Coaching for Endurance Athletes
An appreciation for endurance sports has been enjoyed by Dr. Eric for the past 2 decades. Once a distance runner in high school and college, he has developed a love for cycling as well as a subsequent passion for working with folks who are wanting to add structure and purpose to their own time on the bike.
Dr. Eric enjoys working with cyclists as they train for gravel racing, cross country olympic mountain biking, ultra endurance mountain biking, as well as criteriums and road racing. All of these disciplines have nuances of their own and navigating the phases of training from base training 6 months out from the race date, to the speciality phases the final 8 weeks is what he enjoys most. The outline below is more for reference for an athlete who is wanting to prepare for a specific event. If an individual wants to have structured training and doesn’t have an event picked out, that is 100% fine! Training with purpose can be fun even without a race. As they say, fast is fun…
Example preparation for a gravel race-
A two to three hour gravel race such as Barry Roubaix will have chunks of time in training outlined in similar fashion to below…
Base training, 2-4 months of time with endurance rides totaling 2-4 hours in distance, but the emphasis will be getting time on the bike. These are fun rides, the should be focused on fueling and hydration, none of the rides should leave the athlete feeling like a race effort was had. At times in base training, the athlete will have blocks of time with higher effort required, these intervals will become more consistent and of longer duration as the end of that 2-4 month base period approaches
Base Week Example
Monday- Mobility exercises/Active Recovery
Tuesday- Endurance ride (1-2 hours)
Wednesday- Active recovery (30-60 minutes)
Thursday- Endurance ride (1-2 hours)
Friday- Mobility exercises/Active recovery
Saturday- 2-4 hour endurance ride with 2x15 minute blocks at “sweet spot”.
Sunday- Endurance Ride (1-4 hours)
5.5 hours to 14 hours of training time.
The build portion of training can last from four to eight weeks. During this build program, the athlete will focus on becoming better at what the specific race or route they will be riding will demand energy wise. For example, if the race is on gravel here in west michigan, a focus of this block would be improving ability to tackle 1-2 minute climbs, repeatedly, in addition to sustaining higher effort levels for 10-20 minutes at a time. Here in Michigan it is easy to find yourself on pitchy terrain which requires 1-2 minute bursts of energy, it is equally likely that you’ll find yourself on gentle, rolling terrain which requires you to be able to work at a higher level of effort for prolonged periods of time. It is important during this build period to improve abilities to do those two things on the bike.
Build Week Example
Monday- Mobility exercises/Active Recovery
Tuesday- Interval session, 30-40 minutes of sweet spot/threshold intervals, or 10-20 minutes of VO2Max intervals
Wednesday- Active Recovery or Endurance riding, 60-90 minutes.
Thursday- Endurance ride, 1-2 hours.
Friday- Mobility exercises/Active Recovery
Saturday- Endurance ride with threshold/sweet spot intervals, 3-4 hours ride time, 30-60 minutes of intervals.
Sunday- Endurance ride (1-3 hours)
7.5 to 13 hours of training time.
Speciality phase is the phase of training where you get to have less total training time, but continue to hone in on the systems you were working to develop in the build portion of training. This allows the athlete to gradually freshen up their legs as race date approaches while keeping the engine firing at a higher level with increased abilities to excel at what the race or route will require of them.
Specialty Week Example
Monday- Mobility exercises/Active Recovery/off
Tuesday- Similar to build Tuesday, more focus on top end (VO2 max) performance, less sweet spot/threshold, (1-1.5 hours total ride time)
Wednesday- Endurance ride (30-60 minutes)
Thursday- Shorter interval session (60-90 minutes ride time), or endurace/active recovery.
Friday- Mobility exercises/Active Recovery/off
Saturday- Race simulation workout, (1-2 hours)
Sunday- Endurance ride (2-3 hours)
5.5 to 10 hours of training time.
The training time breakdown and intensity levels vary greatly from athlete to athlete. If you’re interested in seeing what structured training would look like for you and your upcoming season or event, contact us.