Training program

[Emmett]

Hi there...
Im very new to XC (been riding DH for the last few years) and would very much appreciate any help in developing a training program.

[Grover]

what sort of gear do you have

road bike
xc bike
wind trainer/rollers
access to gym

what is your daily breakdown of spare time every week

how many k's would you be looking to do

[Rexy]

do you want to race and if so what sort of distance just from been a recreational rider you can do more than you think

[luckyphil]

yawn!! just ride at least a couple of times a week. as a beginner u will see just as much improvment as if u spend hours planning your callorie intake, heart rate zones etc..
keep it simple. ride.

[Rik]

I think base training is where you want to start, ride a couple of hours at a time a few times a week. As for diet, just eat healthy, and eat enough to fuel yourself. Wait until your fitness plateus, then consider a more refined training technique.

But for now, ride everywhere! to and from work/school, to the shops, to your mates place, and get a few decent rides in when you can, and that'll definately help you for now.

[Emmett]

I'm hoping to get out 5-6 times a week. I am hoping to enter in the twelve hour race in july. I have a XC bike and very easy access trails...

[ryd_mtb]

If your planning on doing a 12-hour, your already better than me.

Start out by trying to get in about an hour most days with one longer ride, don't worry about distance and speeds, that will come to you, just mantain a speed that you can keep up over the whole ride. Keep this up and your endurance should be fairly good.

And schedule in some absolute ball breakers, find some of the biggest hills around and just ride up and down them for a while. This helps fitness as well as your mental state. Nothing worse than being in the middle of a race, or hard ride for that matter, and talking yourself into giving up.

Then again, I'm not qualified and this could all be complete bullshit, but it works for me. Good luck

[Stint]

IMO, the best tool that you could ever ask for when you are seriously looking to improve fitness is a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM). Keeping in mind that when you are using a HRM, heart rate is measured by %maximum. This is roughly calculated by 220 - age.

i.e. if you are 21 years old, MHR is 220-21 = 199 beats per minute (bpm)

Initially, if your base fitness is not too good, start off with three long rides per week (about 1.5-3hrs long), and go no more than 72% of your maximum heart rate. Do this for a couple of weeks. It may feel like you are going really slow at this tempo, but perservere.

Once you feel that you have the base km's on your legs, try a routine as follows:

Mon: 1 Hr ride (72%)
Tue: 30 flat out
Wed: 1.5 Hr ride (72%)
Thur: 30 min flat out
Fri: Rest
Sat: Trails riding (72-85%)
Sun: 1 Hr ride (72%)/trails

The above program targets the aerobic, cardio, and anaerobic range.

Good luck!

[jasco]

I'm hoping to get out 5-6 times a week. I am hoping to enter in the twelve hour race in july. I have a XC bike and very easy access trails...

Which race would that be??

I just went in the 12 hours of darkness, which was my first XC, enduro and night race all at once...... Straight in the deep end.

I learnt a couple of valuble lessons from it: (you might already know this or seem obvious to you but I wish someone had of told me before I went)

1) Learn to pace yourself, the first couple of laps I did I just went out as hard as I could and died very quickly, (my lap time was about 32mins) when I got the pacing down right I got my lap time down to 24.23!

2) When you're training try and do a ride for about the course length and race pace, break and recover, the go out and do it again <--Repeat. This gets your body use to having recover in short periods of time.

3) Eat pasta, bananas, energy bars or anything high in carbos in large quantities the week or so before the race. The during the race "graze" whenever you're not riding to keep you energy levels up.

4) If this is a race that will be done at night at all, head mounted lights are the only way to go. They feel a bit wierd to start with but the performace boost is huge, ie being able to see around a corner not just straight ahead.

5) WARM UP!! I can't stress this enough. I was still getting dressed and doing final bike setup 15mins before the race. I didn't get the chance to warm up and paid for it dearly in the first lap.

As I said, a lot of this is basic stuff but I wish someone had of told me before my race!