I’m starting to see the adaptations from my base training. Holding over 200W at lower HR than Inwas pulling at 170-180 a few weeks ago. Now adding just a bit more intensity before the VO2max block to push higher.
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Worked:
- Adding 2 to 3 runs per week to my cycling workouts
- Lifting/core work with my 14 year old son 2 to 3 times per week
Did not work:
- Diet…need to cut down the amount of calories I consume.
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What worked:
TrainNow feature. Life was crazy in 2021, using TrainNow feature I was able to increase my FTP and my climbing skills.
What didn’t work:
Lost most of my endurance due to time constraints.
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Worked:
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I finally broke into the top 5-10 in my events (6-12hr MTB), just missing podiums in a 6hr and coming 9th Vet in a National 12hr
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Long periods of Z2 & Z3 with some short sharp build prior to taper seems to work for me and enable the above. It was good to repeat 2019’s discovery in that regard and use it for competitive success.
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Lots of low cadence work improved my climbing endurance.
Didn’t Work:
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At the end of my season when all the important races happened, I started to quickly gain weight, which continued rapidly during my October off-season. For some reason, I’m now finding it harder to lose the weight despite the same diet & base training regime.
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My FTP dropped 5%
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This is a hard question to answer for me because from an FTP perspective I didn’t see a whole lot of growth. Probably a lot of factors to that, including what I focused on in the second half of the year. Started at 295 after dialing it back after last season’s peak. Jumped up to 302, then 304, 305 and then 310 around March. Dropped back to 304 by May. Stayed there the rest of the year intentionally to focus on progressions. I’m now training at 310 again, which is about a 5% increase over last year’s offseason.
What worked:
- Consistent training volume. I set a goal for 500 hours for the year. That meant I needed about 10 hours per week. Sitting where I am currently, my trajectory has been nearly perfect and the volume was just about perfect in my opinion.
- I came out of the gate strong. Maybe too strong. Good base build starting in November had me setting some PRs early in the year. Reached all time high FTP of 310 on March 10th.
- Knew when to dial it back. I dialed it back to 304 at some point when I was struggling and that really helped get through the summer.
- SS and Threshold Progressions made me a more durable rider
- Raced some. Did my first crits, first road race and some endurance mountain biking. Had some decent success.
- Had some fun. Did more mountain biking. Some fun outdoor centuries. And those races.
- Realized 4 days of intensity was too much to sustain.
- Adding 30 minutes of zone 2 at the end of workouts made my endurance better
- Adding 10 minutes of extra warm up helped me warm up better for those hard workouts
- Sugar/Gatorade mixture from dr. Harrison helped fuel those harder rides
- Sleep tracking helped know what works and what doesn’t in terms of sleep quality
- Workout levels made selecting workouts awesome
What didn’t work
- Vaccine reaction knocked me off my peak pretty early.
- Too much intensity too early. Peaked earlier than I liked.
- Plan builder didn’t really have me peaking for my A race like I expected. It wasn’t terrible, but my specialty phase wasn’t great.
- AT was not helpful in helping me adjust my workouts.
- Couldn’t establish a strength training routine
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Same exact experience I’m having. I’m just staying consistent and expecting that at some point the body will catch up and start losing weight.
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How to know what worked compared to yourself is an echo chamber. We must be super careful saying definitively “this worked or this didn’t”. For example maybe we did things so absolutely bassackwards no matter the change from that low resulted in positive gains. I’ve made every mistake in the book twice so, for me, it’s another year of data reaffirming trends that go in the right direction and those that don’t.
What I think helps:
-Some sort of offseason.
-Strength (legs/core) pre-base and into base.
-Constant pressure on the pedals during long rides.
-More long rides.
-Timing the progressive overload.
-Coaching.
-Getting leaner. Not necessarily lighter.
What I know doesn’t work:
-Riding when tired from lack of sleep and chasing CTL…I work a bit on the backside of the clock and really messed up circadian rhythm flip flopping.
-Not taking into consideration that ^^^ is stress.
-Not respecting the heat (Phoenix summers). I sometimes train when it’s just too hot due to work schedule.
-Trying to keep peak fitness through the summer with group rides and far too much volume.
-In general too much HIIT but, the HIIT is more group ride/races and not actual interval training.
-Eating too much during base. Restricting cals during intensity.
-Self coaching.
edit: Most importantly what doesn’t work for me is doing FTP testing super fresh. While it yields a good number it makes training zones unrealistic. Related, the Kolie protocol seems to find a more realistic number for me…
edit 2: Training with power is good but, adding HR to it for certain things brings power in focus a little better.
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I didn’t really do much new training wise, just followed the TR 40km TT plan as it adapted. It seems to have made me a more longer term sustainable cyclist but less short sharp speed. I hit PBs on most events I done except the club TT course (with lots of short/sharp technical stuff, our ex local pro couldn’t break 20mins on the 9.9 miles). That’s maybe just aging or the lack of social riding/sprinting in 2020.
What hasn’t worked for me and at different times fortunately, the legs, the lungs and the head 
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What Worked
- I lived at a bike park in New Mexico this summer and whenever I came down from altitude usually for 1-2 weeks at a time I would hit the trainer hard which seemed to have boosted my fitness greatly.
- Read the Endurance diet and have begun a focus on dialing in my diet.
- My first A event is mid March 2022 so I treated my summer as the off-season and just rode park all summer and didn’t do much road riding. This has brought me a ton of motivation to starting my 2022 training plan started Nov. 1
What Didn’t Work
- Beginning of February I crashed hard on my MTB and dislocated my shoulder and spent 1 month off the bike rehabbing the shoulder. When I did get back on the road bike and MTB I had lost a fair bit of fitness which demotivated me to ride at all. Weird cycle I know, got slow and then not motivated to ride which only makes you slower.
- Group rides still haven’t fully come back which is where I find most my motivation to get faster - Need to shift what motivates me to train.
Goals for 2022
- Get to at least 3w/kg - currently at 2.54
- Have a strong showing at the team camp in March
- Continue staying extremely consistent with the TR plan
- Race at least the races currently on my calendar
- Have fun on the bikes
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I don’t have a lot to add… unfortunately, I didn’t hit most of my cycling/fitness goals this year. But there’s always next year!
Worked:
- Doing AM workouts - Despite having to crawl out of bed at a very miserable 3:45 AM (gotta work at 6), it allows me to focus on just cycling. Too many things going on in the evening.
- Calorie counting - I definitely will eat uncontrollably without it. Been off the horse for a couple months (and the scale doesn’t lie)… getting back on it now.
Didn’t work:
- Having a baby right at the start of the riding season! Lost lots of sleep, gained 15 pounds, had a hard time juggling all the responsibilities. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been the best thing in my life, but absolutely terrible for my fitness
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Same. I also introduced weights and creatine into my life, and that definitely isn’t helping the weight.
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Agree with this. I do a bunch of custom stuff, but have found the levels to be the only part of AT that I care about.
What worked? Nothing much, 2021 has been a real letdown after the gains of 2020 where everything had gone up, 6.2kwg for 5 minutes and hitting over 4.8 wkg FTP were particular highlights.
This year I have had equipment issues, bike fit issues and lost the love a bit. So much so that I started running but even that went badly, 12 sessions in picked up a bad back injury which also affected the bike, followed that with Covid. Yay!
The only real highlight this year has been getting a gravel bike and doing some amazing exploring. For the rest of 2021 and into 2022 that is going to be my focus, some really long events (200 miles) also planned on the road bike but generally stopping anything racing related on the road bike.
Currently trying to get into SSB low volume and add in extra stuff and amending things on the fly just to try and get some sense of consistency back into my riding.
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2021
What worked:
- Lots of Z2 - I feel so much more fresh, and am able to go deeper into rides. After the last two years, I won’t touch SSB again.
- New road bike - Now have a fit dialed on a dedicated road bike, instead of using a CX bike, and I’m more comfortable and have less small injuries hanging around
What didn’t work:
- Mental health was not great, and lead to pretty bad sleep patterns. I have got a much better handle on it over the last part of the year, and next year should be better.
- Illness and crashes - I had several crashes and bouts of illness that took me out for a while this year.
- Too little intensity - I went too far with doing Z2, and struggled in group rides because of the intensity. I now know a bit better how to have balance that works better for me.
- No weight training due to covid - This really impacted my mtb performance. I’ve gotten an adjustable kettlebell and some bands, so that will be fixed for next year
- Not great diet
Goals for 2022
- Better balance of intensity and Z2 - Going to do a bit better at maintaining a more healthy intensity distribution.
- Stay consistent in training
- More consistently eating well
- Continued focus on mental health
- Ride to have fun more often!
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Worked:
-8-10hpw plus one heavy lift day
-Tuesday (3hr) Saturday (3-4) long rides combining weekly intensity workouts into them
-group ride on Tuesday w an hour beforehand (typically only ever ride solo)
-only training vo2, anaerobic capacity, or sprints all season. Ftp slightly raised anyways, but repeatability of intense efforts increased by a lot
-eating more food during rides (real food and Gatorade powder)
-all rides outside of intervals and Tuesday group were <60% ftp
Didn’t work:
-Didn’t schedule rest weeks and struggled w some chronic fatigue
-ignored some knee pain that never went away (maybe from lifting or lower cadence riding)
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For me worked…
to listen more to my body and my feeling and follow my instincts which tended to get numb while reading and listening all these AT stuff, Training Plans, FTP Testing, Ramp Testing, Watts, bpm, cadence, Zones or all of that other stuff.
As useful as all that might be, I tended to think too much into it and believed that just slight changes could destroy the whole success… frustrated me quite often when I failed to get through hard sessions.
BS… eventually it is about the joy of doing sports, about having fun and the believe in doing what is right.
Therefore I started to mix it up a bit by starting to indoor row once in a while or go for a Nordic Walk into the forrest… maybe this is not as good for my muscles and FTP as a Threshold session on the bike might be …
but wow, what a relaxation for my brain and all the pressure I put on myself just looking at the upcoming days on may TR trainingplan.
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What worked:
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Polarized training. My main goals involve long distance riding. Was able to increase my 8h power by another 20w this year, while also increasing my FTP to a personal record of 338 (4.4).
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Riding more. Was going 10h/wk as base for most of the year (excluding weeks with multi day events).
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Strength training. Interestingly improved my TTE a lot at threshold. Not super relevant to my riding but still nice. Apparently this is a thing - found a study on it.
What didn’t work:
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SSB in the winter. Had moderate success with this last year, and had good progress with SS plans in the past. This year was unproductive. AT kept on raising SS to threshold levels. Don’t want to to 3+ threshold workouts a week. Always tired. As a result my CTL drops a lot as not doing other riding. As a result, fitness loss at the same time as overreaching. Bit the bullet and went back to polarized, including doing long rides on the trainer.
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buying a new direct drive trainer that was miscalibrated by 60w. Lead to workouts being very confusing for about a week.
Plan going forwards:
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increase winter base hours to 10-12h a week this winter, from 6-8h last winter.
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keep regularly lifting. Get back to 225 squat and 315 DL and maintain that (used to powerlift), though this is more for vanity reasons than biking relevance.
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Worked
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Following plans/structured workouts for first time in my life - did it so I could complete goal of Leadville sub 9 (goal reached!!). First year racing anything and had a blast!
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Went from 185 to 165 pounds over course of year to get ready for Leadville through fasted training and better eating.
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Improved my MTB skills tremendously by watching videos and riding with better riders. Put some effort into working on specific skills. Improved confidence on all trails.
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Working with PT on knee/hamstring/shoulder issues. Body much better balanced.
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Cross training with some running (hate it, but felt balanced) and backcountry skiing, kept me hungry to bike.
Not Worked
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FTP increased less than I wanted… 220 to 260 from March to Now, unrealistic expectation of more left me bummed out at times. Needed to stay focused on process and not results. Too much focus on FTP while I think I developed good endurance which helped me at Leadville.
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A few poorly timed fasted rides left me unable to recover effectively and definitely affected my training.
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A few unscheduled junk rides also left me recovering for too long and messed up my training.
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Gave up on eating discipline and training for a 2 months following Leadville and gained 10 pounds fast!
Now into Next year:
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Start year a better weight (170) and conditioning so that not losing weight while ramping training
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Scheduled more races through year to keep focused on goals throughout year. Got Old Man Winter on schedule for Feb… gives me something to work towards.
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Weights, and core workouts - keep on top of PT as issues develop
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Working with a coach
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Have sub 8 Leadville goal in the next couple years. Something hard enough for me to really get me fired up to train.
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Less junk miles. I’m torn on social rides… new to my area so it’s nice to meet people and social ride but it doesn’t do anything for my training…
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Strength training and enormous increase on my ability riding in threshold range. In September i started a 4 days per week lifting plan and sticked to it, i am able to come out of McAdie+3 with no damage. This is a 60 mins( 4x15) overunder in 90 mins. I was in the past ok with even long vo2 max repeats but over-unders were really killing me. Now this is changing.
I will reduce the volume after feb/mar but planning to keep the intensity.
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Worked:
- Did a 3 month SST progression base period 1 from Sep-20 to Nov-20. With no work above FTP. Enormous increase in TTE and managed to reach my “2020 Summer-PEAK” FTP in early Dec-20.
- Strength training; both gym and outside jumping. Focus on max strenght and explosiveness. Max sprint watts (1s to 20s) increased by ~200W
- Block periodisation in Build period 2 (april & may). FTP increase of 30-40W in 2 months.
- Polarised approach to base period 2 (jan - march). All high Z2 work really paid off during the summer.
- Focus on nutrition on the bike. Hitting those 100g carb intakes is as important as hitting target wattages in a VO2max interval
What did not work:
- Did a 4w Build period 1 in Dec-20 with 3 hard days per week + lot of long Z2 running. This combination was too much for me and had to dial down intensity in January as I had a lot of fatigue.
- The intensity days in (polarised) base period 2. Should have done more (high) O/Us and VO2max work instead of “steady-state” FTP intervals
- Too little intensity and duration during Peak phase. Did not show up at my A-race starting line with “the best legs”
What I will focus on 2022:
- Train what your good at. I´m a puncheur/sprinter. Hence high O/Us, short VO2max intervals, sprints etc.
- Continue with strenght training
- swap some Z2 rides to SST instead. Target is to be more “efficient” when riding in tempo/ftp zone