training to race as 4th cat

[Toks]

Hi Guys, I'm hoping to do at least 25 races next year starting in April (fitness permitting). How many hours a week should I be riding?. I'm currently averaging about 7/8, I could probably squeeze out another 2 or 3 hours with some early morning starts. Is that enough to make good progress?
Thanks Toks

[Matt_Ives]

Just out of interest, which races have you decided to enter?
Would they mostly be at Hillingdon/Eastway?

[DavidKennett]

Hi Matt,

Obviously the more time you can spend this time of year on base fitness the easier the racing will be later in the year. If you're planning 3/4 cat races on the roads then generally you'll need to be aiming for 3 hour rides without stopping as this will condition your body to the duration of these types of races. This is probably best achieved at weekends and intensity should be kept to below level 4. Once you're comfortable with these then interval training can be done, sometimes best on the turbo where a more controlled environment can be maintained. Normally 15 min warm up them maybe 2 mins effort in a big gear (53 x 13), followed by 2 mins effort spinning (115+ rpm), followed by 2 mins easy. Initially repeated 5 times and then built to 10 this would form a decent strength base to work with. These should be finished with a 10 min cool down.

Also, any weakness should be worked on, e.g. climbing, sprinting.

A good approach might be to do 3 weekends of racing and a week off as it can be hard and expensive, £10 per race!

Hope this helps

[Toks]

Hi Matt, I will be doing a lot of my RACES at Hillingdon and Eastway with some longish road races as well...Dave I'm assuming that advice was for me cheers mate!(i don't have a turbo trainer though, is that a problem?) But I'm still unsure of what the minimum number of hours one should spend training per week.

[Alan B]

i would say that if your 7-8 hrs are effective, you should be fine to race on Hillingdon (based on what i was doing last winter in training - i raced at Hilingdon in the spring).

i would say though, that if you were planning on 3 hr road races, then 7-8 hrs might not be long enough - as Dave says, the more you can put down in the winter, the better your base will be. You will actually be able to cut back on hours when you start racing as you will have built up a good foundation - speed work and intervals is not as time consuming as long steady work.

But i would point out that everyone is different, some people can get away with minimal training, some people can get fit for racing quicker than others, etc etc. I would suggest that you do what feels right, don't train so much that it becomes a chore, but don't skive either. Once you start racing you wil quickly work out how much and what intensity works for you.

When the season starts, you could race on Tues nights at Hillingdon as well as at the weekend - but treat the Tuesday as a hard training session.

[Toks]

Hey Alan thanks for the advice. I now ride to S Couldson on a saturday from Highbury which makes a round trip of approx 80miles. This should hopefully help my endurance for longer road races... Speaking of intervals, I did a spinning class yesterday and my maximum heart rate for the 45min session was 160. Thats at least 25 beats faster than my normal winter training ride. I don't mind admitting that by the end I was absolutely knackered.

[Alan B]

yeah, spinning completely kills me - i'm sure the instructor thinks i am v unfit as i sweat buckets and look like lance armstrong at the top of luz ardiden after every class................

see you tomorrow