Designing a Training Plan
At a certain point you're going to hear the expression "training plan" enough to decide for yourself that you need to have one. A training plan is not, IMO, something you go out and pick up at the food store. Sure, there are any number of websites selling training plans but unless you get an online coach with your plan, you're going to end up asking more questions than you answer. Eventually you'll put together enough information where you can cobble together a rough outline of what your season should look like.
To start you probably want to read the following links first:
When you've digested all of that, you may be ready to either put together your own training plan or throw it all out the window and just go ride. Personally, I'm still debating. But for the time being let's assume I'm actually going to work with a plan. Here are some things I might consider when I do that.
My columns are as such:
Assuming you want to go forward with designing your own plan, and you have some sort of spreadsheet or chart to work with that encompasses what you want to focus on, I will now lay out how I am going forward with my training plan for 2007. This is how I plan to tackle the season for 2007. Since I've never actually run through a season before, you can assume that there will be changes along the way. But we're in October now, so what we have here is the basis for how to approach next year.
Step 1
You need to put dates in your spreadsheet. For 2007 I'm starting with October 30, 2006. Biking seasons do not begin and end when Dick Clark says. So we mark the start of next season with the end of this one, which is roughly the end of October. In the first date cell, enter 10-30-06 and in the one below it enter 11-06-06. Then highlight both boxes and pull down the square in the lower right corner so Excel fills in all the dates through 11-05-07.
Step 2
Enter your races/events in the race column. Enter anything that you might be interested in doing. You can (and should) put in any major group rides or riding vacations/tours/etc that you might want to make note of in your training. Highlight the primary races in bold. This way you know where your targets are. General practice is to not mark any more than 3 as primary. Anything else you train through, or use as experiments. If you have more than one potential event for any given week, enter them both.
Score is filled out as the season goes so leave that blank for now.
Step 3
Training focus for me starts on the first week. It is "Weight loss, Enjoy." I plan on riding through the fall and enjoying things a little more than you might during the season. Since weight loss equals better performance, it's pretty integral. I may also lift some weights in here but nothing lower body and only because it makes me feel better and burn calories. But this is not a bike training tool I subscribe to. So it's not part of my "plan" per se.
On Jan 1 I add a pure block of L5, then on Jan 29 I add a pure block of L4. This is what I would call the preseason. I probably won't do much, of any, outdoor riding during this time of year. So this is when I start hammering out the block training following the Morris philosophy. After these 8 weeks, the season starts.
My first target event is the week of May 28, which is a 12 hour race. So I have 3 periods to build up to that. Each period is a 4 week block with a rest week at the end. The first period will be L3 on Feb 26, followed by L5 on Mar 26, and L4 on Apr 23. These are all mixed blocks. The L3 I'm pretty sure about. The L4 and L5 are still up in the air. I may toss in shorter blocks, or I may work on mixed blocks, or I may do something completely different. Either way I will be riding off-road on weekends as well as building my endurance. Nothing in season is pure for me.
The weeks before and after the event are Peak and Transition. Peaking is covered in another blog entry. I'm not entirely sure what works in terms of peaking. I have a lot to learn in that regard. Transition means taking it easy for a week and allowing your body to detox from the event of the previous week.
After the transition I have 2 periods, L5 on Jun 11 and L4 on Jul 9, then a week of mixed work on Aug 6. I very well may alternate L4 and L5 for 4 weeks, then do a 5 week L3 block leading up to the 24 hour race, the second target event of the year on Aug 20. Add in the standard peak-race-transition around the race and you're left with only a handful of weeks before the last event.
There are 6 weeks between my second and third target events, which will be transition, mixed work for 4 weeks, then peaking. After the last target I work on enjoyment and whatnot.
Step 4
Now I need to figure out how to ramp up my long rides on a week-by-week basis. Leading up to the first event, the 12 hour ride, my rides look like this (in hours): 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 6, 12. There's really not a lot of peaking going on with the 6-6-12 combo, so that middle 6 may change to a 3 or a 4. That's a peaking detail I need to work out. Some say that for these kinds of rides riding through it is better. We'll see. I may also be asking too much of myself to do block training as well as this hefty amount of hours. Again, learning experience so we'll see.
Leading up to the 24 we get a similar build: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 6, 24. Again, that last 6 may turn into something smaller. And the 8 in there represents a training mark to try and hit as a confidence builder and final run to make sure you're all set to go. I'll have the previous 12 to go by, so it's probably not as crucially important.
Leading up to the final event, a 50k race, the long rides look a lot smaller: 2, 2.5, 2.5, 3, 3, 3.5, 4. The 4 is the target event here, or so we hope after all this planning.
Step 5
Be flexible, things will likely change. Also you have to realize that any training in the season means you have L2 and L3 rides on almost all weekends. Similarly, you need to work L7 into the mix, which is usually done on the trail as you need. You can also work on some of that in the beginning of any workout.
Notes
I think the planning of a season is highly personal. If you're totally clueless you can try Friel, who sets out a fine outline but does nothing with reverse periodization nor block training. So for me I'm not really interested in that approach. Or you can check out the link above, which is a nice classic training plan. Or you can get yourself an online coach. Or you can wing it, a plan which has gotten a lot of people basically nowhere over the years. Having some sort of structure is good, and ramping up to a peak is what all of the plans you pay for will have you do.
In the end, the priority is to have fun. Plan on enjoying it all and you probably will.
To start you probably want to read the following links first:
When you've digested all of that, you may be ready to either put together your own training plan or throw it all out the window and just go ride. Personally, I'm still debating. But for the time being let's assume I'm actually going to work with a plan. Here are some things I might consider when I do that.
- Your plan would normally have macro & micro cycles.
- You may want to have macro & micro goals
- Every workout should have an objective
- The more specific your goals, the better/smarter you can train
My columns are as such:
- week is the Monday of the week in question
- race is any ride/race I might do that week
- focus is where I'm directing my efforts for that period
- score is TSS (training stress score) for the week
- long ride is my longest ride of the week
Assuming you want to go forward with designing your own plan, and you have some sort of spreadsheet or chart to work with that encompasses what you want to focus on, I will now lay out how I am going forward with my training plan for 2007. This is how I plan to tackle the season for 2007. Since I've never actually run through a season before, you can assume that there will be changes along the way. But we're in October now, so what we have here is the basis for how to approach next year.
Step 1
You need to put dates in your spreadsheet. For 2007 I'm starting with October 30, 2006. Biking seasons do not begin and end when Dick Clark says. So we mark the start of next season with the end of this one, which is roughly the end of October. In the first date cell, enter 10-30-06 and in the one below it enter 11-06-06. Then highlight both boxes and pull down the square in the lower right corner so Excel fills in all the dates through 11-05-07.
Step 2
Enter your races/events in the race column. Enter anything that you might be interested in doing. You can (and should) put in any major group rides or riding vacations/tours/etc that you might want to make note of in your training. Highlight the primary races in bold. This way you know where your targets are. General practice is to not mark any more than 3 as primary. Anything else you train through, or use as experiments. If you have more than one potential event for any given week, enter them both.
Score is filled out as the season goes so leave that blank for now.
Step 3
Training focus for me starts on the first week. It is "Weight loss, Enjoy." I plan on riding through the fall and enjoying things a little more than you might during the season. Since weight loss equals better performance, it's pretty integral. I may also lift some weights in here but nothing lower body and only because it makes me feel better and burn calories. But this is not a bike training tool I subscribe to. So it's not part of my "plan" per se.
On Jan 1 I add a pure block of L5, then on Jan 29 I add a pure block of L4. This is what I would call the preseason. I probably won't do much, of any, outdoor riding during this time of year. So this is when I start hammering out the block training following the Morris philosophy. After these 8 weeks, the season starts.
My first target event is the week of May 28, which is a 12 hour race. So I have 3 periods to build up to that. Each period is a 4 week block with a rest week at the end. The first period will be L3 on Feb 26, followed by L5 on Mar 26, and L4 on Apr 23. These are all mixed blocks. The L3 I'm pretty sure about. The L4 and L5 are still up in the air. I may toss in shorter blocks, or I may work on mixed blocks, or I may do something completely different. Either way I will be riding off-road on weekends as well as building my endurance. Nothing in season is pure for me.
The weeks before and after the event are Peak and Transition. Peaking is covered in another blog entry. I'm not entirely sure what works in terms of peaking. I have a lot to learn in that regard. Transition means taking it easy for a week and allowing your body to detox from the event of the previous week.
After the transition I have 2 periods, L5 on Jun 11 and L4 on Jul 9, then a week of mixed work on Aug 6. I very well may alternate L4 and L5 for 4 weeks, then do a 5 week L3 block leading up to the 24 hour race, the second target event of the year on Aug 20. Add in the standard peak-race-transition around the race and you're left with only a handful of weeks before the last event.
There are 6 weeks between my second and third target events, which will be transition, mixed work for 4 weeks, then peaking. After the last target I work on enjoyment and whatnot.
Step 4
Now I need to figure out how to ramp up my long rides on a week-by-week basis. Leading up to the first event, the 12 hour ride, my rides look like this (in hours): 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 6, 12. There's really not a lot of peaking going on with the 6-6-12 combo, so that middle 6 may change to a 3 or a 4. That's a peaking detail I need to work out. Some say that for these kinds of rides riding through it is better. We'll see. I may also be asking too much of myself to do block training as well as this hefty amount of hours. Again, learning experience so we'll see.
Leading up to the 24 we get a similar build: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 6, 24. Again, that last 6 may turn into something smaller. And the 8 in there represents a training mark to try and hit as a confidence builder and final run to make sure you're all set to go. I'll have the previous 12 to go by, so it's probably not as crucially important.
Leading up to the final event, a 50k race, the long rides look a lot smaller: 2, 2.5, 2.5, 3, 3, 3.5, 4. The 4 is the target event here, or so we hope after all this planning.
Step 5
Be flexible, things will likely change. Also you have to realize that any training in the season means you have L2 and L3 rides on almost all weekends. Similarly, you need to work L7 into the mix, which is usually done on the trail as you need. You can also work on some of that in the beginning of any workout.
Notes
- If time is limited, workouts should look more like race simulations
- Your score needs to ramp up as the year/block goes on.
- Your score needs to be lower in those rest weeks.
- Once every 14-21 days, push your limits.
I think the planning of a season is highly personal. If you're totally clueless you can try Friel, who sets out a fine outline but does nothing with reverse periodization nor block training. So for me I'm not really interested in that approach. Or you can check out the link above, which is a nice classic training plan. Or you can get yourself an online coach. Or you can wing it, a plan which has gotten a lot of people basically nowhere over the years. Having some sort of structure is good, and ramping up to a peak is what all of the plans you pay for will have you do.
In the end, the priority is to have fun. Plan on enjoying it all and you probably will.
posted by Norm at 11:10 AM
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