I need to be a bit realistic about my training schedule and the goals I set. I think I can get a lot done in the next year but maybe not as quickly as the 18yr old fresh out of school without a care/responsibility in the world. I know this from my Moto-x racing days where I was always working a 9-5 to pay for the bike and travel. The pointy end of the field was always made up of kids with fully funded programs paid for by parents holding onto a dream that one day, their kid may be the super star to make that elusive million dollar bank balance. Some of these kids would finish school early, return home to catch a couple of hours of training on the perfectly groomed practice track in their back paddock. I was so envious of these kids back in the day but it did make it satisfying when you came home with a trophy knowing how good some have got it.
Today I have a 9-5 job in the government so work lifestyle balance isn’t normally a problem. But with a young family and a few other interests, balancing my time is always a challenge. There are a lot of people in the same boat of competing priorities that manage to race successfully, so I have a long way to go in balancing these priorities in becoming a faster rider. No one likes to make sacrifices but I think this crazy plan of mine is going to be worth it. Without knowing what I’m prepared to sacrifice yet I need to ensure that when I’m training I get maximum gain for the time spent in the saddle. So what do I do…I GOOGLE IT!!!!
Whoa, so many articles and forums on training techniques for MTB racing, aerobic vs anaerobic training, training for endurance capacity or training to increase VO2 Max, sprint and strength training, the list keeps going. Lots of crazy lingo and lots of competing ideas, from super painful stair running sessions to day long 300km road cycling sessions. Out of all the research I could manage in a couple of hours, two main training ideas kept jumping off the screen at me. Number 1, was the idea that pushing anaerobic limits with interval training will have a positive effect on increasing aerobic capacity. Two in one sounds like a good use of time in saddle. This seems counterintuitive but when it’s explained it makes perfect sense and simulates race conditions better then other forms of training. Number 2, was training to gain core fitness and induce weight loss with longer and less intense sessions. This one is obvious and well known but I’d imagine that once a level of core fitness is reached, this technique will become less beneficial to race speed. For the next month I’ll try and use about 50% of my time on intervals, and 50% of my time on core and weight loss training. See how we go….
How this translates to the actual riding sessions on any given day is still a bit of a mystery to me so I’ll look to some mates for advice. Hopefully once I have some real world examples of how the fast guys do it I’ll be able to come up with a training plan for the next few weeks and months. When I have it down in the calendar I’ll post it up.
I didn’t make many sacrifices last week and only got two riding sessions in, good for recovery but bad for progress. For the next few weeks its time to burn the km’s directly into my quads.
Next race is in the calendar for the 29th of May, it’s the 1st round of the local CORC XC series at my home track Stromlo.
Until next post..
Peace out!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment