touch looking at stems

Touch's training log

The time has come to get my head down, stop looking at the pretty scenery, and focus on that stem.
It's winter training time and it's all about the numbers on the garmin.

Starting a thread here as i promised in the cycling thread that i would post details of my training plan and it's going to be a bit big to post in that thread.

I'v never followed any sort of training plan before. I have always ridden as hard as i felt like, and stayed on the couch when i didnt feel like it.

So, this will be a big change for me. I'm going to follow a very structured training plan based on the "Cyclist Training Bible" book by Joe Friel. Every ride has a specific aim (hence needing to look at the number on the garmin a lot). The last part of this year and into next year mainly focuses on heart rate and riding a lot at a low intensity. As we progress into next year and towards the race season the focus moved to power numbers and increasing the intensity.

I have a rough annual plan and will be filling in the details of daily workouts on a weekly basis.
An image of the full annual plan is here.

This shows the hours and focus of training for each week of the year (weeks start on mondays).
The detailed plans for each week showing daily workouts are then created based on the weekly hours from this chart.
I'm doing the weekly plans on a week-by-week basis so all that i have at the moment is week1 (i started on monday) i'll try and remember to post the new plan each week.

This is how week1 ('Prep') is going to go:

Monday.
-('Endurance1' workout) 1 hour, easy pace, small ring, high cadence.
-weights session* (weights plan will be in next post)

Tuesday.
-('Endurance2' workout)1.5 hours, zone 2 heart rate, small ring, high cadence

Wednesday.
-('Speed1' workout) 1.5 hours, 'spin-ups' intervals of max cadence for as long as sustainable, 3 mins rest.

Thursday.
-('Endurance2' workout) 2.5 hours, zone 2 heart rate, small ring, high cadence

Friday.
-weight session

Saturday.
-('Endurance2' workout)1.5 hours, zone 2 heart rate, small ring, high cadence

Sunday.
-('Endurance2' workout) 3 hours, zone2 heart rate, seated hills


A lot of this probably doesnt mean a lot to you if you havnt read the book. It's worth a read. Rather than telling you what to do, it gives you the knowledge to design your own training plan. Feel free to follow my plan if you want to but i have designed it around my goals, weaknesses and timescales so you'd be better off to create something tailored to you.

Weights plan

Looking at the annual plan image in the previous post, you can see that my weights sessions (detailed in the 'Weights' column) are split into 4 phases:

AA (anatomical adaption), 2 weeks
Through the race season, I wont be lifting at all. The time for building muscle is through the winter. This means that it should be around 6 months since i was last in a gym (realistically, it's about 3 years for me because i didnt have a plan last winter). The adaption phase is low-weight, high-volume to get back into the way of lifting. 4-5 sets of 20-25 reps.

MT (maximum transition), 2 weeks
Gradually reducing the volume of lifts whilst increasing the weight preparing for the big sessions to come.

MS (maximum strength), 4 weeks
Big weights at low reps to build as much as possible.

SM (strength maintenance)
Reduced to 1 session per week. coming to a complete stop by the 'Build1' period of my year.


As before, the workouts are planned on a weekly basis. This is the plan for the first couple of sessions in the adaption phase:
1 Hip extension (squat, leg press, or step-up)
2 Lat pull-down
3 Hip extension (choose different exercise from #1)
4 chest press or push-ups
5 seated row
6 standing row
7 abdominal

In.

Do you even rest day?

Prompted by some questions in the road bike thread, i realised that i havnt really given much background info about myself. So here goes.

I'm 25, 6ft tall with quite a bit of extra weight at 80kg (aiming to lose a bit before race season but my weight loss/diet isnt the main focus for this thread so i'll leave that out).
It was about 5-6 years ago that i got my first road bike, persuaded by a uni pal who got me to join the local cycling club (which is by far the best way for beginners to improve). This season that i'm training for (2014) will be my 4th year racing. My first race was in 2011 and i mainly did time trials that year. 2012 was roughly an even mix between road racing and time trialling and i found that i enjoyed bunch races much more. So 2013 was almost exclusively road racing.
I moved to Category 3 in 2012 and i'm still there. (Only got 20 points of the required 40 to move up to Cat2 this year) Moving up to Cat2 will be one of the main aims of this thread.

Disco Boy said:

Do you even rest day?

Click to expand...

There isnt a day where i do nothing, no. There are days where the intensity is very low which are 'active recovery'.
It's not so obvious at the moment as i am in the 'Prep' phase which isnt too taxing anyway but if you look through the annual plan you'll see that the next phases all come in blocks of 4 weeks split into 3weeks of increasing workload and 1 week with a much reduced number. That final week is the rest+recovery week (but still 'active recovery', so still riding the bike but at a lower intensity and duration than the other weeks)

Fair enough. Active recovery really does work I have found.

What is your stretching and massage(/foam rolling) schedule like?

At the moment i'm only stretching for the gym sessions.
I have a foam roller which i'll need when for the harder sessions on the bike but at the moment i dont think it's needed.

Yesterday for example, was a zone2 ride, which is 127-140bpm for me, and the hardest part was trying to go easy enough to keep the HR down, it really feels far too easy just now. (but i suspect i wont be saying the same thing in a few months time )

I did a similar level of training last season (2012) to improve my time trialling.

Had a coach who gave me a training plan each week, then I sent off my power data at the end of each week so he could tweak it etc. Typical week was 3 days turbo, 1 day recover, 1 day hill repeats on the road and one long endurance ride.

There's no doubt it improved my TT'ing a great deal and I went from finishing in the bottom third of the timesheets to consistent top 10's. Also improved my general cycling fitness for long sportives like the Etape Du Dales.

For the first 5 months I loved it - seeing the numbers improve was really motivating, but then when summer came I just completely lost it. Couldn't motivate myself as the numbers dropped and basically fell out of love with cycling for quite some time as every ride was just chasing numbers, and when the numbers don't say what you want them to it can be hard to keep going.

I'm enjoying it again now and getting 100 miles a week in, but whilst I will be putting together a plan for next season I'm not sure I'd do anything quite so regimented again - sometimes it's just nice to ride your bike and smell the roses

Ok, 1 week done, pretty much exactly to plan:
Monday.
Planned: 'Endurance1', 1 hour, little ring, zone1 HR + weights
This is intended as a recovery ride from the longer ride on sunday but as it was my starting point, there was nothing to recover from. Still followed the plan but it felt very easy.
Weights session was hard. It's about 4 years since i was into weightlifing but i still have a rough idea of what my max weights were. I was supposed to be doing lots of reps with light weights (about 50% of my max). I calculated roughly 30-35% of the max values i used to lift, allowing for some loss of strength over the years.
Leg press felt fine, my legs are pretty strong from cycling but the arms/shoulders exercises were far too hard. I tried to push through it anyway when i should have reduced the weight. Bit annoyed because i thought the gym didnt have any proper free weights (they had dumbells and benches, but no squat racks), went off to research other gyms.

Tuesday
Planned: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone 2 HR
Finding it difficult to keep HR down on hills. Bottom gear, as slow as i can go without falling off just about does it (also difficult to keep HR up when going down long descents). Should probably stick to flatter routes for this ride.

Wednesday.
Planned: 'Speed1', 1.5 hours, 'spin-ups'.
Got this a little wrong. Misread the instructions. Did reps of rest, max cadence, rest max cadence, rest, max cadence.
Should have done rest, build gradually to max cadence over 1 min, rest, build gradually to max cadence over 1 min, rest.

Thursday.
Planned: 'Endurance2', 2.5 hours, zone 2 HR.
Ended up getting home from work late, had to go to tesco, by the time i got everything sorted and ready to get out it was almost 9pm. Still got out and did the 2.5 hours, didnt get in untill after 11. Need to get things more organised for the longer thursday rides.

Friday.
Planned: weight session
Much better than monday's session. Managed to find the proper weights room hidden away in the basement. Got the weight a bit better for the arm/shoulder exercises.

Saturday.
Planned: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone 2 HR
Nice day on saturday, left it a bit late and it started raining just as i was going to go out. Decided i would do an indoor session on my spin bike. It was much easier to keep my HR in the right zone but perceived effort is considerably higher - probably due to the heat from riding indoors, i was pouring sweat. Not as boring as i thought it would be, set my laptop up watching Montalbano on iplayer This works fine for the steady-rate workouts that i'm doing now, but i dont think watching tv will be an option later when i need to do intervals, etc.

Sunday.
Planned: 'Endurance2', 3 hours, zone2
A few of us were invited through for a training ride and coffee with a few guys from another local club. Nice day, nice route on some roads that were new to me but a bit too hard for my liking. Average HR was in zone2 but there were times where i was well above that. Riding in a group isnt great for riding in a specific HR zone, as i'm not in control of the speed but i think that it's better overall to ride with others to keep the motivation up rather than ride on my own and focus on HR the whole time. There's no silly racing at this time of year anyway, everybody is riding at a slower pace and getting the base miles in, just sometimes it's not quite as slow as i would like.

Overall thoughts for this week:
Feels too easy at times. I guess i should enjoy it because it'll probably get a lot harder in the next couple of months. I did question myself when i thought things were too easy "What if i fully commit to this plan and it turns out to be a waste of time?". How and when will i know if it's working for me. Thinking about it logically, as long as i do all of the planned workouts, it cant really be any worse than what i'v done over previous winters so i dont have anything to lose.

Plan for next week:
Not much change from this week. Going to try to introduce some cross-training rather than purely on-bike workouts (the current phase of building an aerobic base doesnt need to be done on a bike).
Also going to do a cyclocross race on the sunday. It doesnt fit in with the low-intensity base-building but i had entered it before i made the plan and there are 3-4 other clubmates racing so i'm going to do it anyway. (I'll be doing 1 other CX race as well on 1st December, but the higher intensity racing should fit into the plan better by that stage anyway).

So, this is the schedule for next week:

Monday 28-Oct: 'Endurance1', 1 hour, zone1 (probably swimming) +weights
Tuesday 29-Oct: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone 2
Wednesday 30-Oct: 'Speed1', 1.5 hours, 'spin-ups'
Thursday 31-Oct: 'Endurance2', 2.5 hours, zone 2
Friday 1-Nov: weight session (no bike)
Saturday 2-Nov: 'Endurance2, 1.5 hours, zone 2 (possibly swimming or running)
Sunday 3-Nov: Cyclocross race. 1 hour, maximum effort.

Are you not training with your powertap? Would be good to see some figures with your updates?

What are your goals weight wise? I know you've said it's not the main focus but it plays an important part to performance so would be nice to see how that’s progressing a long side your training.

At the moment, most of what i'm doing is focused on building an aerobic base. All of the Endurance workouts (ie everything other than wednesday) dont actually need to be done on a bike. Can be done running, swimming, or any other type of cross-training as long as I can stay in the right heart rate zone. I dont think it really makes much difference at the moment how i measure the zones. I'm doing 1-3hours in the same zone just now but i think that the instant feedback of the power meter will be much more useful later on when i start doing intervals.

I dont have any specific numbers in mind as a goal weight, the idea is basically "lose as much as possible without having a negative impact on training". It's not that weight isnt important to me, it's just that i dont want to focus on it in this thread. If people want to read a log with ideas and inspiration for weight loss, there are lots of better options than anything i could write.
I will try to include my weight in the weekly updates though.
I'm currently 83kg.

2 weeks done, summary of last week:
weight: 82kg

Monday 28-Oct Planned: 'Endurance1', 1 hour, zone1 (probably swimming) +weights
Didnt have time for swimming, went out on bike instead.
Tuesday 29-Oct Planned: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone 2
Tried running, lasted about 45mins before my legs got tired and couldnt run fast enough to maintain HR. Ran home and finished myself off on the turbo.
Wednesday 30-Oct Planned: 'Speed1', 1.5 hours, 'spin-ups'
Done on spinning bike. Cadence sensor was being silly and looked like it was reading double what it should have. reps of 240rpm for 1 min? Doubt it!
Thursday 31-Oct Planned: 'Endurance2', 2.5 hours, zone 2
Friday 1-Nov Planned: weight session (no bike)
Got up early and went before work. Brilliant. Nobody else there and nothing to do in the evening - feels like a proper day off.
Saturday 2-Nov Planned: 'Endurance2, 1.5 hours, zone 2 (possibly swimming or running)
Busy all day helping dad at work, had to do this session on the turbo quite late. Used the power meter to let uniQ see the figures. Garmin connect link for figures.
Sunday 3-Nov Planned: Cyclocross race. 1 hour, maximum effort.
Brilliant fun! But need to get back on track next sunday, low-intensity long-duration is what i really should be doing.

Week 3
This is going to be a difficult week. It's the 3rd week of the 4week block of preparation. The schedule is the same as the past 2 weeks, so the workload wont be a problem but i'm on-call this week so i need to stay within quick access to an internet connection. That means most things will have to be done from home on the turbo.

Monday 4-Nov: 'Endurance1', 1 hour, zone1 (turbo) +weights
Tuesday 5-Nov: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone 2 (turbo)
Wednesday 6-Nov: 'Speed1', 1.5 hours, 'spin-ups' (turbo)
Thursday 7-Nov: 'Endurance2', 2.5 hours, zone 2 (cant handle the turbo for 2.5 hours. Will need to try and find a short loop nearby that i can do a few laps round)
Friday 8-Nov: weight session (no bike)
Saturday 9-Nov: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone 2 (turbo)
Sunday 10-Nov: 'Endurance2', 3 hours, zone 2 (same as thursday)

Well, that was a tough week.
Really makes things difficult without being able to go to the gym or cycle far from the house. Spent pretty much the whole week on the turbo
So, here is a summary of what happened:
Monday 4-Nov: 'Endurance1', 1 hour, zone1 (turbo) +weights
Turbo, easy ride.
Tuesday 5-Nov: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone 2 (turbo)
Turbo, starting to get bored, 1.5 hours is a long time.
Wednesday 6-Nov: 'Speed1', 1.5 hours, 'spin-ups' (turbo)
Turbo, not too bad, intervals make things slightly more interesting, still missing being out on the road though
Thursday 7-Nov: 'Endurance2', 2.5 hours, zone 2 (cant handle the turbo for 2.5
hours. Will need to try and find a short loop nearby that i can do a few laps round)
Tried to do this on the turbo, had a horrible time. Managed 1.5 hours. Decided to try and bump up sunday run by 1 hour to compensate.
Friday 8-Nov: weight session (no bike)
Saturday 9-Nov: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone 2 (turbo)
Turbo again
Sunday 10-Nov: 'Endurance2', 3 hours, zone 2 (same as thursday)
Out on the road (and some woods, cx bike) isnt much more fun than the turbo when you're trying to stay within 20mins of the house. Lots of riding around town. Got bored and gave up after 2:40.

So, i'm 1 hour 20 down on what i should have done this week. Could have been worse but i'll need to figure out something better for next time i'm on call (6 weeks time).
Next week will be all the same workouts again but i'v mixed up the order a little to fit in with some other guys doing similar stuff so i wont always be riding on my own.

Monday 11-Nov: 'Endurance1', 1 hour, zone1 +weights
Tuesday 12-Nov: 'Speed1', 1.5 hours, high cadence intervals
Wednesday 13-Nov: 'Endurance2', 2.5 hours, zone 2
Thursday 14-Nov: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone 2
Friday 15-Nov: weight session (no bike)
Saturday 16-Nov: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone 2 (turbo)
Sunday 17-Nov: 'Endurance2', 3 hours, zone 2

Today was the last day of my first 4-week phase. The preparation phase was 4 weeks of the same workload each week (11 hours) focused mainly on long, low-intensity work.

The next 4 week block is 'Base 1'. The focus is still similar, low-intensity cardio work. It is supposed to have a slight shift away from cross-training and more time on the bike but i didnt do much cross-training in the prep phase anyway so that wont make much difference to me.

From now on, every 4 week block will follow the same pattern: 3 weeks of increasing workload followed by 1 week of active recovery and testing.
Hopefully this should make it slightly more interesting, both for me to log and for you to read.

So, the Base1 block consists of 4weeks with the following workloads:
week1 - 12.5 hours
week2 - 15.5 hours
week3 - 17.5 hours
week4 - 9 hours

weeks 1, 2 and 3 follow the same structure and workouts and are just varied by the duration of each workout.
week4 is the rest/test week. This will be quite interesting as it'll be the first heart rate + power tests since i started my training. The first part of the week will be active recovery and then the FTP test, etc will be towards the end of the week when i should be fully recovered.

The plan for next week (Base1, week1):
Monday 18-Nov: Rest day, no bike. weights session.
Tuesday 19-Nov: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone2
Wednesday 20-Nov: 'Endurance2', 2.5 hours, zone 2
Thursday 21-Nov: 'Endurance2', 2 hours, zone 2
Friday 22-Nov: 'Speed2', 1 hour, isolated leg (ride with 1 leg only, swap when tired. Focus on eliminating dead spots from pedal stroke) + weights
Saturday 23-Nov: 'Endurance2', 2 hours, zone 2
Sunday 24-Nov: 'Endurance2', 3.5 hours, zone 2

Forgot to add my weight to that post.
I'm now 83.5kg (+1.5kg from last week), which was a bit of a surprise as i thought i was looking slimmer in the mirror. I think most of this weight gain is down to the gym work and increased muscle mass.
I dont think my leg strength has increased much, they were pretty strong before i started so i'm only just reaching the weights i need for them now after increasing gradually.
My arms/shoulders/chest are all a bit bigger now though. There really wasnt a lot of strength there to begin with so they all got quite a shock. My first bench press set was done with a bare bar (and it was a struggle).

Summary of last week:

Monday 18-Nov: Rest day, no bike. weights session.

Tuesday 19-Nov: 'Endurance2', 1.5 hours, zone2
did 1 hour, had to cut it short as mum's car broke down so i had to go and pick her up.
Made up for this lost 30mins on the rowing machine next morning.
Wednesday 20-Nov: 'Endurance2', 2.5 hours, zone 2
Cold night, got snowed on a bit.
Thursday 21-Nov: 'Endurance2', 2 hours, zone 2
Even colder, 1degree, wrapped up well and stayed warm though.
Friday 22-Nov: 'Speed2', 1 hour, isolated leg + weights
Got to the gym for the weights but didnt have time for anything else
Saturday 23-Nov: 'Endurance2', 2 hours, zone 2
Did 3 hours.
Sunday 24-Nov: 'Endurance2', 3.5 hours, zone 2[/QUOTE]
70 miles in 4:15. Nice scenic route that i'v not been before. Major struggle though, sitting on the back of the group from about 20 miles in.

Planned Hours: 12:30
Actual Hours: 13:15

Felt really good through the week, very cold but i was always looking forward to getting out on my bike. As long as I keep moving I stay warm. Love a night ride on a cold but clear night.
Starting to feel a bit tired over the weekend rides though. Going to try moving the friday gym session earlier in the week to see if that helps.

So, next week is supposed to be 15.5 hours.
It'll be difficult to get all the hours i need as i have a cyclocross race on the sunday which will be 1 hour riding (+whatever warmup and cooldown).

Monday 25th November - No bike
Tuesday 26th November - 'Endurance2' 2 hours, zone2
Wednesday 27th November - 'Endurance2' 3 hours, zone2
Thursday 28th November - 'Endurance2' 2.5 hours, zone2
Friday 29th November - 'Speed2', 1 hour, isolated leg
Saturday 30th November - 'Endurance2' 4 hours, zone2
Sunday 1st December - Race, 0.5 hour warmup + 1 hour, max effort + 1 hour recovery ride

Weight is up again this week to 84kg, I still think this is muscle growth.

Didnt get a chance to post this up on sunday night:
Last week didnt really go to plan. Feeling a bit fatigued and with brother's birthday on 2nd and dad's birthday on 3rd i had a busy week with stuff to sort out as well.

Monday 25th November - No bike
-Good gym session, need to try and get in early morning rather than evening though. Gym is full of little kiddies doing silly exercises in the evenings.
Tuesday 26th November - 'Endurance2' 2 hours, zone2
-2 hours off-road, cross bike, nice ride.
Wednesday 27th November - 'Endurance2' 3 hours, zone2
-2.5 hours on the road, winter bike with powertap. steady 200w
Thursday 28th November - 'Endurance2' 2.5 hours, zone2
-swapped the isolated leg exercises to thursday. 1 hour, intervals of single leg cycling (wtf? that's bloody hard?!)
Friday 29th November - 'Speed2', 1 hour, isolated leg
-1.5 hours in zone2 hr. off road, mtb.
Saturday 30th November - 'Endurance2' 4 hours, zone2
-did nothing on saturday :/
Sunday 1st December - Race, 0.5 hour warmup + 1 hour, max effort + 1 hour recovery ride
-about 1 hour warmup + 1:15 race, max effort.

well down on the hours i had planned for last week.

Weight is still 84kg this week.

So, week beginning 02/12/2013:
planned 17.5hours. Got wednesday off work as I have a couple of days holiday that i need to take before the end of the year.

Monday: no bike
Tuesday: 2 hours E2
Wednesday: 4.5 hours E2
Thursday: 2 hours E2
Friday: 1 hour S2 (isolated leg intervals)
Saturday: 3.5 hours E2
Sunday: 4.5 hours E2

After this week i have a short week (9 hours) of rest + testing. I might need to re-evaluate the weekly hours after that if i cant find the time for all of the planned workouts.
We'll see how this week goes first. The base phases which build endurance are the longest weeks so after january the hours on the bike start to reduce but the intensity increases.

Success!
17.5 hours planned, 17.5 hours complete.

Next week is where things get interesting. It's a rest + recovery week, with a FTP (functional threshold power) test towards the end of the week when i am fully recovered.

So, the plan is:
Monday: no bike
Tuesday: 1 hour, high cadence, zone1-2
Wednesday: 2 hours, high cadence, zone1-2
Thursday: 1 hour, individual leg intervals
Friday: 1 hour, very easy, low zone1 HR
Saturday: 1 hour, FTP test
Sunday: 3 hours, zone2

Not sure what to expect from the FTP test. One of my clubmates who is doing a similar plan but is a week in front of me got a significant improvement over his last test. I didnt think there would be any improvement at all at this stage (in fact, i thought there would be quite a drop in power from the end of last race season). We'll see what happens.

Still following along, keep it up!