Training Advice with the Schleck X-Perience
Well done on the work completed to get this far. With the Easter break now over its time to get back into that weekly training routine! You’ll be starting to see a big increase in your base fitness after the work of the last few months and your weekend rides are now starting to inch closer to your event duration.
Now with longer evenings we can put the indoor trainer aside and start to get out for evening spring rides enjoying the warmer weather and the longer evenings!
The next steps?
The bonus rides during the week can add greatly to your fitness as your goal approaches. Getting into a routine of training for that 60mins or 90mins twice a week after your daily commitments can give your fitness the boast you’ll need come the summer months. Having built that aerobic base and introduced workouts that have started to increase your ability to produce the power for those hills, you can step this up during April evening rides.
This Month – Making the most of those evening training rides!
This month the goal is to build on those already consistent training patterns and weekend training and make the most of the extra daylight in the evenings. The short efforts that you have been building up on the indoor trainer can now be delivered on the road. Introducing short routes that may replicate the efforts of the upcoming event.
27/07/2019
Participants during the SKODA Ring of Clare which took in sights including Ennis, Quilty, Kilkee, Kilrush, Carrigaholt and Kildysart during the 160km and 120km routes. For more information see www.celticseries.ie.
Photo by Diarmuid Greene
Five Tips for April:
1. Introduce one (preferably two!) outdoor training rides midweek between 60mins-90mins!
2. Find local roads that you can incorporate similar types of hills etc that will be similar to your event roads. A great way to do this is to find a 15-20min loop that you can complete twice and build up weekly. This ideally will include a 5-8min hill that you can complete your training effort on and a loop back around to the start of the hill again that will allow active recovery.
3. After a short warm-up have a goal to complete two of these short hills at the speed that you would like to during the event (this will start to build up your power and tolerance for this type of effort without much fatigue as it’s a much shorter session). Build this up over the month to complete three to four loops. The effort should be no more than 85-90% of Max Heart rate.
4. Prepare your evening ride the night before so when you go to do the training you don’t have to think or plan to much and it will make it much easier to get on the road quickly and be on your way!
5. Continue to maintain your longer weekend rides as this is and will be the core to your event fitness. Continue to do the longer ones with your local group for increased motivation. Continuing to include the longer steady hills as you have been doing.
That will give you plenty to focus on for this month! Until next month……
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