I joined the Rocky Mountain Bikes Elite Cycling Team for 2009. This team is made up of only CAT 2 and CAT 1 racers and we've got a total of 16 racers. I upgraded in June of 2008, so I had a fresh start to the year in CAT 2.
My goals for this year were:
Get a top 5 placing at one of the Tour of the Gila stages (potentially stage 2 RR or stage 4 crit)
Break into the top 20 in one or two P/1/2 races
Help teammates achieve their goals and stick to my training plan
To do this, I built my training plan around peaking in early June (Tour of the Gila was 1st week of May), recovering, taking a little time off, then peaking again towards the end of the year for cyclocross (cyclocross is awesome!).
Here was the exact plan I followed.
Late November: Tempo workout (between 60-90 minutes at 75-94% of functional threshold) every other day. If I was racing on the weekend, then easy rides on the day before/after the race. Alternate Tempo days with easy/medium pace or recovery rides.
December: same as November
January: Tempo, easy/medium, SteadyState - (four 14-20minute intervals at 90-105% of functional threshold), easy/medium, SteadyState, long easy/medium, recovery.
February: SteadyState, easy/medium, SteadyState, easy/medium, SteadyState, long easy/medium, recovery
March: SteadyState, easy/medium, LToverunder (5min ~ 95%, 2min - 103%, 5min, 2min, 5min, 2min rest 10min repeat two more times), easy/medium, LToverunder, long easy/medium, recovery
April: LToverunder, easy/medium, LToverunder, easy/medium, LToverunder, long easy/medium, recovery
May and June: mostly alternating speed workouts (high intensity, short intervals, short rest periods) with easy/medium rides.
July: off, start over with Tempo when motivation returns.
I'll probably upload my journal for each month to show exactly what I did, but not in this post.
I almost never do two high intensity rides in a row. I typically ride between 10 to 14 hours a week. I didn't do any weight training last winter. I kept a journal and recorded my exact workouts, power levels, heart rate, and notes if I couldn't do the workout. Below is an exerpt of my training journal from July of this year. As you can see, I'm tracking my workout type/name, power/hr level, and weight if need be.
In the fall and winter I would do a field test to reassess my power levels and adjust accordingly. The field test consisted of two 8 minute maximum power efforts with 10 minute rest between. Take the average, then multiply the average by 0.878 to get the functional threshold power.
Below is my current power levels: The 358W (functional threshold power) is my average power for the two 8 minute efforts multiplied by 0.878. This is actually an estimation as my last field test was in April and my functional threshold was 351W, so this is a guess. You can actually tell if your power is too high because you won't be able to do the workout within the prescribed power levels. :)
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