REALISTIC TRAINING
by Glen and Paula Goddard
Lets face it, we are not Olympic athletes and we all have day jobs. This article suggests a strategy for realistically making the most of the time and talent available to ordinary amateur riders.
The most important factor for success in training is regularity. This seems obvious: If you don’t train, your training won’t be successful.
The physiological explanation for success in training is complex but amateur every day riders (like us) don’t need to become doctors to understand how to train smart. All you need to know is that training is really conditioning your body. Conditioning doesn’t only mean getting used to the effort of exercise, but encompasses allowing your body to learn the most efficient way to ride, sleep, wake, metabolise food, etc. Most importantly, conditioning means allowing your body to recover and get stronger (overcompensate). Conditioning only takes place with regular effort and recovery over time.
In order to structure your training so that the effort you put in gets repeated over a long enough time for conditioning to occur, you need to commit a realistic number of hours per week for a realistic number of weeks for your training to be regular enough to work. Simple !
Surprisingly, one can achieve a good level of fitness (enough to do an easy 3½ hour Argus) on only eight or nine hours of training per week over as little as 4 or 5 months. This sort of time commitment should be achievable even for those with families and jobs.
A typical training schedule appears below.
FIRST THREE MONTHS : ENDURANCE PHASE
MONDAYS – REST
Rest means either sleeping in or riding gently (riding gently means being able to chat without struggling for breath, in other words at a heart rate below 70% of max). Conditioning only takes place with regular effort and recovery, over time.
TUESDAYS – HILLS
Tuesday sessions are not races but conditioning rides. We usually ride from Blue Lagoon to the top of Cowies Hill (and maybe to the top of Fields Hill, as fitness increases). Ride time is between 1½ and 2 hours. Effort should never exceed being able to talk, even if you have to gasp a lot (never over 90% of max), and then only for short periods on the steep bits.
WEDNESDAYS – RECOVERY
Gentle hour or 1½ hour ride, either from Blue Lagoon around the Bluff or to Umhlanga, depending on which way the wind blows.
THURSDAY – CIRCUITS
1½ or 2 hour flat road ride, practising leg speed and bunch skills, with some short bursts of intensity. This is just the endurance phase so heart rate doesn’t get astronomical. Drop off if you have to, or want to – there are enough bunches cruising the circuits to find one which suits your speed. Stay out of the big testosterone race trains, a crash can really interfere with regular training ! (The “circuit” is the cycle lane on the beachfront)
FRIDAY – COFFEE RIDE
Gentle dawdle from Blue Lagoon meeting for coffee at North Beach (“Cattleman”) at about 6.00am. Optional session. Concentrate on socialising : should always be able to talk, traffic permitting.
SATURDAY – ENDURANCE
3½ hour ride at below 80% of maximum heart rate. It’s essential that the endurance ride does really last for longer than three hours : human bodies do all sorts of funny things after riding for about 2½ or 3 hours and need to get used to drinking, eating, sitting and generally enduring. We’ll go inland (Inchanga or 
Camperdown), up the coast (Gheoghan or Shaka’s Kraal because Ballito is not far enough) or Down South, depending on the way the wind blows and whether we need variety.
SUNDAY
If you count the hours you will see that we should have already done eight hours before Sunday. Sunday is reserved for riding races (which may take the place of the Saturday endurance ride and do not have to be done at race pace), mountain biking, family, visiting the aunt, etc. Or getting in a bit extra (training, I mean). But bear in mind that conditioning only takes place with regular effort and recovery over time
FOURTH MONTH : POWER, THEN SPEED
The focus of training shifts from endurance to more intense power and speed sessions. Hill rides become hill sprints and circuits become “laps of death”.
Instead of riding at a steady pace on Tuesday, go as hard as you can up every hill (there are five if you ride to the top of Field’s Hill). Stop dead (ie absolutely stationary) after you have crested (not before !) and allow your heart to recover (ie get down to around 60%). Then ride easily to the next hill and do the same. Focus on pushing yourself – you need to know that you can hurt a lot more than you thought so that you can stay with the bunch when it surges in races.
Warm up for two or three laps on Thursday circuits and then go as fast as you can for ten laps. Find a bunch that you think you can’t quite keep up with and hang on for as long as you can – even when the bunch surges. In races one tends to ride at a much higher average heart rate than you’re used to and this exercise aims to improve your “strength endurance”, or ability to ride as fast as you can for a long period.
Training on the other days doesn’t change – recovery is when conditioning occurs. Conditioning only takes place with regular effort and recovery over time.
Have an easy week or rest on hard days if you need to – last thing you want is to exhaust yourself.
RACING
Race as much as you can – bunch skills are as important as fitness and only come with experience. Don’t be scared to treat races as training rides, though and don’t race too hard until you are fit : you will just hurt or tire yourself. Once you are fit, choose some races and outdo yourself !
MONITORING
There is no point in training away without having some way of seeing whether it’s doing you any good.
To assess your physiological condition you should keep a training diary and record your daily heart rate, exercise duration, exercise type (cyclists always record distance, although time is a more accurate measure) and weekly mass. You can add things like average and max heart rate, perceived effort, gearing, weather, what you ate or drank, who you beat etc. if these will help. (Apparently all good athletes have a training diary – some would make interesting reading, no doubt !). Note your essential bike and body measurements and check the bike measurements every month.
It doesn’t really matter when you take your heart rate as long as it is done in exactly the same controlled manner each time. The easiest way is to take your heart rate as soon as you wake up, before you leap out of bed. You don’t need to put your monitor on, just count your pulse for 30 seconds and double it. Record it before you forget (or fall asleep again !) Mass should also be measured in a controlled manner, not after a ride, every day or after a big dinner !
During the endurance phase simply listen to your legs and rely on how you feel – the hill sessions and endurance rides should start to “feel” easier after about a month. If you’re not fit when you start, your resting heart rate and mass should come down after a few weeks, if you are fit both heart rate and mass should stabilise. If (after the first month) you’re tired all the time or constantly have stiff legs the reason is simple : you’re going too hard. The only cure is to train with less intensity (ie ride slower).
If your resting heart rate goes up by more than say 7 beats, rest. (There are lots of different views about the precise number of increased beats which indicate overexertion – choose any number between 5 and 12, but don’t ignore an increase in resting heart rate).
Rest initially means substituting a hill, circuit or endurance session with a shorter gentle ride. Avoid not riding at all as that will disturb the regularity of your eating and sleeping patterns. You may have to take a few days off completely if the raised heart rate turns out to have been a precursor to illness.
If your resting heart rate keeps increasing, you’re not recovering properly. If so, it is essential to ride easier – conditioning happens because of recovery (the body overcompensates for effort) and if you don’t recover, you’re exhausting yourself rather than training yourself.
CONCLUSION
If you want proper, professional, personalised training contact Donovan van Gelder at www.cybercoach.co.za. Otherwise keep regular.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burke, E Serious Cycling
Carmichael, C The Lance Armstrong Performance Programme
Ferrari, M Tactics and Nutrition of the Festina Team
Friel, J Cyclists Training Bible
Jackson, A Flow in Sports
Overend, N Mountain Bike Like a Champion
Platter, J South African Wines
Schmidt, A Mountain Bike Training : For Beginners and Professionals