This article is for someone who wants to race, successfully complete a long grand fondo, or just to be able keep up with your stronger friends.
How do I set winter cycling training goals? Setting goals is an instrumental part of cycling in general. In fact the thought and strategy you put into the goal-setting process, can forecast the success of your season. Generally, a person who sets goals is much more likely to complete their goals, if they write them down. So create an action plan and share it with a friend, so they too become a stimulus for YOU, to meet your goals.
Step #1: Consult Your Training Log To set measurable goals, it’s best to know where you’re coming from. That said, take the time to revisit your training log to look at your last year’s performance, before you start your winter training. If you haven’t created one before, perhaps this is the time to start, so you have this valuable tool for next season, onwards. Looking back on your past log, you can analyse the aspects where you think you need improvement, or where you achieved your goals.
If you don’t train with a power meter (I assume many of you do not), make a note of the perceived exertion and shortcomings of your past performances. Did you get dropped on most the climbs? Could you hang on the flats on a group ride? Was your sprint weak? The goal is to study the outcomes of your past events in their entirety. Also, reference times, finish placing, or particular parts of a course that gave you trouble, as they will help set this season’s goals.
Step #2: Pick a Goal Event With the limiters you identified and your last year’s performance in mind, decide on your goal for the new year. That could be anything from a particular event, to a personal fitness goal. If it’s an event, you can select other similar events that will help prepare you for your goal. The key when choosing supplementary events, is to look for opportunities to build a specific type of fitness, or maybe even just your confidence level. The closer you are to your goal event, the more closely your supplementary events should replicate its demands. For example, if you want to complete a 100km grand fondo in August, look at a 50km in June and perhaps a warm up 100km in July.
Step #3: Create a Realistic Winter Cycling Training Plan. You can’t force more training hours, if you don’t have that free time. Your schedule is your schedule. The best you can do is be realistic about the number of hours you can commit to training and how much training can your body recover from. Make a solid game plan with that information in mind. Planning ahead will help you reach your goals, while starting your training sooner, will allow you to develop a better aerobic fitness base.
Why are most cyclists doing their base training wrong? Traditional thinking is that during winter, you should be doing extremely long rides, at a very low intensity. However, there is the reality that you live where we actually have ‘Winter. This is the correct intention, if you firstly can actually put in those kilometres, or time on a trainer. Have you enough time to bring about the adaptations you want ? Do you want to spend hours down your basement ? Look at alternatives. I used to cross country ski a lot, as the aerobic base was always my goal, but one never forgets to actually cycle, so we used to ride rollers to maintain and in fact actually improve our ‘souplesse’, (the ability to spin smoothly). Nowadays one can use a trainer, but we have fat tire biking, or knobby tires on those days the roads may be sufficiently clear. Those provide fresh air and aerobic benefits, but not souplesse. (More about that in a future article).
What often happens during winter base training is that a cyclist will get in the habit of riding very easily and at a low intensity. But, to their detriment, they actually don’t have enough time to get the type of gains you may be chasing. To grow your fitness, you have to provide a stimulus, that outpaces what your body can do right now.
When a cyclist rides easy for an hour or two, which they’re likely already capable of doing, they’re not creating a stimulus for change. However, when they ride for 4 or 5 hours at a relatively easy pace, that usually exceeds what they’re used to. If they don’t have those long durations to ride on a regular basis, they have to exceed their capabilities with intensity or, again, they’re not achieving a stimulus that later brings with it an increase in fitness. If you want to see gains from riding at a low intensity, you have to ride a lot. This kind of volume requires a cyclist to dedicate around 12-20 hours a week to training. If you don’t have that kind of time, which most cyclists don’t, then it’s best to commit to another base-conditioning approach.
How do I create a winter cycling training plan that’s right for me? Your winter training plan should be created based on the demands of your goal event. This could be demanding such as the Provincial Championships, or perhaps non-competitive, but still a long ride, such as a grand fondo. After you’ve determined what and when your goal event is, the next step is to pick all the lesser priority events that you’ll do between now and then to help you prepare for your special event. I know that may not be until six months from now, but fitness is not something that comes overnight. Be realistic in those expectations ! Each type of priority event has a specific purpose and should fit strategically into your overall training plan. Here’s how to categorise them, which is the first step in laying out a successful upcoming race season:
THE (special) Event(s) These are high-priority, key events that should inspire all your training. The performance outcomes of your priority event will likely serve as a measure of your entire season’s success. You’ll likely only have one or two of these in a season. As you get deeper into your training, you should taper your training for these events.
Training Events These events are focused more on targeting a specific aspect of your fitness, or performance, than they are on winning a race for example. Perhaps you want to practise holding 90% of your race pace during a club time trial or local triathlon. Or, maybe you want to take a few flyers during a criterium or attack some climbs during a road race. These are all situations where your results aren’t your highest priority—your training is. You shouldn’t be afraid to “fail” during events as they are an essential learning experience. With C events, there’s no tapering or extra rest needed to work into your winter cycling training program to prepare for them.
‘Fun’ or Club events These events fall somewhere in between and serve your training on a few levels. One, they’ll show you if your training is moving you toward your goals, at the right rate. Two, they can familiarise you with the exact types of demands you’ll face during your highest priority events. And three, they can give you an idea of how you’ll perform when you’re not particularly fresh, or optimally fit. You won’t taper for these events in the same way you will for your primary focus of the season, in fact you may not taper at all.
When you step from your ‘fun’, club, or training events, they should get increasingly more specific to your goals. Keep this in mind as you go into your next step of training planning, which is laying out your season into three key phases.
The goal for any type of cycling training should be to establish a solid foundation of fitness, build upon that fitness, then fine-tune your fitness. The Winter, is your foundation phase.
Progressive Training: Progressive training begins by building general base fitness, then layering on more specific work, eventually bringing your overall fitness to a well-timed peak. This is the Base, Build, and Speciality cycle. Of the three key training phases, the Base Phase is the longest. In most cases, you want to dedicate 12 weeks to base (winter) training. If you don’t have 12 weeks, eight weeks is a safe minimum. Anything less than eight weeks isn’t very productive. As for your Build and Speciality Phases, it’s ideal to dedicate eight weeks of training to each phase.
In my next article, we will get into more detail on what specifically you can be doing.
THE WINTER OF CYCLING INTENT:
This article is for someone who wants to race, successfully complete a long grand fondo, or just to be able keep up with your stronger friends.
How do I set winter cycling training goals?
Setting goals is an instrumental part of cycling in general. In fact the thought and strategy you put into the goal-setting process, can forecast the success of your season. Generally, a person who sets goals is much more likely to complete their goals, if they write them down. So create an action plan and share it with a friend, so they too become a stimulus for YOU, to meet your goals.
Step #1: Consult Your Training Log
To set measurable goals, it’s best to know where you’re coming from. That said, take the time to revisit your training log to look at your last year’s performance, before you start your winter training. If you haven’t created one before, perhaps this is the time to start, so you have this valuable tool for next season, onwards. Looking back on your past log, you can analyse the aspects where you think you need improvement, or where you achieved your goals.
If you don’t train with a power meter (I assume many of you do not), make a note of the perceived exertion and shortcomings of your past performances. Did you get dropped on most the climbs? Could you hang on the flats on a group ride? Was your sprint weak? The goal is to study the outcomes of your past events in their entirety. Also, reference times, finish placing, or particular parts of a course that gave you trouble, as they will help set this season’s goals.
Step #2: Pick a Goal Event
With the limiters you identified and your last year’s performance in mind, decide on your goal for the new year. That could be anything from a particular event, to a personal fitness goal. If it’s an event, you can select other similar events that will help prepare you for your goal. The key when choosing supplementary events, is to look for opportunities to build a specific type of fitness, or maybe even just your confidence level. The closer you are to your goal event, the more closely your supplementary events should replicate its demands. For example, if you want to complete a 100km grand fondo in August, look at a 50km in June and perhaps a warm up 100km in July.
Step #3: Create a Realistic Winter Cycling Training Plan.
You can’t force more training hours, if you don’t have that free time. Your schedule is your schedule. The best you can do is be realistic about the number of hours you can commit to training and how much training can your body recover from. Make a solid game plan with that information in mind. Planning ahead will help you reach your goals, while starting your training sooner, will allow you to develop a better aerobic fitness base.
Why are most cyclists doing their base training wrong?
Traditional thinking is that during winter, you should be doing extremely long rides, at a very low intensity. However, there is the reality that you live where we actually have ‘Winter. This is the correct intention, if you firstly can actually put in those kilometres, or time on a trainer. Have you enough time to bring about the adaptations you want ? Do you want to spend hours down your basement ? Look at alternatives. I used to cross country ski a lot, as the aerobic base was always my goal, but one never forgets to actually cycle, so we used to ride rollers to maintain and in fact actually improve our ‘souplesse’, (the ability to spin smoothly). Nowadays one can use a trainer, but we have fat tire biking, or knobby tires on those days the roads may be sufficiently clear. Those provide fresh air and aerobic benefits, but not souplesse. (More about that in a future article).
What often happens during winter base training is that a cyclist will get in the habit of riding very easily and at a low intensity. But, to their detriment, they actually don’t have enough time to get the type of gains you may be chasing. To grow your fitness, you have to provide a stimulus, that outpaces what your body can do right now.
When a cyclist rides easy for an hour or two, which they’re likely already capable of doing, they’re not creating a stimulus for change. However, when they ride for 4 or 5 hours at a relatively easy pace, that usually exceeds what they’re used to. If they don’t have those long durations to ride on a regular basis, they have to exceed their capabilities with intensity or, again, they’re not achieving a stimulus that later brings with it an increase in fitness. If you want to see gains from riding at a low intensity, you have to ride a lot. This kind of volume requires a cyclist to dedicate around 12-20 hours a week to training. If you don’t have that kind of time, which most cyclists don’t, then it’s best to commit to another base-conditioning approach.
How do I create a winter cycling training plan that’s right for me?
Your winter training plan should be created based on the demands of your goal event. This could be demanding such as the Provincial Championships, or perhaps non-competitive, but still a long ride, such as a grand fondo. After you’ve determined what and when your goal event is, the next step is to pick all the lesser priority events that you’ll do between now and then to help you prepare for your special event. I know that may not be until six months from now, but fitness is not something that comes overnight. Be realistic in those expectations ! Each type of priority event has a specific purpose and should fit strategically into your overall training plan. Here’s how to categorise them, which is the first step in laying out a successful upcoming race season:
THE (special) Event(s)
These are high-priority, key events that should inspire all your training. The performance outcomes of your priority event will likely serve as a measure of your entire season’s success. You’ll likely only have one or two of these in a season. As you get deeper into your training, you should taper your training for these events.
Training Events
These events are focused more on targeting a specific aspect of your fitness, or performance, than they are on winning a race for example. Perhaps you want to practise holding 90% of your race pace during a club time trial or local triathlon. Or, maybe you want to take a few flyers during a criterium or attack some climbs during a road race. These are all situations where your results aren’t your highest priority—your training is. You shouldn’t be afraid to “fail” during events as they are an essential learning experience. With C events, there’s no tapering or extra rest needed to work into your winter cycling training program to prepare for them.
‘Fun’ or Club events
These events fall somewhere in between and serve your training on a few levels. One, they’ll show you if your training is moving you toward your goals, at the right rate. Two, they can familiarise you with the exact types of demands you’ll face during your highest priority events. And three, they can give you an idea of how you’ll perform when you’re not particularly fresh, or optimally fit. You won’t taper for these events in the same way you will for your primary focus of the season, in fact you may not taper at all.
When you step from your ‘fun’, club, or training events, they should get increasingly more specific to your goals. Keep this in mind as you go into your next step of training planning, which is laying out your season into three key phases.
The goal for any type of cycling training should be to establish a solid foundation of fitness, build upon that fitness, then fine-tune your fitness. The Winter, is your foundation phase.
Progressive Training:
Progressive training begins by building general base fitness, then layering on more specific work, eventually bringing your overall fitness to a well-timed peak. This is the Base, Build, and Speciality cycle. Of the three key training phases, the Base Phase is the longest. In most cases, you want to dedicate 12 weeks to base (winter) training. If you don’t have 12 weeks, eight weeks is a safe minimum. Anything less than eight weeks isn’t very productive. As for your Build and Speciality Phases, it’s ideal to dedicate eight weeks of training to each phase.
In my next article, we will get into more detail on what specifically you can be doing.