Cycling training plans

garystrickland357

I have a question for the cyclists out there. Where do you find good training plans? I don't really want to pay for them either unless there is evidence that they are really worth the $$.

Here's my mindset: I like the Hal Higdon training plans designed for runners. I can always find one that suits my current fitness level and event goals - and they are free. I'd like to find something similar online that is the cycling equivalent.

I know Training Peaks has a ton of stuff - and some of their plans are free - but most are not that I've looked at. I like having a plan laid out for me.

Here's something specific I'm looking for at the moment:
Currently I'm training for a 1/2 marathon. I run Tuesday/Thursday with a long run on the weekend. I'm also cycling on Wednesdays with a longish ride (20-30 miles) on the weekend. Sometimes I take a short recovery spin on Mondays. So you can see this is running focused. I'm just riding enough to maintain some fitness for cycling. None of the bike rides are high intensity.

My 1/2 is over in mid February. After that I want to transition to a more cycling specific plan while keeping a bit of running just so I don't lose all I've gained. I have a ride planned for late summer that requires a lot of climbing, so I need to train for that. I also have a 200K ride in late August that I'll need to prepare for.

So where do y'all go for training plans?

sijomial

Hi Gary.
I've used the training plans from a charity The British Heart Foundation - as well as organising a lot of cycle events they have great links into British Cycling.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/events/training-zone/cycling-training-zone

The one I followed roughly followed a format of 4 rides a week: 1 long, 1 hard, 2 moderate with increasing distance week on week.
After your half maybe swapping out one of the moderate rides for a run would work?

I'll simply repeat what two very good cyclists told me about hills "to become good on hills ride a lot of hills and try hard".

sijomial

These hints and tips from Audax UK might help you....
http://www.aukweb.net/hints/prep/

deannalfisher

these are some few free plans on trainingpeaks - i use it a lot for tracking training across all events

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/affiliates/usa-cycling-member-renewal-training-plans/

garystrickland357

Thanks y'all. @sijomial I agree about the hills. We don't have long climbs where I live. I do have on climb that's 6%-8% for 1/2 mile. Would this idea seem sound (I got the idea online)

Week one: Climb the hill
Week two: Do one repeat.
Week Three: Do two repeats
Etc...

Basically add a repeat every week until I am climbing as much as necessary for my event. Is that seem reasonable - at least conceptually? I have some scattered short climbs that are 10%-14% that I can throw in for variety. If I do hill repeats should I mix up shorter steeper rides some days with longer less intense grades on other? My routes would dictate the different climbs on different days. All of this conversation is for the sake of having a plan for when the days are longer and I have more time to ride...

sijomial

Try to replicate the type of hills you will encounter as much as possible. If that's a variety train on a variety.
If you will encounter high grade climbs where you cadence is forced down you do need to practice that.
Appropriate gearing helps of course but I still have a lot of hills where my cadence is forced down to 50rpm or so.

After a winter mostly spent indoor training it's a shock to the system when I have to operate at a cadence I'm not used to. Some overgearing work helps but it doesn't feel the same.

Machka9

garystrickland357 wrote: »

My 1/2 is over in mid February. After that I want to transition to a more cycling specific plan while keeping a bit of running just so I don't lose all I've gained. I have a ride planned for late summer that requires a lot of climbing, so I need to train for that. I also have a 200K ride in late August that I'll need to prepare for.

So where do y'all go for training plans?

When I'm training for a long distance event, I go with an approximate plan that looks something like this:

Saturday -- long ride
Sunday -- long ride, but less than Saturday's ride
Monday -- walk
Tuesday -- intervals or hill repeats
Wednesday -- medium length ride
Thursday -- intervals or hill repeats
Friday -- short, casual ride

If I knew the long ride had a lot of climbing, I'd probably go with hill repeats more than intervals. I'd also choose a hilly route for one of the weekend long rides.

Here in Tasmania, it's hard to find a flat ride, but I try to do Saturday's long ride as relatively flat, and then Sunday's as a shorter hill climbing ride.

Also, I discovered that climbing stairs helped my cycling climbing skills a lot. I work in a 10-storey building, and when I was up to about 30 flights a day, 5 days a week, I also felt pretty good cycling up hills.

Machka9

Regarding hilly rides ... I use a little calculation that helps me a lot when I'm mentally planning for a ride.

If the ride is 100 km long with, let's say, 950 metres of climbing ...

(950/100,000) * 100 = 0.95 ... in other words, it is less than 1, so it is a relatively flat ride.


If the ride is 100 km long, with 1600 metres of climbing ...

(1600/100,000) * 100 = 1.6 ... now the ride is reaching my upper limits for hill climbing on a longer ride.


However, if the ride is 40 km long with 1000 metres of climbing ...

(1000/40,000) * 100 = 2.5 ... I wouldn't want to do more than about 40 km on a 2.5 route, but could manage this as a good training route for a hilly ride.



So ... when I'm looking at a ride and deciding whether I want to sign up, I'll do this calculation, and then I've got an idea whether it's doable ... or doable with a bit of effort ... or out of my league.

garystrickland357

I appreciate the replies - it’s helpful. Y’all have confirmed a couple of my ideas. I was thinking of one hard workout with intervals or hill repeats (I’m probably looking at hill repeats), and one long ride per week (I know the importance of long rides & runs). For a second hard(ish) workout I can do a group ride with a few folks that will push me but not kill me. Then I can make up the rest of the week with easy rides or runs in terms of effort. I’m going to try to make myself truly take it easy on the easy days - that’s one thing I like about my gravel bike - it can take me places where the scenery is nice and the roads force me to slow down. I’ll also plan on one rest day per week.

garystrickland357

@Machka9 That’s a nice way to quantify the difficulty of hilly rides. I appreciate you sharing that with us.