spend doing "stupid bike stuff"

carleton

I'm curious to know what kind of start-to-finish times you guys have for various workouts (road, track, race day, gym).

Time yourself from being at home and the minute you decide to switch out of street clothes for a workout till you get back home, shower, and you put street clothes back on again.

A Sunday road ride was always another 1.5 hours (on top of ride time) of:

- Changing into a kit
- Filling water bottles
- Loading the bike on the car
- Travel to the riding trail
- Unloading the bike
- Ride
- Load bike on the car
- Travel home
- Unload the bike
- Shower

It's the little stuff that adds up.

This is why switching to a high-end spin bike makes training a lot more accessible. $1,000 to $2,000 would be a great investment for someone who simply can't get away from home for several hours at a time due to family or work reasons.

queerpunk

Yeah; for me a race night is 4pm to 11pm, including driving, getting there really early, warming up, racing (starts at 7pm), packing, and getting home.

A road ride is light on the overhead. I can get ready and out the door in five or ten minutes, and be doing intervals twenty minutes after that.

A trip to the track to train, though, is an all-day affair similar to racing - packing up a lot of stuff, 40-min drive to the track, gather stuff from lockers, set up, warm up, start training, et cetera.

Trackliche

Yeah, ditto here. I used to live 30 min from a track, and would drive out there several days a week. Now that I'm several hours from a track, I get way higher quality training for the time invested. I'd say I used to spend an equal amount of time just packing/driving to all the time I spent ON the bike or in the gym. Now most most most of my training time is actually training; no traffic, packing, and getting caught talking with friends.
Don't get me wrong; I loved training at the track, but efficient it was not.

Right now, I'm doing 5-6 hours of actual bike time (including rest between efforts) and probably an additional 4 or so of stretching, showering, dressing/undressing that's specifically related to bike training. Come spring, it'll be closer to 10 of bike, but still 4-6 of misc. This is not including race nights or the monthly track travel session.

TC

Trackliche

Couldn't agree more. As much as I hate to say it, I love the ease of just hopping on my Cateye (leave the track bike mounted in it most of the winter) and banging out my workout. Between efforts I can do work, surf this forum, check my eBay auctions, etc.
Come to think of it, if it weren't for working on my tan I might not even ride outside in the summer!

TC

queerpunk

one of the best things i ever had for winter training was a basement with a bike set up on a trainer, rollers right next to it, and a squat lamp next to that.
being able to cut down on the 'overhead' time of setting up, or figuring out how to train - hell, just having a space to do it and feel comfortable doing it - was a huge reduction of the cognitive load of training. i had a space. i could go down there and train; and then come up and make dinner.

Trackliche

And how did you find this affected your event performance? ((Mind out of the gutter here, please!))
IOW, did you see that the training setup seemed to pay off? Did you come into spring with a higher level of fitness than before?

I'm currently working on this setup. My trainer/rollers are good, and I'm waffling on the lifting setup; it's a big commitment in money and especially in space.
My gut says the emotional payoff (your "cognitive load of training" is a phrase I'd like to adopt, please!) would be worth it alone. I'm the type to get really down when the gym gets super crowded for a few weeks or the weather is really crummy for a while. Did you see a big quantitative as well as the qualitative effect there?

TC

wens

I have a big increase in frequency of completing workouts as planned when it's easy and doesn't require any thought. That's actually what I've found the biggest benefit of having a coach, not having to sit down every Monday and plan what I'm doing that week. Just open up training peaks and execute.

gycho77

Because I live two hours away from a track, I barely visit the track.
So I spend my time in gym and my house
-Change to tennis shorts(they are very short compare to other. so it's super comfortable when I am exercising)
-roller training
-Go to apartment gym(jump lunges with weights(35lbs each), and other)
-take shower
If it's warm outside, I would go outside ride for 1~2hours
The closest gym is like 4miles away from my house and I don't have a car.
Thanks to apartment gym, I go to the gym everyday

queerpunk

Totally positively.

I had always struggled with consistent training through the winter. Having a dedicated setup was a huge help; but, also having the motivation to use it was necessary. I had clear goals and a lot of ambition; having a convenient setup just made it a lot easier to implement my action plan.

Feel free to adopt the phrase "cognitive load of training!" It's a lot. Sticking to a schedule, incorporating it with other responsibilities, planning to get all your crap ready and go train and come back and shower and feed yourself and still be a person - it's demanding. it's hard. Adding in having to travel, or other logistical difficulties - these ding the motivation. Anything that makes it easier to just DO the damn work is, well, huge. That's why pros have staff...