It’s been a couple of weeks since I recommenced bicycle tournament practice, but expressly without the goal of the tournament…at least initially.

Not cracking the whip on myself hard has been a weird experience, however taking a more relaxed approach to riding and training is going pretty well right now. Without wanting to build to a peak in the same manner used for XCO National series, some more relaxed miles with emphasis on volume and backing up is exactly what I need for the BCBR 2017.

I am training to compete solidly, but mainly to enjoy the adventure. I realise that this is exactly why 95% of the athletes I coach undertake coaching; to be able to successfully complete an event, not be totally broken, and love the process. If I stop loving it, I stop doing it. I have had enough of crushing skulls for this year. Adding the adventure and escape is going to be crucial if I am going to not break myself in the process!

So how do you do this? Essentially by dialling it back: training sans power, heart rate and Strava for a while. While the technology can be reduced, you can still crank some workload. Yes, it’s harder to quantify (did we do 60 or 70km off road? How much elevation?), but in the early stages of back on the bike, bum on bike time counts for a lot.

So here’s a list of how the preparation has gone for the first couple of weeks back. With 8 weeks to go, it will increase from here but this is what the beginning entails.

  1. Get on the bike. The hard yards start with a single pedal stroke. Yes, after some accrued time off riding up to my favourite Mt G, usually a quick 2hr20 jaunt with bulk hills, turned into 2hrs45 of “why oh why oh why?”. The next week it was 2hr35, and the legs started to feel like they had something other than sausage meat in them. It starts simply by riding.
  2. Have a plan. Plans come in many forms, from meticulously planned, watt-conforming programs to looser arrangements. The important part is that you have one. By training specifically, you seek to recreate the demands of your event progressively, using periods of overload and rest to generate adaptation. It’s not a hard thing to do. For BCBR it’s a series of days that will likely take me 3-4hrs, through technical singletrack. So building up to successive hard days on hard singletrack is key.

3. Find your deficits. Thankfully for me, I have an Aido that lets me know exactly what my weaknesses are, though I am pretty insightful as to what they are myself. Knowing the nature of the BCBR trails to be rough and rooty and potentially wet: the combination of the last two I recently realised I find terrifying, it’s time to seek out tough trails in my local neighbourhood that gets as close as possible to this. We don’t have any. However, Nerang and Parklands in the wet, at a pinch, could be adequate for tech rooty trail training.

4. Implement plan. Once you have gotten back on the bike, crafted a bit of a plan and addressed the requirements of the event and your deficits, it’s time to implement the plan. Scribbling down a plan and rustling up mates to ride with you is well and good but it’s time to get the chamois time in!

THE PLAN

An example week for some early, largely unstructured training leading into BCBR for me has included:

Monday: Day off or active recovery

Tuesday: Short trail ride, slightly higher intensity (work day) (<2hrs)

Wednesday: Long trail ride, focus on hills and technical trails (3-4hrs)

Thursday: Medium fireroad hill ride or road ride up the mountain (3hrs)

Friday: Off/active recovery OR short technical trail blat (1hr-1hr30)

Saturday: Long ride, mixture of fire-road, trails and mountaineering (3hr45 ride, 45min mountaineering…)

Sunday: Technical trails blat (2hr) and bushwalk (1hr)

As you can see, the specifics aren’t very specific at this stage. No strengthies, VO2’s, threshold efforts or SST. Some athletes require more direction with their zones and durations during this time; that’s 100% ok, that’s my job!

My own volume has increased from zero hours to a solid amount (strongly mirrored by chocolate consumption: skinfold mods are not on the table right now) and the emphasis is on bike-time and increasing confidence and skill where possible. Having increased from zero hours to 15 hrs/week over the past few weeks, one has to be mindful of keeping recovery days and weeks in check, no matter how good you feel at the end of the block; it’s only ever a hard session away from coming undone and getting sick!

Anyway, stay tuned for the next update in a couple of weeks, as I build a little more structure into the plan….but probably still stay away from worrying about the power metre at this stage, and as you can see the road bike is largely absent. Hopefully by reading this you can gain some insight into how to break down an event into it’s constituent parts and replicate in training to get the most out of your time.

But the number one rule is, never forget the adventure!