Dear Red Rockettes:

Your mission is to get into shape to each ride a blistering 20 km time trial by October 14. . . .and then to each ride another dozen or so time trials over the Furnace Creek 508 course. That's the excitement and challenge of team racing: riding sub-barf repeats all day and night!

Since you've accepted this challenge, here are a few suggestions on how to prepare. You'll need both speed and endurance, but you can't effectively train for both at the same time. Rather, divide your training into different phases.

"Muscular-endurance is the ability to turn a relatively high gear at a relatively high cadence for a long time." "Speed-endurance is sometimes called anaerobic endurance since it involves training to continue working hard even thought he body is crying out for relief." Friel, J., "The Cyclist's Training Bible", VeloPress, 1996, p. 108. :

I. Annual Plan
From the beginning of April, we have 28 weeks until the 508. The first step is to develop a training plan to incorporate these phases. Get out a calendar and pad of paper and start sketching out your individual plans. Work backwards from the race to include the following phases:

That totals 26 weeks - perfect, you can add a complete recovery week between each phase.

On your calendar note any work and family commitments you have for the next six months and then add in any training events you plan to do, like the Pacific Crest Tour. How do these fit into the phases we just laid out?

Darn, you have a week-long conference right in the middle of base training. Just take the week off. Don't try to make it up by increasing the volume in other weeks - that would risk injury or overtraining.

Oops, the Mt. Rainier Challenge falls during the break week before you start Peaking. Five weeks of Intensity, including PCT, is enough. Move the break a week earlier, so it's right after PCT- you'll be trashed then anyhow. Then extend the Peaking phase by a week. Any other conflicts to juggle?

II. Planning Volume
Now that you've defined the phases, the next step is to plan your weekly volume. When you are training for a team event, requiring endurance and speed, you should ramp up your training volume (in miles or hours per week) to a maximum at the end of the Base phase. The following Build and Peaking phases each have less volume as you add intensity.

Look at the last year that you trained hard. At the maximum, how many hours per week or miles per week were you riding, excluding a major event like PAC Tour? Put that volume down in your last week of Base training, week N. When building your base, it's safe to ramp up by 5% per week. Put 95% of week N's volume in week N-1. Then put 95% of week N-1's volume in week N-2. For example:

When you get to week one, how does that compare to your current training volume? If you are training significantly less now, don't try to jump up immediately to the indicated week one volume. Rather, ask yourself - based on my training experience - what is a reasonable volume to start with? Plug in that figure, increment by 5% per week, and see what volume you'll reach in week 12. You don't need high volume - your goal is to finish a double century in 14 hours.

Now you have a nice smooth 12 week ramp. But reality isn't smooth, it's lumpy! Use the 12 week plan as a guide, not an absolute. Try to train so that over any four weeks your total volume is the same as that in the plan, but don't worry if the week to week variations are more than planned.

III. Training
Enough of this planning - let's get on our bikes! During Base training you should be doing the following kinds of workouts each week:

Endurance rides: One ride a week that is 50 - 60% of your weekly volume. Ride at 75 - 90% of your lactate threshold. (LT)

Tempo: One brisk ride a week to build specific muscle endurance. The ride should be 20 - 25% of your weekly total volume. Warm-up for 30 minutes, ride tempo at 85 - 95% of LT, and then cool-down for 15 minutes.

Recovery rides: A couple of rides each week totaling 20 - 25% of your weekly volume. These are easy rides; no heavy breathing!

Abs, back and stretching: At least four days a week, continue the abs, back and stretching exercises described in Training for the Busy Ultracyclist.

IV. Weekly Program
Each week, sit down with your calendar and write down when you'll do the workouts. In mixing these ingredients, remember Muffy's saying: training is like making chocolate chip cookies. You need all the right ingredients, but it doesn't matter the order in which you mix them. One possible recipe might be:

Saturday

35 mile tempo ride, including warm-up and cooldown

(or ride mid-week, if you have time)

abs, back and stretching

Sunday

club century ride

Monday

abs, back and stretching

Tuesday

20 mile social ride

Wednesday

abs, back and stretching

Thursday

20 mile social ride

Friday

abs, back and stretching

Remember that it's better to underbake cookies than to overbake!