7 Stages, 600 Miles of Racing, the legs were going to have to have some DEPTH to them.

For the full post on my stage recaps and winning the Most Combative and Green Jersey from Stage 1, check out this post.

Today’s post will purely look at the two months leading into this cycling stage race. While I’ve trained for 2 and 3 day events, nothing has ever stacked up to this amount of racing or the level of racing. I was trying to “race up” and bring home a result!

Goals
Win Most Combative
Win A Stage of Tour of Soutland
Possibly Mix It Up On Master’s General Classification?
Survive All 7 Days

In the break of Stage 1, passing one of the many schools of children who were out to cheer us on!

Training for 7 Day Stage Race

Check out the full video post below, but we’ll run through some metrics here.

I had never trained for a 7 day stage race, where I figured I was going to be a middle of the pack to upper level rider.

I wasn’t a GC contender here, but I thought that if the stars aligned, I could possibly squeak out a stage win, which would go down as one of my best results ever. Spoiler: that did NOT happen.

I was also fiercely adamant about winning the Most Combative Rider award on one stage. This really suits my riding style of being aggressive and not only riding in the break, but forming breaks and driving them far down the road.

Lastly, I wanted to have something in the tank at the end. I didn’t want Stage 5-7 to be a complete wash if I was smoked from the first 4. The depth of a stage race is something that most cyclists don’t need to address, but I knew that large doses of TSS at high intensity factors, similar to race days, would be necessary.

It ended up being 30 hours of riding that week, but that included some warm up and cool downs, but 1,758 TSS points! Holy cow, a ton!!!

Training Goals

High FTP for Breakaways
Burst efforts within FTP efforts to survive riding with stronger riders
FTP with fatigue resistance - put out 100% FTP at 3,000-5,000kj
Max Aerobic - high vo2max efforts in order to make the break stick
Hours - plain and simple, tons of hours

8 Week Plan

Over a two month period, rarely are we going to find the perfect schedule where every training session lines up as we want.

I had a few obstacles due to travel for work: the Training Peaks Endurance Summit in Colorado, and a Business Builder Event in Los Angeles where I’d be off the bike for five days.

I don’t let interruptions in my training schedule freak me out; this is LIFE. Rather, I use them as rest or extra gym days. There’s always a way to take a step forward, even if your bike isn’t with you.

I decided that in order to hit the hours that I needed, I’d be rotating 3 day blocks of training, essentially allowing me to have some 6 day workout weeks without burning out.

Day 3 of the block would be pure endurance, allowing me to accumulate the hours that I needed, but not adding the fatigue that intervals bring onto the body. Sometimes I would cut the hours and add the gym workout on that morning, allowing me to continue to have a strong, injury resistant body. LIFTING IS IMPORTANT.

One to two days of recovery would follow, and you can see more of that in the video above.

Periodization in Stage Race Training

With so many physiological goals to hit in training, I really focus on workout-based periodization, meaning that I was increasing workload within each specific workout, as opposed to just looking at periodization from a weekly hours stand point.

A lot of examples of periodization focus on the big picture, of say doing 8, then 10, then 12 hours, but don’t necessarily show us athletes how to increase the workload in each week.

Sometimes my first week was the most hours because I’m fresh. I could handle the stress of 25 hours with intervals, whereas the 3rd week of that block may only be 18 hours but still high intensity. This isn’t reverse periodization or block periodization, but rather, it’s having my training schedule set to match the racing demands: I needed HIGH HOURS but also QUALITY, HARD INTERVALS.

If you’re trying to get big hours, flip things, with highest intensity first. I still saw growth in my interval sessions which was a huge win for the mental side of cycling as well; I knew I’d have matches to burn late in the game, whether it be in a stage, or in the race overall.

The best way for me to do that was to start the hours and intensity at the same time, then drop hours as the block moved on.

I find this to be VERY EFFECTIVE for even one day racers when they are deep in the middle of a season. It’s almost like you’re tapering a whole month, leading the athlete into a very restful Regeneration Week, and still being able to supercompensate and get the physiological growth so that you come back from the rest stronger.

If it’s earlier in the season, I follow a more traditional periodized plan, because the athlete, or myself, doesn’t have the base of hard efforts in the legs, so having the intensity on week 1 would set them up for failure, so moving in an increasing linear approach usually works better (i.e. increase the wattage or time as the 3 week block moves forward).

Interval Training For A Stage Race

I knew my training diet was going to be perfect for this.

As a breakaway style, time trial rider, making the break required some heavy doses of Max Aerobic work. There’s no way you just attack and get in the break. You have to go REALLY HARD and establish that distance with the right mix of riders.

I knew I’d need to hit threshold bursts to survive the break, physiologically teaching my body to burst hard into VO2Max and then right back into threshold at 100% to ride with stronger riders.

Lastly, plain old 100% FTP threshold to hold mega watts for a long time. If you’re in the break for 20km, you’re not getting the jersey. You need to be OUT THERE for a WHILE!

Weekly Progression of Training For Stage Race

The hours below include on the bike and gym work. Both are important over a 2 month plan for a 7 day cycling stage race!

Check out the video above where you can see the exact breakdown of specific workouts that I hit.

CYCLE 1

Week 1: 28 hours, 1330 TSS

Week 2: 20 hours, 1008 TSS

Week 3: 19.5 hours, 992 TSS

Week 4: Regeneration Week, 13.5 hours; really consists of a 3 day block plus 4 days of rest, 616 TSS

CYCLE 2

Week 1: 22 hours, 1120 TSS

Week 2: 18.5 hours, 1100 TSS

Week 3: 18 hours, 956 TSS

Week 4: 15 hours, 768 TSS

Taper Week: 6 hours, 403 TSS

RACE: 20 hours for the winner; I finished in 21.5 hours; total riding was 29.5 hours as there was some riding before and after the stages, 1639 TSS.

Key Points To Training Breakdown

Mimic Race TSS

That first week was actually the same amount of hours and relatively close TSS as the race week, so it was really good preparation to hit that workload once, and then have subsequent training after to work on individual interval sets to drive up the wattage.

Cycling Stage Race Nutrition

I mention in the video that I had gained a few pounds and wanted to lean up before the race. This weight was mostly from eating too many carbs, as I was carb loading a little bit before the long rides with high intensity intervals. Because 1g of carbs retains 3g of water, I got a little puffy.

I started really focusing my carb intake close to the hard efforts, around 20 hours before them, and then using the third day of the cycle to burn off those extra calories and flush the water.

I ended up racing at 179-181lbs for the week which was great. Speaking of, I need to get back down there soon! Currently at 181.5 but making sure I stay strong during the holidays!

Recovery Days

Rest is so important, and overlooked by so many cyclists. While the 3 day blocks really helped me to “feel” like I had some solid rides in the legs and therefore “earned” the rest days, I reminded myself that a day off was a day of growth. Don’t ride, but eat well, sleep, and RECOVER, so that I can come back and crush the next day.

I also went by what Grant Koontz said he was taught by Bobby Julich: go by sensations. There was a day that had a big ride scheduled, but I was so tired, that I took it off. I’m so thankful that I had this sensations talk with Grant in Boulder because it kept me on the right track, avoided sickness, and had the best training blocks of my life.

Training Before Work Events

It’s always a great way to avoid losing too much fitness by riding as much as you can without putting yourself into a major whole where you’re just cracked. In order to attend some work conferences without freaking out about the bike, I’d focus those rides as big hour days, 4-5 hours each, sometimes 2-3 in a row, with intervals, to really bump up the fitness and then use the conferences as recovery days.

I’ll make another blog about how to shift workouts around and make changes to a training calendar, which is a great skill for someone to learn, especially if they don’t have a coach. Honestly though, not a plug for us but just in general, it’s really hard to see the forest and have good perspective on your own training when you’re in the middle of big training blocks. It is so beneficial to having someone looking over your shoulder and helping out.

09/24 Threshold workout that I mentioned at 11:35. Here were my Strava comments:

tried to avoid going in the red on the group ride to sim making the break, pushing the pace, etc etc, but having juice left for when the race really starts.
put 2,000 kj in the legs then hit 2 x 20m @ 4.75 w/kg and 4.6 w/kg.... rode to 4,000 kj at tried so so so so hard, and could only muster 4 w/kg...that said, 72,000kj this month!

The watts come out to be 389W and 376W. Not amazing, but happy for where I was in the training block.

Cycling Burst Workouts

This will get its own post coming up as one of the top 3 workouts to do in 2020, but when doing any type of burst workout, whether it be tempo bursts, threshold bursts, etc, remember this tip: anyone can Burst. Going harder isn’t that hard. The hard part is falling DIRECTLY back into the tempo or threshold; modulating the power is not easy to do.

Really focus your efforts on nailing the burst, and staying on the gas to continue through to the next burst; don’t let your power dip to zone 2 if doing tempo bursts, or into zone 3 if doing threshold bursts!

See below, where I nail the first two, but the others were lacking!! WORK TO DO!

Max Aerobic Workouts

10/8 I mention some max aerobic workouts at 13:50 in the video.

6 x 6m15s @ 465W, 471W, 453W, 446W, 439W, 435W

Pretty happy with that; would be awesome to see the fourth or fifth one up a bit higher, but being deep into the training, I was optimistic that fresh legs would increase these numbers.

VO2Max Increase

As I had hoped, the workouts were doing what they were supposed to do! Bumping my VO2Max up before the race.

10/12 Max Aerobic Workout; here are my comments from Strava.

gave out an F YEAH! after the 4th one...worked my ass off for this, glad to be seeing the payoff
6m @ 510W !
6m @ 476
6m @ 472
6m @ 463
hit 2,000kj and 8m @ 450W
LET'S GO!!!!

Check out the video for the rest of the taper into the race, and the full 2019 Tour of Southland race commentary can be found on this post!

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Thank you to everyone for your comments and questions, let’s continue to foster a constructive conversation about cycling; let’s #EvolveOurIQ Together.

Are you ready to become a stronger and faster version of your current self? Contact me if that sounds like a transformation you want to see happen.

I was overweight and feeling like a blob before I found cycling. Things have changed in my life and I am so grateful for that; I’d love to help you with a cycling training plan to reach as many of your goals as possible, no matter how small or grandiose you think they are.

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Let’s Crush,
Brendan

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Brendan@EVOQ.BIKE

Cycling Stage Race Training Guide - 2019 SBS Tour of Southland