CYCLING PERFORMANCE TIPS

Frequency and Intensity of Rides

Frequency

• It's important to ride at least 5 days a week, and take at least one day off.
  • one high mileage day - working up your mileage by 10 to 15% per week until it equals your event distance
  • one slow recovery day - longer than the intermediate mileage days, shorter than the high mileage day
  • 3 intermediate mileage days
  • 1 or 2 rest days - off the bike or short recovery rides. Depending on your level of training (or evidence of overtraining) the seventh day is an additional intermediate mileage day or an additional rest day.

• The longest mileage day is keyed to the length of your event or ride and ridden at the pace you hope to maintain for the event. Many coaches suggest you work up to the length (or even 125% of the length) of the event while others are comfortable if you can ride 75% of the event distance comfortably.
  • This is usually a Saturday ride, with Sunday as a backup for bad weather or other unexpected circumstance that might derail your training program.
  • The last high mileage day of your training program should be at least 75% of the length of the planned event.
  • If you are training for a single day event or ride, your longest training ride should be at least 10 to 14 days before the event. Then cut back on the mileage of your rides the 3 days immediately before the event - short, low intensity rides (spinning) to keep your muscles from tightening up. This recommendation is not as important for multiday endurance type rides, but common sense suggests that taking a few days off (short spinning rides only) immediately before the event will facilitate maximum muscle recovery and glycogen repletion.

• Follow the high mileage day with a rest day or a short mileage day - at most 1/4 of the length of your long ride and ridden at a leisurely pace to help loosen up your muscles after the long ride of the week.

• The three intermediate mileage (midway between the short ride and the long ride of the week) days should be ridden at a good training pace (85 to 90% of your maximum heart rate). At least one should be an interval training ride. A second interval training day each week is optional.

• There should be an additional long mileage, recovery day (longer than the intermediate mileage days, shorter than the high mileage day) during the training week.

• You can estimate the length (number of weeks needed) for your training program by using your "average" long ride from your 500 mile base training period, increasing it by 10 - 15% a week, and repeating this until you arrive at a figure that is equal to or greater than 75% (3/4) of the length of the event for which you are training. The number of repetitions needed to get to the 75 % number are the number of weeks you need to train.

• Be flexible and adjust your program to your lifestyle. A rigid program is destined to fail.

Here is an example of the process - Example.

Intensity

As far as pace of your rides:

• the pace of the longest ride of the week should match the planned pace of your event
• the short "recovery" ride should be a leisurely pace at no more than 50-60% of your maximum heart rate
• two of the intermediate rides should be at the planned event pace
• one of the intermediate rides (preferably prior to a planned day off the bike for a 5 day training week), should be at a brisk pace 2 - 3 mph faster than your planned event speed.