Your winter cycling training plan should be created based off the demands of your goal event, also known as an A-priority race. After you’ve determined what and when your goal event is, the next step is to pick all the B- and C-priority races you’ll do between now and then to help you prepare for your A race.
Each type of priority race has a specific purpose and should fit strategically into your overall training plan. Here’s how to categorize your future races, which is the first step in laying out a successful upcoming race season:
A Races
These are high priority, key events that should inspire all your training. The performance outcomes of your A races will likely serve as a measure of your entire season’s success. You’ll likely only have one or two of these races in a season. As you get deeper into your training, you should taper your training for these events.
C Races (aka training races)
These races are focused more on targeting a specific aspect of your fitness or performance than they are on winning. For example, maybe you want to practice holding 90% of your race pace during a C-priority time trial or triathlon. Or, maybe you want to take a few flyers during a criterium or attack some climbs during a road race. These are all situations where your results aren’t your highest priority — your training is. You shouldn’t be afraid to “fail” during events of this priority. With C races, there’s no tapering or extra rest you need to work into your training schedule to prepare for them.
B Races
These races fall somewhere in between and serve your training on a few levels. One, they’ll show you if your training is moving you toward your goals at the right rate. Two, they can familiarize you with the exact types of demands you’ll face during your highest priority events. And three, they can give you an idea of how you’ll perform when you’re not particularly fresh or optimally fit. You won’t taper for these races in the same way you will for an A race, if you taper at all.
When you step from your C to B to A races, they should get increasingly more specific to your goal event. Keep this in mind as you go into your next step of training planning, which is laying out your season into three key phases.
In my Train Smart, Get Fast email series, I explain in-depth why breaking your season up into different phases is the most effective way to accomplish your cycling goals. But, for this guide I’ll keep things to the point. The goal for any type of productive training should be to establish a solid foundation of fitness, build upon that fitness, then fine-tune your fitness. At TrainerRoad, all 80+ training plans are structured with these three phases. We call them the Base, Build and Speciality Phases.
Of the three key training phases, the Base Phase is the longest. In most cases, you want to dedicate 12 weeks to base training. If you don’t have 12 weeks, eight weeks is a safe minimum. Anything less than eight weeks is not sufficient because it’s difficult to cultivate a solid base of fitness in under two months. As for your Build and Speciality Phases, it’s ideal to dedicate eight weeks of training to each phase.
Key Takeaway
Your training should get more specific as your races do. When creating your cycling training plan, you should prioritize your races then work them into three incrementally progressive phases to help prepare for your goal event.
To get started creating your winter cycling training plan, make a list of your race dates, then categorize them into three buckets: your A, B and C races. Next, break your season up into three progressive and increasingly more specialized phases. Lastly, account for timing. Your B and C races leading up to your A race(s) should be properly spaced throughout 24-28 weeks of total training for your race season.
What are your cycling goals going into your spring/summer racing season? As things stand now, does your training plan reflect those goals? Let me know where you’re at in the comment section below.
This is one section of my Winter Training Guide. Read the full guide here to discover 11 coaching tips to help you become a faster cyclist right now.
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My problem is that I don’t have one single A race. My goal is to race competively in a weekly crit series, accumulating points each week from June through August. So I need to peak and then maintain a high level for 3 months which makes training difficult. Any suggestions?
Absolutely, Al. This is a common issue with a lot of roadies who have seasons worth of racing and perhaps some A-priority events but plenty of events where they wish to be highly competitive as well, stretched out over weeks & months of racing.
It helps to understand that as you progress through your base/build/specialty training, you ascend to higher & higher levels of race readiness. Coming out of Sweet Spot Base I, you can start to weave in C-priorities races without a real risk of embarrassing yourself; even better performance in lower-priority events comes with your progress through Sweet Spot Base II.
As you move through your build phase, B-priority events see greater fitness and likely some respectable placings should you have the good fortune necessary to do well, e.g. proper strategy, adequate recovery leading into race day, no mishaps beyond your control, etc. But the fitness will be there.
By the time you begin your specialty phase, it’s likely you’re already racing well assuming you’re not ramping your stress too quickly and you’re recovering adequately along the way, letting the bits of overload actually sink in and start to manifest in subsequent workouts and out on the race course.
Once racers like you reach the taper weeks, you’ve ideally attained a level of fitness in line with your goals and it’s just a matter of maintenance. Maintaining properly established fitness takes very little in comparison to what was necessary to build it. Often just 1-2 days of intensity a week does the trick, and whether you do this on the trainer or via a race is up to you and your race schedule.
In either case, simply repeat your taper weeks – week 7 if you can deal with a little higher training load and still race well, week 8 if you need a bit less intensity to stay sharp – for as long as necessary, weeks on-end even. Swap out interval workouts for races as many as three times a week, don’t try to do both your races and your workouts.
So if you have intervals scheduled on Tuesday, you might instead race your Tuesday night world championships, Saturday intervals could be swapped out for a drop ride or perhaps a road race or crit, then maybe you’ll race on Sunday too (in which case you might skip your Thursday workout and just ride easy), or maybe you’ll do a lower-intensity trainer ride and keep your Thursday intervals.
There will come a point where you need to back things off though, just as you would during a training cycle, probably every 3rd or 4th week where maybe just 1-2, short sessions of intensity factor into your weekdays and your weekend remains easy and relatively recuperative – again, you can pluck these workouts from your taper week.
And don’t be afraid to trim down even these “lighter” workouts a bit if you know you’re carrying a lot of fatigue that week. Best of luck out there, Al!
Mid May is my first A level event. However, just had a meniscus repaired on 11/19/15 so looking at sweet spot base as I ease back into things.
Thanks-
Clint
Hi Clint, this might be something you’ll want to run past your physician because the Sweet Spot Base plans entail a fair amount of intensity that won’t exactly qualify as rehab. The Traditional Base plans (minus any sprint drills) might be a better way to “ease back into things”.
But if you’ve recovered to a point where you can put a fair amount of stress on the knee capsule pain-free, and your doctor gives you the go-ahead, then your plan sounds like a solid one.
Hi Chad,
I signed up for your 6 emails for building a solid training plan. I seem to have lost Day 2. Is it possible to send that out to me again? aries14@gmail.com is my email address.
I have 19 weeks until my A ride for the first half of the season. I’d like to get started on the 6 week base, 8 week build and 8 week specialty plan. That’s too many weeks. Would you recommend starting a few weeks into the base plan or not completing the end of specialty phase or some other option? I’m two weeks into my winter indoor sessions and this is just my second year of road cycling (FTP 200). The A ride is a long, constant uphill. Looking forward to giving trainer road a try. Thanks.
Hey Daniel,
You have 22 weeks of training and 19 weeks of time, so you’ll shed 3 weeks – easy enough. The question boils down to what you’re bringing to the table.
Riders short on base fitness typically benefit best from base & build, no need to concern themselves with the specialty phase which targets very specific fitness and shouldn’t be an aim when the fundamentals aren’t in place.
If you fall into this subset of riders, just do 12 weeks of Sweet Spot Base I & II + 7 weeks of the Sustained Power Build but advance your final rest week so you’re fresh for your event. Basically, you’ll do weeks 1-6 and then jump to week 8 and its recovery format.
But if you have base fitness in place, you could just do the latter 4 weeks of Sweet Spot Base II, Sustained Power Build for 8 weeks and probably the Climbing Road Race plan with just a 1-week taper instead of the 2-week taper that’s scheduled. So you’ll just do weeks 1-7 or even weeks 1-6 and skip to week 8 if you want a sharper taper (probably a good idea).
Best of luck out there, Daniel. And feel free to update us with how things go!
Chad,
Thanks so much for the swift reply. Tough to make the call which subset I’m in. Are 40 mile rides at 15 mph with 1800 ft elevation every weekend considered a good base? People that don’t ride would think so, but I’m never the lead rider in my group. And I know a few of guys that I have a hard time keeping up with.
Thanks again.
hi, i’m new to road cycling , i ride since july 2016 and till december 2016 i covered about 2000km. i don’t do that for any competition, just some amateur race sometimes depending on how much i will earn from my bike trainings. that’s my first time training for cycling and my problem is that i also play in a basketball team (amateur) twice a week so i don’t know how to manage and pick the right training plan. i’ve tested my FTP and it’s 277, and i think i’ve enough time to train 3/4 times a week. can you help me please ?
P.S. : i’ve already purchased trainer road and i’ve got a smart trainer
(sorry for my english 🙂 )