Training Week #6

I have been training for the Mille Cymru Audax since the beginning of March 2014 and have now started approaching something like my full training volume. Every weekend, since the beginning of March 2014, I have been doing century-distance rides (usually early on Sunday mornings – with the aim of being back home by lunchtime). My longest Sunday ride so far has been 126-miles long (201km), which was my training ride from London to Cambridge and back again on Sunday 13th April 2014.

I follow a training philosophy which I call “Minimalism”. This philosophy is aimed at doing the minimum necessary training required to achieve my goals and implies that you are only as good as the single best training session you do in a week (which, in turn, implies that all other weekly training is supportive of just that one main training session). It is this single main weekly training session which is responsible for the bulk of my fitness.

For long-distance cycling the single main session of the week is my weekend long ride. The other sessions are useful – but are not core to attaining my fitness goals – and it is even okay to miss them once in a while, when the schedule doesn’t accommodate weekday training. However, I do aim to follow the schedule as closely as is practical and I strive to maintain consistency from week to week.

My full training schedule at the moment looks something like this.

Monday: Day off.

Tuesday: Gym – Leg session (13-26 sets of 10 leg presses, going up to the maximum level of 175 kg on the machine, followed by 100 calf raises using only my bodyweight).

Wednesday: Hill repeat session (15 repeats of steep half-mile hill on Church Road, Bow Brickhill, Milton Keynes).

Thursday: Gym – Upper body (Kick-boxing technical workout on heavy bag, followed by full upper body weight training session).

Friday: Tempo Ride.

Saturday: Day off.

Sunday: Long ride (100-miles plus).

I tend to do an advanced stretching routine after every workout. This training routine will certainly evolve in the weeks to come, mainly with a view to making it more intense and using my training time more effectively – but the plan is definitely not to keep riding for longer and longer (except in event-practice simulations, which I may do once each month). I’ll keep you posted…

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