A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?

[Xplora]

And the hopes and dreams of many were dashed lol

I think cycling has a somewhat unique benefit where the time put in is so high that you could find your niche doing 15-20 hours a week. But you need to be a short sleeper

[ft_critical]

If there is no open racing on the weekend I will normally do around 550km a week. I squeeze this in around a 'long' job and wife / kids. Lucky for me I am an extremely early riser.

2 x easy days.
2 x 4 - 6 hour endurance days with climbing.
1 x 2-3 hour day with specific intervals.
2 x 2 hour days on TT bike, doing TT stuff.

I'm nowhere near the top of Elite A in Qld but can hold my own.

Mon 5am - 6am
Tue 4.30am - 7.30am
Wed 5am - 7am or 4.15pm - 6.15pm (depending on PM work committments)
Thu is same as Wed
Fri 5am - 6am
Sat 4.30am - 8.30am
Sun 4.30am - 8.30am / 9.30am / 10.30am

This is how I arrange things from April through to about October.

I'm lucky because the early starts don't bother me and my wife and kids tend to be busy doing lessons, classes, sport, whatever on Wed and Thu arvo.

That is just the training time. Rest time, family time, wife time, work time all need to be added ...

I don't have the mental strength to do more that 350km per week. So I think it is amazing that you have it do do 550km per week.

A 4:30 start is a 4am wake for me. I am virtually non-functional by 8:30pm. All I am thinking about is when I can get to bed.

[thearthurdog]

Yeah I think I know how lucky I am. I'm awake early (training or not) and really my training schedule occurs at 'down times' in my life when I'm not working and / or with my family. I should probably add that I am incredibly focused after returning from a 12 year break from the sport.I had a LOT of weight to lose and I am on a bit of a mission at present. When I decide I am too old to race Elite I suspect I'll ease things off considerably.

[CaptainSlow]

Interesting reading in here. Any power users care to add their 'typical' average weekly TSS to go with the hours per week figure?

[Toolish]

If there is no open racing on the weekend I will normally do around 550km a week. I squeeze this in around a 'long' job and wife / kids. Lucky for me I am an extremely early riser.

2 x easy days.
2 x 4 - 6 hour endurance days with climbing.
1 x 2-3 hour day with specific intervals.
2 x 2 hour days on TT bike, doing TT stuff.

I'm nowhere near the top of Elite A in Qld but can hold my own.

Mon 5am - 6am
Tue 4.30am - 7.30am
Wed 5am - 7am or 4.15pm - 6.15pm (depending on PM work committments)
Thu is same as Wed
Fri 5am - 6am
Sat 4.30am - 8.30am
Sun 4.30am - 8.30am / 9.30am / 10.30am

This is how I arrange things from April through to about October.

I'm lucky because the early starts don't bother me and my wife and kids tend to be busy doing lessons, classes, sport, whatever on Wed and Thu arvo.

That is just the training time. Rest time, family time, wife time, work time all need to be added ...

I don't have the mental strength to do more that 350km per week. So I think it is amazing that you have it do do 550km per week.

A 4:30 start is a 4am wake for me. I am virtually non-functional by 8:30pm. All I am thinking about is when I can get to bed.

Same here, really need to work on waking up early to get more training in. If I get up before about 5:30 I am useless by mid arvo at work and looking for bed as soon as the kids are asleep. What time do you normally go to bed to be getting up that early consistently?

[thearthurdog]

Depends.

I read a bit in the evening.

I would say on average I am asleep by 9.00 pm. 7 hours sleep is a lot for me.

[thearthurdog]

Interesting reading in here. Any power users care to add their 'typical' average weekly TSS to go with the hours per week figure?

Hard to answer due to a lot of variables, weeks done with a lot of TT work below threshold, amount of climbing done, residual fatigue, etc, etc. I had a quick look at my Golden Cheetah and I would say the TSS range for my 'standard' weeks is between 800 and 1000.

[vander]

Interesting reading in here. Any power users care to add their 'typical' average weekly TSS to go with the hours per week figure?

Agree its extremely variable week to week. I can say my CTL has been between 95 and 105 for the last 6 weeks or so.

[skull]

You racing a grade vanders? I was up at 100ctl late last year before I crashed. I was goiing ok racing b then.

This yeat has been a mixed bag of illness, injury and laziness and I am currently only just got my ctl back on 70. Oh and the few races I have done this year I have been dropped.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 4

[CaptainSlow]

Thanks for the replies - understand it can be variable, but thought it might be interesting to compare with the hrs/week figure.

Should probably share myself since I've asked - I'm not racing A, but have done OK in a handful of outings in B. More race experience and I hope to improve from there. Over the last four weeks average of 11.5 hours, TSS of 680 (between 570 - 770), and CTL currently of 78. It's a bit more than I've done in the past and still getting used to the load.

[Crawf]

Interesting reading in here. Any power users care to add their 'typical' average weekly TSS to go with the hours per week figure?

You know I'm not an A-grader, but am always close to a win in club B. Weekly avg TSS for the year has been 847, 13hr avg a week, a hard block in June saw weekly 1200 TSS avg's.

[vander]

You racing a grade vanders?

Havent raced heaps on the road this year, but when I race it is A grade. Not really any results yet on the road this year, hopefully I will get some on the track in the next few months.

[Cul]

I've been watching this thread with a bit of interest...

Sounds like there is (some) hope for me yet...

[Xplora]

Sustaining 15 hours of training (not just riding) a week when you work is damn hard. I was commuting 20kms each way full time work as well as 3-5 hours on top of that and wasn't getting much quicker... certainly not A grade speeds!

[Leeroy]

Sustaining 15 hours of training (not just riding) a week when you work is damn hard. I was commuting 20kms each way full time work as well as 3-5 hours on top of that and wasn't getting much quicker... certainly not A grade speeds!

I did similar (12ks each way) on top of proper training sessions of about 8-9 hours a week over a period of 6 months. What I learned (the hard way - even after being told) is that unless you can somehow properly integrate training and commute (which will be hard for most of us to do) the key is to do your commute at recovery pace or slightly above and save the hard stuff for your proper training sessions. if not, all rides quickly become mediocre, you burn-out and there is no improvement.

[Cul]

I was trolling through some old emails the other day and found something that I thought might be relevant to this thread. It's an AIS training plan that was being set up for an elite / international level mountain bike racer with a focus on the world champs, circa 2007(?). I am not sure how complete the plan was as there were no dates only week numbers, and a few rides blank with question marks. The plan made for some interesting browsing however; interesting how the style of training now days (especially during base period) has had a swing toward more popular tempo and sweet spot intervals to introduce similar adaptions in a shorter time frame. Interesting also that there was limited recovery paced rides...

The plan was set up in 4 week blocks with 3 on weeks and 1 recovery week, there was also a recovery week between HIIT, so rather then 4 weeks it was 2 weeks HIIT one week rec, 2 weeks HIIT, one week rec before moving into the "Race Prep" period of the plan. Edit: Also worth noting the plan was set up to use LTHR zones, not power.

Weekly hours.
Base 1 - 30pw lots of riding at Z2, 10 hours on recovery week.
Base 2 - 30pw lots of riding at Z2, 10 hours on rec week.
Base 3 - 30pw lots of riding at Z2, 10 hours on rec week.
Tempo - 25pw introduction of tempo rides between 1 and 3 hours duration rather then intervals, alot of other riding at Z2, 10hrs rec week.
Threshold - 22pw introduction of threshold intervals, ridden AT lactate threshold, again a lot of other riding at Z2, 10 hours rec week
HIIT (5 weeks) - 18pw max, alot of focus on < 3min intervals and 30/30's, also this and the race prep period are the only two periods that included much mountain bike work.
Race Prep (3 weeks) - 18pw tappering to 15pw on race week, again a lot of focus on HIIT and a lot of time on the mountain bike.


Around the same time I had also been sent a plan with a focus on 24 Hour MTB racing that was set up by TIS that a friend of mine was using for his crack at the Aus Solo 24 hour Champs, the format and methodology of the training plan was very similar, from memory my friend's plan had a little more volume and the introduction of tempo intervals a little earlier in the piece, also had dates and "B" events so it was more "complete".

[Xplora]

30 hours per week. That's a full time job (because you would lose 2-3 hours on dedicated daily recovery). Way too much level 2 riding for my liking LOL

[Cul]

30 hours per week. That's a full time job (because you would lose 2-3 hours on dedicated daily recovery). Way too much level 2 riding for my liking LOL

Agreed that's a lot of work and likely the reason my friend gave up on doing the 24hr Solo Champs as I know he was struggling with uni, riding and getting it all in as still being able to recover.

Around the same time I was doing around 16 to 18hrs a week solid, with a full time job (albeit pretty casual) with no other commitments and it was a very tough ask, I ended up not listening to my body, getting very burnt out and as a result stopped racing.... Shame as I was slowly working my way to the pointy end of the field in open / elite in MTB endurance events. Hindsight is a wonderful thing though!


I guess a follow up to the "A graders, how many hours do you put in per week" could be how many of those hours are putting around at recovery pace and how many hours a week do you "work"?

[jules21]

I did similar (12ks each way) on top of proper training sessions of about 8-9 hours a week over a period of 6 months. What I learned (the hard way - even after being told) is that unless you can somehow properly integrate training and commute (which will be hard for most of us to do) the key is to do your commute at recovery pace or slightly above and save the hard stuff for your proper training sessions. if not, all rides quickly become mediocre, you burn-out and there is no improvement.

this is me. i do 10-15 hrs. per week (max. 20 on occasion) and most of it is commuting. i am probably a C grader (i also race D and B - letters don't give much info on the level of competition). i struggle with recovery and am trying to integrate training into my commutes better, including by easing off the bulk of riding i do during them. it takes a lot of discipline to do it properly.

i find having a desk job is hard - i reckon i am often quite tired just from staring at a computer screen 8 hours a day.

[Xplora]

jules, the recovery rides are incredibly hard to manage. I did notice big improvements when I did them though. If you don't have a power meter to restrict yourself, 39/15 is your maximum gear for recovery commuting. I struggled with this because I rode to get home, not just to ride

[jules21]

jules, the recovery rides are incredibly hard to manage. I did notice big improvements when I did them though. If you don't have a power meter to restrict yourself, 39/15 is your maximum gear for recovery commuting. I struggled with this because I rode to get home, not just to ride

yeah.. it's tough. i don't have the time to do a heap of dedicated training and most of my riding is commuting. the temptation is definitely to keep up a tempo and make good time, but you just get in a rut and have little energy left for the high intensity stuff. i've finished weeks barely able to get home due to exhaustion, without really feeling like i've pushed myself.

[Xplora]

it's like I'm reading my woes 12 months ago... I can guarantee you that 1-2 hard intervals in a week (anything truly challenging for you), combined with an easier commute home (HR L2) maybe Monday afternoon and a proper recovery ride (PWR Z1) the day before a race, will create enormous gains if you are racing and riding weekends, because I got them - assuming enough food and sleep. I look at it this way - do I want to win races, or save 3 minutes on my 50 minute commute?