Sonya Looney is no stranger to being on the bike for long hours, but the 2015 WEMBO 24-Hour World Champion admits she could barely get through an hour-long indoor workout in the past. Structured training with TrainerRoad and the Wahoo KICKR changed that.
“I can now ride my bike inside and it doesn’t feel like I’m making a sacrifice,” Looney shared. If her modernist views on indoor training don’t set Looney apart from the mountain bike racers she competes against, it’s her genuine preference for epically long and challenging outdoor races.
You see, Sonya Looney isn’t your average professional mountain bike racer. She is an ultra-endurance rider who seeks out intensely difficult single- and multi-day stage races around the world and competes in the most challenging 24-hour events the World Endurance Mountain Bike Organization has to offer.
For an adventure-seeking rider like Looney, her reverent relationship with indoor training might come as a surprise, but it shouldn’t. Sonya likes to win, and after recovering from a couple frustrating injuries she turned to indoor training with TrainerRoad to help her get stronger than ever. Incorporating structure into her training is what she largely credits her 2015 Trans Andes stage race to.
Looney’s Trans Andes Challenge Stage Race Win
The Trans Andes Challenge is a six-day, 228-mile mountain bike stage race that takes place in the northern Patagonia region of Chile. As much as the race is scenic, it’s equally grueling for riders to complete.
Riding around volcanoes and taking in epic mountainous views is what mountain bike racers’ dreams are made of, but that doesn’t take away from the serious physical demands this race requires. Dauntingly steep climbs required Looney to put out a ton of power — power she wasn’t sure she was able to give.
Leading up to the race she questioned her fitness because of her newly adopted approach to training. The British Columbia resident explained, “I was nervous going into the race because my preparation for it was very different than years before. My training was almost exclusively done on the trainer using TrainerRoad. I wasn’t really sure what the results were going to be because it was an unknown.”
“I can now ride my bike inside and it doesn’t feel like I’m making a sacrifice.”
Looney’s uncertainty almost caused her to back out of the Trans Andes Challenge at the last minute. Ultimately she chose otherwise and decided to compete. To her surprise (not ours), she showed up on race day stronger and more capable than ever to take home an epic win.
Find Sonya Looney on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and her website.
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Awesome. I’ll be doing Leadville this year so I’m hoping that all the turbo time will pay off!
I certainly never could have done the events that I have done (numerous solo endurance events up to 24 hours) without all of the pain and agony of the trainer. I hate every single minute of it, but it works.
I assume Looney has a coach giving her custom plans. Would be interested to know what her average weekly volume ends up looking like / what it’s mostly made up of.
Good luck at Leadville. Here is a TR blog post. also since Nate will be doing Leadville I’m sure the podcasts will have information. https://www.trainerroad.com/blog/how-to-train-for-leadville-100-mtb-insight-from-a-sub-9-finisher/
Cheers. I’m actually on that plan at the moment… and despite my FTP / KG being higher than the rider with the sub 9 hour time I still have precisely no confidence I can even do sub 10. lol
Can you share the info about which training plans did she used for Trans Andes preparation, if it’s not a secret?
Hey Alex, take a look at my response to Hugo when you get a sec. Sonya wasn’t on our training plans but instead chose to follow a set of specific workouts that fit the demands of ultra-endurance MTB events such as Trans Andes.
If you wanted to use one of our plans to prepare for an event like this, go with Sweet Spot Base or Traditional Base > Sustained Power Build > Cross-country Marathon Off-road Specialty
Happy Training!
Well, did she felt confident during the technical sections (it’s MTB after all). How quickly there skills are regained after long periods indoors?
Sonya does her fair share of trail riding too, so she’s able to stay up to snuff with the technical. 🙂
+1 on very interested to know which plan and what volume she used.
Our structured training plans are great for athletes who want to be told exactly what they need to do to get faster. But for professional athletes like Sonya Looney and coaches with a solid understanding of training and sports physiology, TrainerRoad’s workout library and workouts creator are great tools. That said, Sonya’s approach in preparing for Trans Andes last season involved following a particular set of TR workouts which she had great success with. She prepared for Pioneer using a similar set of workouts specific to the demands of these types of ultra-endurance stage races. Not sure on the exact volume, but she definitely puts her time in.
Most of my my winter training is done indoors in the wahoo and I just add my specific coaches plans each week into trainer road and away I go…I train for Ironman so my training in the winter consists of build work to include Threshold and strength training with Vo2max work and some Endurance…. seems to work for me and I just stick to the plan!…..doing much of the same now as I haven’t been out on the roads yet this winter but starting to feel strong and improving my FTP. There is a lot of freewheeling when out on group rides and macho aggression when climbing hills in a group so the training structure quickly dissipates were as a good solid focused plan on trainerroad serves me better and I know at the end of it I have achieved its purpose and goal!
Workouts exist in all form and basically they all tend to stress the body in order to become better. Workout A tackles weakness A while workout B tackles weakness B. That is what training is all about.
Copy/paste a training plan from a pro rider sounds like magic but unfortunately there are no short cuts and are never a good idea. Don’t think pro’s use ready made workout routines like you and me. The other way around, you and me using pro routines wouldn’t work either. In the case of Sonya, having her own coach and training plan she might use TR for some of here workouts. But that doesn’t mean she uses the same base-build-speciality sequence as we are advice to do. It’s nice for TR to say a pro is using there stuff. No offense here, but do think pro’s are using different tools as there are other demands and different goals. Focus on becoming a better you then becoming as Sonya.
Thanks for chiming in Steven!