Training Advice

Ok well my advice to you Hippy would be go out and ride your bike lots lol! As thats what is really needed for sportives, however when I was questioning some of your earlier posts it was because the original poster had asked for advice on training for track racing and I did not believe yours or wayfers posts answered this.

A rider I was coaching for track would have at least one speed or hard session a week for most of the year, however this would be different things depending on time of year and what training phase we were in. For some one who wanted to do well at a local track league I would coach them pretty much like a kilo rider. So half there training would be like a sprinter the other half like an endurance trackkie.

The base block as you call it would be about 4/6 weeks long and come immediately after their season break of 10-14 days of total rest, then i would still have aerobic development rides in their program but i would also have a weekly session or two from the following, intervals(of varying distance and recovery), over geared starts or force production efforts, rev outs and sprint efforts on a turbo or track/quiet road. I would also inc a gym program which would match what their were doing on the bike, eg a conditioning gym work out with medium weights at 8/10 reps with little rest moving past a strength phase with heavy weights and longer rest to an explosive phase with lost of rest and light weights moved explosively. However I keep a small element of all there in every gym program, so one strength maintenance element in the explosive phase and one plyo element in the strength phase.

I don't know why a lot of coaches and riders think they shouldn't have intense work outs in the winter(apart from making sure u are warm enough to train hard/explosively) as long as the rider has enough fitness carry over from the base block and last season and you have regular rest days and blocks of reduced training loads or a say a week with just easy road the rider will be fine.

However with this approach the need is there for regular contact between rider and coach, I insist on at least two calls a week and weekly completed training diary. Within this approach a rider should reach the season well prepaid for the racing to come and should have that initial shock that a lot of riders get first few races of the season. Also as you have done a lot of quality training you can ease the training off a touch and use the races as high quality training sessions rather than having to do lots of training between races as you feel you need to catch up after a winter of slow steady rides....which is why a lot of riders who do just long road rides burn out at the end of the season.

If I was coaching a new rider I would follow a similar pattern with just a reduced load and work a lot on pedaling technique and tactics. At the end of the day my belief is if you train hard you can race easy and there is plenty of room in a program to train hard and intensely in the winter while still maintaining aerobic development and having enough rest.