How to structure a 12 hour indoor week for gradual, sustained improvement

Hard to say and more importantly if you are just starting off in college I’m about three times your age, and only cycling seriously for 6 years. Assuming you are in twenties, you can likely handle both more volume and more intervals. In general I can handle 8-10 hours weekly volume for months and months and months, but not as many intervals as I need more recovery. So any ideas shared are more oriented to masters 35+ cyclists, or anyone that needs more recovery (for example when getting started or if you have a highly demanding physical or stressful job).

That said, always a rest day before your hardest intervals. That means my hardest days are Mon and Fri (because Sun and Thur are off days). My weeks have evolved based on what we found works, for me. A recent week targeting 11.5 hours:

  • Mon: 2 hours with 20 minutes tempo and 8 minutes above threshold
  • Tue: 2 hours endurance
  • Wed: 2 hours with 32 minutes tempo
  • Thur: mobility/core work
  • Fri: 2 hours with 32 minutes tempo
  • Sat: 3.5 hours with 60 minutes tempo
  • Sun: mobility/core work

Again, that was later in my season. Earlier that would have likely been an 8-10 hour week and only 2 hard interval days. Early in the season its mostly endurance riding and a little bit of ‘stuff’ which for me is either adding short sprints or a handful of short intervals. The example above is showing what happens after 4+ months of progression.

Here is some info on my earlier October thru December work: