Purists preach that to properly prepare for the cycling season, you need to roll out six weeks ahead and do nothing but low-heart-rate, low-intensity rides before you throw the hammer down and go out and play, especially if your idea of fun is a frisky group ride. It’s no problem if you’re a professional rider with nothing but time and salary to ride, but for the rest of us, it’s precious pedal time we simply don’t have. Thankfully, it’s also unnecessary.
« For pro who can ride 20 to 30 hours a week, a long base period is appropriate », says expert coah Jeb Stewart. « Byt if you struggle to squeeze in half that amount, it’s almost counterproductive because you aren’t clocking enough saddle time to elicit a training stress. » Stress is key. If you don’t have hours to slowly tax your system, you need to do shorter rides with focused efforts to stimulate fitness adaptations , says Stewart, « You can get the same amount of training stress in a 90-minute tempo interval workout as you can in a three-hour endurance ride ».
You’ll still need to build in saddle time to condition your body to sit on a bike for longer rides, but Stewart’s focused four-week plan will lay own a solid fitness foundation for the season ahead. To stave off early-season aches and pains, warm up and cool down before after each work out, and recover for five minutes between intervals.
Heart Rate Zones and Threshold Power.
Threshold Hear Rate (T HR): Average HR power or power for a 20-minute time trial or 1-hour hard group ride.
Threshold power (T power); Average power for a 20-minute time trial minus 5% of this number.
Threshold (T) pace : 95-105% of T HR / 91-105% of T power
Active Recovery pace : <68% of HR /<55% of T power
Endurance pace : 69-83% of T HR / 56-75% pf T ower.
Tempo pace : 84-94% of T HR / 76-90% of T power
Week 1
Monday : Off
Tuesday : 1 hour w/5 sets of 5*15-second Fast pedaling intervals
Wednesday: 1 hr. in the Active Recovery zone
Thursday 1 hr. w/3*10-min . Big Gear Tempo intervals at 50-70 rpm
Friday : 1hr in the Active Recovery zone
Saturday : 2-3 hrs in the Endurance zone
Sunday: 1hr. in the Active Recovery zone
Week 2
Monday : Off
Tuesday : 1.5 hrs. w/4 sets of 5*30-second Fast pedaling intervals
Wednesday: 1 hr. in the Active Recovery zone
Thursday 1.5 hrs. w/3*15-min . Big Gear Tempo intervals at 60-80 rpm
Friday : 1hr in the Active Recovery zone
Saturday : 3.4 hrs. Hills
Sunday: 1.5-2 hrs. in the Active Recovery zone
Week 3
Monday : Off
Tuesday : 2 hrs. w/3 sets of 5*1min Fast pedaling intervals
Wednesday: 1 hr. in the Active Recovery zone
Thursday 2 hrs. w/2*20-min .Tempo intervals
Friday : 1hr in the Active Recovery zone
Saturday : 4.5 hrs. Hills
Sunday: 1.5-2 hrs. in the Active Recovery zone
Week 4
Monday : Off
Tuesday : 1 hr. of easy pedaling
Wednesday: 1.5 hrs. w/5*30-sec. Fast Pedalling intervals and 1*10 -min. Tempo interval
Thursday 1hr in the Active Recovery zone
Friday : Off
Saturday : Group ride, century or hammerfest
Sunday: 1 hr. in the Active Recovery zone
Source : www.bicycling.com
Have fun, see you soon cycling in the Pyrenees !
