Source
r/Velo•
MTBSPEC

Looking for some direction on training.

I recently got into some XC mountain bike racing last year and am looking to move up into sport this year with 1:30-1:45 races. I have been riding mountain bikes for years not seriously but have good handling skills and pretty good base fitness. I have a young son and a full time job and do not have all the time in the world to train. However, I ride my bike to work 8 miles each way about 4/5 days a week plus I can probably get an hour or so for an after work ride once a week and 2 maybe 3 hours for a ride on the weekends. I can also get a solid hour ride in at lunch at work. I have a decent amount of time to ride overall but no big chunks for epic mtb rides. I am struggling to break out of my plateau and was wondering how you would structure all of these rides? I have a road bike and mtb. I was planning on riding to some trails on a nice weekend ride to get 2 straight hours of riding. I feel like I need big long rides to gain fitness and not sure if I can get better quality out of my shorter rides to offset this. Any advice for how you would focus these rides to help with racing? Thanks

Posted Mar 26, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

1924
XCAddiction•

Epic mountain bike rides are not what you need to build endurance for 2 hour races. The best thing you can do is get a road bike, or just ride your MTB, and do 3+ hour rides at endurance pace. It will make a massive difference in your ability to go hard on longer races.

14
MTBSPECOP•

I have a road bike. I guess my problem is that I have time for a lot of short rides but longer rides, especially 3+ hours are very to come by.

4
mandradon•

I know the answer of "spend more money" sucks, but i got a trainer when my daughter was young (she's still 9, so i can't leave her home by herself still) so I could do longish trainer rides during the week without having to worry about being away from the house. It really helped me out.

You can also cram in a good HIIT on that in an hour and a half, though it's no substitute for a good 3 hour ride. But a good 3 hour ride on the trainer is, for me, torture. So I use it for my HIIT and stick my long distance endurance stuff outdoors on the weekends when I have the time.

8
MTBSPECOP•

Yeah, I know I probably should. I thought I could avoid trainer stuff by keeping my endurance up with commuting. But trying to specialize my training to racing is making me rethink that.

3
mandradon•

You can get a lot of "bang for your (time) buck" by using the trainer. There's a ton of good trainer programs out there (or you can build your own if you're smarter than me) that can be efficient with your time. I mean, you'll still need to fit in longer rides, but maybe you can negotiate that out with your partner or get some sitting, depending on your situation.

You can do intervals outdoors, too, but I know I prefer the flexibility that being able to ride indoors whenever I want the thing gives me. I can do early morning rides (which... Not really because I go into work at 6.50), afternoon rides (which I wouldn't be able to do because my wife works an hour away and gets off work at like 7pm, and I get off at 3 because I'm a teacher), or early evening. Because I'm not fighting against traffic, or geography, I can get a ton of intense training done in a tight time.

3
XCAddiction•

1 a week is enough. Do your short rides and HIIT the rest of the week. There really is no substitute for Long Slow Distance.

2
D0W0TN0W•

Check out Dylan Johnson’s YouTube page. He’s a great resource on how to plan training and provides research on a lot of myths and theories about fitness. He even lays out a template you can follow if you’re only able to train around 6 hours a week.

Basically you should do 2-3 high intensity sessions/intervals and try to get in a long ride on the weekend so your body can handle longer races.

If you can get a direct drive indoor trainer even better. I’ve been on one for a couple of months now and the quality of my workouts has improved significantly.

Good luck!

11
robzilla20001•

Hey mate,

I find TrainerRoad awesome and they have a little plan builder thing where you put your A, B, C races and it creates a build/specialise plan for you specific to the race types (road, MTB, gravel etc)

It also has the "Trainnow" feature where you just put in how much time you have and it suggests what you should do given your recent workouts.

As other have suggested a smart trainer is by far the most efficient way of training for time-poor people. Just throw some nicks and shoes and you're set. I reckon 1hr on the trainer is the same as a 2hr ride for me. TeainerRoad also allows you to do your workout on your head unit, but ideally you need a power metre. Which gets me to the last point...

If you are competing a power metre is a really useful bit of kit. I use mine all the time when going up climbs, taking turns on the front etc. Knowing that you can hold XYZ watts for xx minutes is really valuable and stops you from cooking yourself.

Safe travels :)

4
mechkbfan•

So much data out there but the most recent article I read lined up with my own experiences https://www.bicycling.com/training/a20010132/the-fastest-way-to-build-cycling-endurance/

When I've been short on time, I tend to do stick to HIIT every 2nd day for 1-1.5 hours on either roadie/MTB

For the roadie, I usually find a loop in my local neighbourhood with a nice hill in it. e.g. Do a 1min hill, 2 min recovery around the loop, repeat.

Can always mix it up with higher cadence, bigger gears, less recovery, etc. pending on what you'd like to focus on.

On the off days, if I feel like getting on the bike, just doing a recovery ride and turning off the Garmin/Strava to remove temptation to push myself.

So if it was me in your position:

  • Saturday: MTB, 2-3 hour endurance rides
  • Tuesday: Roadie, 1 hour HIIT lunch break / after work
  • Thursday: Roadie, 1 hour HIIT lunch break / after work

Then on the off days, a mix of stretching/yoga & recovery rides. It sounds like your commutes are a nice recovery ride anyway

If your endurance is still lacking after that, I'd have to question your diet, sleeping habits, drinking, bike fit, etc.

3
MTBSPECOP•

Thanks man. I do have a nice hill for my lunch HIIT ride. My endurance is pretty good. As in I can go out and do the big rides right now. My biggest issue is definitely just being able to push hard beyond an hour. I am fast and can ride fast but I fade out. Looking at my times from base which is basically one loop, I can compete in sport but there is no way I can sustain that speed for another loop. I know I need big rides but I just have a hard time finding the time so I was really trying to turn my regular miles into something better than “just riding”.

1
mechkbfan•

Do you moderate how hard you push? If you're always pushing yourself to 100% then you'll always burn out after an hour. You'll just cover more distance before burning out is all

Have you been measuring and documenting your FTP?

I'd be doing an FTP hour once a fortnight (or month) just to see how things are tracking under same conditions each time. Personally I like first thing in the morning. Less variations in heat, humidity, what I've had to eat, etc.

If you wanted to get quite serious, can always get a trainer and do targeted FTP sessions such as these

https://www.triathlete.com/training/workouts/one-hour-workout-joe-gambles-vo2-and-ftp-ride/?itm_source=parsely-api

Plenty more with some random googling of course

1
HippoTelPDX•

It sounds like the Time-Crunched Cyclist Commuter Plan might be what you're looking for. It has you do intervals during the commuting and a 2 hr ride on the weekend. If you did the 2 hr ride on the MTB, it would probably get you fairly far.

The only downside to commuting 4-5 days per week is that you don't have much time for MTB skills work. Knowing how to handle your bike is more important than having a big aerobic engine, in my experience. Maybe on the rest day, go to the pump track or do drills in the driveway.

3
MTBSPECOP•

That looks like a great resource, thanks! I’m not too worried about bike handling skills. I’ll get my mtb rides in and I have been riding mtb for 10+ years. Mountain biking is also my favorite activity so I know I’ll get it in, just trying to shape my riding towards race training a bit.

2
FBStanton•

Being more of an endurance/marathoner (30+ miles, 3-12+ hours) and coming from a similar spot 10+ years ago, it sounds like you need to work in more intervals a few days a week. Sounds like you don't have a trainer yet, do you have a Garmin or Wahoo computer? You can easily upload workouts to them you can follow, they can vary between 40 and 75 minutes. If you don't have one a power meter would help, but if you get a smart trainer they will have one built in. If you use a program like TrainerRoad, I believe they can use speed/cadence/heart rate, but the information it spits back at you isn't as reliable. Save your commutes for recovery rides. Leave your longer (2+ hr) mountain bike/skills rides for the weekends, but try to enjoy them. Anything over 3 hours will be more about having fun than training for sport class mountain bike races.

Oh, and be prepared to be blown up in Sport Class, even if you were podiuming before. I've found there's a lot of sandbaggers that are able to ride with elites, but don't move up because they aren't on the podium.

3
MTBSPECOP•

Yeah I’m prepared to get blown up. Although sport class was kind of thin last year, I think there is a good crop moving up with me. I know I am as fast as these guys, I just need to be able to sustain it for longer. I was podium about every race in base with one win overall.

I do have an older garmin that a friend gave me. I haven’t gotten into it too much yet.

My old philosophy was just I ride as much as possible and now I feel like I am on a 5 year plateau.

1
sfo2California•

I also race XC. My coach has me do pretty much all my fitness work on my road bike because you get a more efficient workout (per hour).

The long rides do help, but if you can get out for even a 2-2.5 hour road ride with no stops and minimal coasting, that’s a great workout.

Honestly with your hour at lunch you could do a lot. One or two gym days during the week, one hard interval session, one zone 2 ride. Then on the weekend a 2+ hour interval hard road ride, and a mtb ride of whatever length to practice skills.

2
Pasta_Pista_404•

You can turn commuting into close to a three hour ride if you twice a week go hard as hell to work like hurt yourself turn it into a anerobic effort for those 8 miles then chill endurance pace home.

1
AJS914•

I built up my fitness better than ever this year using a tempo based training plan. I've been doing 3x20 minutes square in the tempo zone. The workout is supposed to be heart rate limited so if HR drifts toward threshold, then you have to back off power. This is a 90 minute workout but can be compressed into 75 minutes.

My FTP has gone up 25 watts to 250 and more importantly my muscular endurance and TTE has increased greatly. I can do 200-220 watts for a long time now.

Could you ride the trainer at lunch time? You could do something similar 2x20 a few times per week to build fitness. Or do a time crunched threshold progression for a quicker boost of fitness.

It sounds like you ride a good amount in dribs and drabs but that maybe you aren't building any training load. Do you monitor progress with some kind of performance management chart (TSS, CTL, ATL, etc)?

1
MTBSPECOP•

I don’t track my progress on anything but strava. That is definitely my problem where I don’t do structured training but it also seems intimidating to me because while I can do lots of rides, it is hard to predict and block off long periods of time. The races are the best I can do with that.

1
AJS914•

Structured training doesn't have to be intimidating. It can be as simple as a trainerroad subscription and doing two 1-hour workouts per week plus all the other stuff you are doing. You can get a book like Carmichael's Time Crunched Cyclist and do some of the basic progressions.

You could use your morning or afternoon commute for a threshold progression twice a week. Start with 4x5min @ threshold for a week, the next week do 5x5, the next do 3x10, the next 3x12, 3x15, 3x20, 2x30 etc. Go for 3 weeks, go easy for a week, do three more weeks. Reassess and then target a different intensity.

Don't worry about blocking off lots of time. You can follow a training progression ad hoc when you have time as long as you get in your 1 or 2 workouts per week and then bump up the stimulus week to week.

Do you have a power meter on your bikes? Even without one, you can do basic build intervals by heart rate or RPE.

You aren't going to get off your plateau until you change your training stimulus.

You can track progress for free at intervals.icu.

https://intervals.icu/

2
Cancer_Surfer•

Quality. 3-5 minute intervals with equal rest.

1