A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Xplora » Mon Oct 14, 2013 8:42 am
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
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby ft_critical » Mon Oct 14, 2013 12:20 pm
thearthurdog wrote: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.
That is just the training time. Rest time, family time, wife time, work time all need to be added ...thearthurdog wrote: 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.
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.
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby thearthurdog » Mon Oct 14, 2013 12:26 pm
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby CaptainSlow » Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:07 pm
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Toolish » Tue Oct 15, 2013 10:30 pm
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?ft_critical wrote:thearthurdog wrote: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.That is just the training time. Rest time, family time, wife time, work time all need to be added ...thearthurdog wrote: 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.
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.
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby thearthurdog » Wed Oct 16, 2013 6:20 am
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.
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby thearthurdog » Wed Oct 16, 2013 6:48 am
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.CaptainSlow wrote:Interesting reading in here. Any power users care to add their 'typical' average weekly TSS to go with the hours per week figure?
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby vander » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:47 am
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.CaptainSlow wrote:Interesting reading in here. Any power users care to add their 'typical' average weekly TSS to go with the hours per week figure?
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby skull » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:54 am
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.
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby CaptainSlow » Wed Oct 16, 2013 10:02 am
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.
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Crawf » Wed Oct 16, 2013 11:32 am
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.CaptainSlow wrote:Interesting reading in here. Any power users care to add their 'typical' average weekly TSS to go with the hours per week figure?
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby vander » Wed Oct 16, 2013 1:22 pm
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.skull wrote:You racing a grade vanders?
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Cul » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:15 pm
Sounds like there is (some) hope for me yet...
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Xplora » Wed Oct 16, 2013 10:53 pm
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Leeroy » Thu Oct 17, 2013 11:11 am
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.Xplora wrote: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!
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Cul » Sat Nov 02, 2013 8:22 am
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".
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Xplora » Sat Nov 02, 2013 10:10 am
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Cul » Sat Nov 02, 2013 11:03 am
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.Xplora wrote: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
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"?
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby jules21 » Mon Dec 23, 2013 12:04 pm
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.Leeroy wrote: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.
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.
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Xplora » Mon Dec 23, 2013 2:09 pm
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby jules21 » Mon Dec 23, 2013 2:22 pm
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 wrote: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
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Re: A graders, how many hours do you put in per week?
Postby Xplora » Mon Dec 23, 2013 2:51 pm
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