How Does Your Year Look?

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1

Thought this might be interesting to see the different approaches to the year.

How does your year typically play out?

Training

  • Fairly traditional Base from late October. High intensity about once every 10 days for maintenance.
  • Do winter events about once a month, as much for the social and new roads.
  • Strength build during this period.
  • Build from late January. Polarised / Pyramidal distribution with high intensity about once every 5 days. Strength maintenance during this period.
  • Traditional progressive overload, 3 weeks load, 1 week deload
  • Two week taper for A events. One week for B events. No taper for anything else.
  • After my first A event, do about 4 weeks of base, before building for next A event

Events

  • My season typically runs from March to September
  • About 8 events during this period
  • One or two A events, typically at least 3 months apart

Transition

  • Typically 2-3 weeks after my last event of my season
  • Might include some touring in this period.
  • Unstructured, just having fun when I feel like it.

I am in my 60s for context.

How does your year look?

2

I typically do traditional base starting early December. BUT,this year im going do a bunch of zwift racing in Nov/december, then slide into a slightly shorter base season. Why? For fun, and back when i was a cat 2 roadie in my younger life, the strongest i was in spring summer were the years i raced CX in the winter….so im seeing if zwift can do similar. I’m mid 50s

3

I don’t really have a yearly plan. I have my one race every year at the end of June and I certainly start really thinking about timing my training blocks in the months leading up to it. The four or so months after the race I’m kind of doing other things, work is busy and really physical, and I’m really kind of mostly just maintaining as much of my overall fitness as I can and maybe doing more lifting.

But I don’t really structure my whole year around training honestly. I come and go. When I’m training I’m really training. But I don’t beat myself up at all when I back off from the strict structure for a few weeks or months at a time. Keeps me more mentally fresh.

4

Poorly.

5

Hi, nice idea for thread.

I do not have early plan and due to my schedule my training is basically same all year around with little variation. I use 10 days cycles instead of 1 week. Plan for each 10 days is:

1. 2x 75mins tempo rides, 3 trail runs and 2 bodyweight workouts OR
2. 2x75 mins sweet spot rides, 3 trail runs and 2 bodyweight workouts.
3. Since the beginning of september i increased ride duration to 120 minutes and now i do 1x 120 mins tempo and 1x 120m sweet spot (intervals), 3 trail runs and 2 strength sessions. This will be my kind of base. January-August i will do only sweet spot workouts or race specific workouts.

I do not plan any rest weeks, because life is unpredictable and from time to time it forces me to do lower volume which i use for rest weeks* I have plenty of time to recover. It works for me. Next season my priority will be trail running marathons (i already signed for 5) and at best 2 fondos.

6

I’m only planning as far as mid-April next year with Sea Otter being my A event.

I’ll start my base 1 phase second week of December - consisting of SS and Tempo work, pretty traditional 3 week on 1 week recovery.

Base 2 starts first week of January now getting into more SS and Threshold work. I’ll also start to do some gut training and durability training which means 4-5 hour rides, 90-110 grams carbs, and sustained efforts late into the ride. 3 weeks on, 1 week rest and adaptation.

Build 1 starts second week of February and I’m pretty much decided that I’ll do some extensive type training- probably using TR’s polarized build template and continuing with 3 weeks on, 1 week rest and adaptation. I’ll have my first paid event of the year to end the 3 week build.

Build 2 will be a bit abrupt as I’ll do 2 weeks of intensive intervals in a polarized approach. I’ll end the build with my second paid event ahead of my rest and adaptation week which will end that last full week of March.

Come end of March and beginning of April I’ll do two weeks of a specialty phase. Slightly reduced volume with 2-3 on/off type workouts during week. I’ll have started some heat training ahead of my A-event here as well as continuing my gut training on a long Sunday ride. I may combine an intensity workout with a long ride as last year I suffered a bit with cramping during my Sea Otter race. I need to be sure that I have my durability primed so that I don’t have that issue this year.

Week of my A-race will be a continuation of my specialty week just even less volume. I’ll make sure to have my bike dialed in with new tires, chain, pads, etc so that I don’t have to waste any energy the day before the event. Last year I tracked over 22k steps at the festival - that sure didn’t help!

I’ve got my last week ot training right now ahead of my last “serious” event of the year. After that I’m unstructured as far as riding goes and will get my gym membership going. I’ll start working on building some muscles all over but having a focused plan for building up my legs, butt and posterior chain. I’m going to pretend I’m on the UAE master’s program. I’ll experiment with some low torque type workouts in November and see how it goes.

This past year has been my best since starting back up in 2022 which is incredible as I’m four years older. I’d like to see if I can continue to make some gains by adding in strength training and continuing to rest/recover and fuel properly. Fingers crossed.