Absa Cape Epic Training

[linnega]

I have found the two most important aspects of training that I learned particularly last year, is that there are aspects to training that cannot be substituted. 

 

The first is that long slow miles do very little for your condition as Bikemax says.  I built an excellent traditional base over December 2004 and into January 2005.  I then rode three 100k+ races on consecutive weekends towards the end of Jan starting with KZN Champs, then the Hyper2Hyper and the Belgotex in Maritzburg.  All races were far too fast for me and I suffered unbelievably.  As I was fairly strong from the previous season and had built a good base I should have been able to adapt.  So my first lesson there was never to focus purely on endurance in the traditional sense, and to introduce a quality high and moderate intensity work sessions in early in the season.

 

The second lesson was that these quality sessions are not enough in their own right.  Time in the saddle is still required.  I spent the second half of last year only doing quality sessions as my time was limited.  My weekly average dropped from 15 hours to around 6-7 hours almost all moderate or high intensity with short warmups and cooldowns.  The result was that I was able to hold onto a little of the speed until around October when I felt a definite slowing down and I was able to keep the endurance engine ticking over until about mid-December.  By early January I was weaker than I had been in three years and by the Argus even Marius was beating me.

 

The morale of that long winded and boring story is that you can't perform without good quality training but don't use the quality of your training as an excuse to do too little in terms of quantity.  Quality training is not a substitute for TITS, but TITS alone won't get you fast.

[BikeMax]

 

I have found the two most important aspects of training that I learned particularly last year' date=' is that there are aspects to training that cannot be substituted. 

 

The first is that long slow miles do very little for your condition as Bikemax says.  I built an excellent traditional base over December 2004 and into January 2005.  I then rode three 100k+ races on consecutive weekends towards the end of Jan starting with KZN Champs, then the Hyper2Hyper and the Belgotex in Maritzburg.  All races were far too fast for me and I suffered unbelievably.  As I was fairly strong from the previous season and had built a good base I should have been able to adapt.  So my first lesson there was never to focus purely on endurance in the traditional sense, and to introduce a quality high and moderate intensity work sessions in early in the season.

 

The second lesson was that these quality sessions are not enough in their own right.  Time in the saddle is still required.  I spent the second half of last year only doing quality sessions as my time was limited.  My weekly average dropped from 15 hours to around 6-7 hours almost all moderate or high intensity with short warmups and cooldowns.  The result was that I was able to hold onto a little of the speed until around October when I felt a definite slowing down and I was able to keep the endurance engine ticking over until about mid-December.  By early January I was weaker than I had been in three years and by the Argus even Marius was beating me.

 

The morale of that long winded and boring story is that you can't perform without good quality training but don't use the quality of your training as an excuse to do too little in terms of quantity.  Quality training is not a substitute for TITS, but TITS alone won't get you fast.

[/quote']

 

Reckon you have it nailed.

 

Fitness builds pretty slowly and then decays over about 42 days as you get fresher (from easing off)

 

Got to build that training load and time in the saddle but make sure it comprises of enough quality to build fitness (FTP)

 

I have a great chart illustrating this and will try to post it.

 

[Brakkies Sport Fotos]

So, this means that you can do LSD till end Dec (say @ about 70%max)for 140ks (+- 20- 23 with climbs), but Jan and Feb rather do 100-120k's but try getting the 25km/h+ incl. climb?

[BikeMax]

 

So' date=' this means that you can do LSD till end Dec (say @ about 70%max)for 140ks (+- 20- 23 with climbs), but Jan and Feb rather do 100-120k's but try getting the 25km/h+ incl. climb?[/quote']

 

Well, I would rather you rode the 140kms at a reasonable pace - whatever you can manage but not just pottering along.

 

Jan & Feb still do 140km but ride it faster as you get fitter - no need to compromise the distance if you are getting fitter.

 

Obviously this is not all your rides and the shorter ones in between could be 2 hours at a hard tempo pace for example.

 

[BikeMax]

 

This chart shows fitness building (dark blue) over time as a result of training load (grey line) and then freshness (or not) as a result of resting (blue bars)

 

So you can see for example that there is a big dip in freshness as a result of a very large training load and then there is the associated increase in fitness showed as a sharpish increase in the dark blue line.

 

You can see the fitness decaying a little at the present time as the rider rests a little this week for DC.

 

The top lines are peak powers at various durations.