Number of Quality days per week for Masters

[Velo Jayhawk]

I'm curious what the other 50+ racers typically average in terms of hard days of training per week in season. I've noticed in the last several years I don't feel like I come back as fresh from hard workouts as soon as in years past. So that raises the question of whether I would be better off doing fewer quality workouts per week, and replacing them with easier rides to promote recovery.

There was a time I could do 2 fairly hard workouts on a weekend, and a couple more shorter ones during the week. In recent years I'm wondering if I can only get away with 1 high-quality midweek workout, and a race or long/hard ride on the weekend. Going hard on Sunday after a long Saturday ride is getting tougher too. The other rides are typically mid-tempo stuff, what I would call "3 hour power", with only 1 "easy" recovery ride per week. In terms of total time, if other things don't get in the way my training hours usually range up & down between 11 to 15 per week.

What's the consensus of the other Master's?

Cheers,
Ken

[Too Tall]

The elusive answer is all over the board Ken. Full disclosure, I am a coach and that is something everyone struggles with. Luckily it usually only takes a couple months of good feedback to figure this out. If folks have good notes from past training seasons I can get a feel for it but nothing can tell me for sure what's going to happen.

Personally, I am 56 yrs. old and thrive on tons of sub-aerobic riding and one interval workout mid-week and one (secret sauce) hard hilly workout and a hard group ride or race weekends. That's basically three "hard" workouts and alot of easy riding if you are trying to summarize.

[Tom Officer]

Too Tall is right, the answer is all over the place. I coach as well and my approach with masters guys is to pay special attention to recovery, you can do this several ways, use the old standbys of hrs sleep, resting pulse and how you feel each morning, in addition to looking at the files and picking up hr suppression in workouts. There are several other fancier things I sometimes recommend, such an HRV monitor or the Zeo sleep monitor, but to be honest they're limited to special cases or pros for the most part.

As far as the number of hard days for masters guys, it really varies based on periodization and how much of the tempo type stuff (ie: group rides) you insist on riding (a big no no in my book). I'll give you an example of several weeks for me, but be forewarned this is not for everyone!

Week of April 1st
Mon - 4:30 hrs, hard tempo ride, caught in hail and rain, pushed hard on hills and rode big ring on flats
Tues - 4:15 hrs, steady metabolic endurance ride, some tempo on the climbs
Wed - 4:30 hrs, steady metabolic endurance with several VO2 efforts at end of ride
Thurs - 5 hrs, steady metabolic endurance
Fri - 1 hr, active recovery
Sat - 3:30 road race
Sun - 3:45 steady metabolic endurance

Week of April 23rd
Mon - rest day, drove to NH to see folks
Tues - 2 hrs, LT workout, warm up, 5 sprints of 10 sec, 5 sprints of 20 sec, then at LT the following 12 min/10 min/8 min/6 min/4 min/2 min all out, 5 min rest between, balance is ride easy
Wed - 5:30 hrs, steady metabolic endurance
Thurs - 1:40 hrs, AnT workout, warm up then 25 min hard with sprint every 4th min, 5 easy, then 1 min all out with 3 min rest x 12, balance is ride easy
Fri - 1 hr active recovery
Sat - 3:30 race (won)
Sun - 5:30 hrs, steady metabolic endurance

This week
Mon - 1:15 core and weights workout and stretching
Tues - 3:30 hrs, steady metabolic endurance
Wed - 1 hr, motorpacing, very fast and tough workout, popped 3 times, lightheaded for 3 hrs after
Thurs - 3 hrs, steady metabolic endurance
Fri - 1 hr active recovery
Sat - 3 hrs, race in NH
Sun - rest or 4 hrs steady metabolic endurance

So you can see it's a pretty wide range of stuff in there, but for the most part either really fast or pretty slow. Several things to be aware of, I have my own business so when it's slow I have the time to train the kind of hours you'll see above. The other thing is I have been doing this for awhile and have a very good sense of when I need a break and when I can keep pushing the training load.

When I'm coaching others by far my most important role is sensing when to back off and when to push, the training plan is very much secondary to all the other stuff that goes into coaching.

[devlin]

I'll reiterate something that Tom just said above and something I've learnt the nuance of in the last 5 or so years.

"for the most part either really fast or pretty slow"

Your hard work outs need to be eye bulging hard and the endurance and recovery rides really easy.

This is what I do and it's working for ME so far this year......

I do a 3 or 4 week cycle depending on race dates.
The week before a big race is the taper week and I'll do about 8 hours with a couple of jumps and a few short hills to keep the legs going but to freshen up for the weekend.
The normal load weeks I plan for 5-6 days training so if I have something that comes up I have room to adjust.
Monday is usually a recovery ride. 1 hour spin
Tuesday is a 3 hour hard hills ride. About 15 climbs in the loop in the 10-15% range most about 300-500m long. This one hurts.
Wednesday I will try and roll out for about 3-4 hours at as Tom puts it 'metabolic endurance'
Thursday will either do another (different) hills loop or go and ride on the front of a bunch local bunch ride. No point hiding down the back.
Friday. Easy 1 or two hours. Spinning.
Saturday or Sunday. I will ride to a local club crit race and ride home Can end up being a 5 hour day depending how far the race is from home. If I'm not interested in the racing I'll do a 4-5 hour ride in the hills but only going at tempo over them not attacking like mid week. The other day I will take the kids out for an easy mtb ride or just have a day off and take it easy.

As you can see it's pretty loose but it allows me to juggle my sessions around my life and whether I am recovering enough from the hard sessions. I also find that rather than doing intervals for my sanity sake I just use the mid week hard hills ride to simulate the terrain we are usually racing on. It's seems to be helping my sprint as well, though I am finding I am now sprinting at a lower cadence and don't quite have the immediate jump I used to but I also understand why that is so.

As I said this is working for me but I also know what my body can deal with load wise and how it responds to load.

[DOOFUS]

the polarized model works well if you can crack 12 hrs+ a week on the bike -- either really hard or zone 1-2

I only ride abour 8-9 hrs a week, what works for me ymmv

1 VO2 hills + Tabatas day (tuesday)
3 high tempo/low threshold days (wed, thurs, sun) crusing for 90-120min at avg HR 15 beats below threshold (power was 88-90% when I was using the PM)
1 fartlek day -- zone 2-3 with 4 VO2 hills thrown in (sat)

day off usually monday and friday

where tom avoids zone 3 and puts a lot of time in, I emphasize zone 3 and have more time off the bike for recovery. both approaches work....

[Tom Officer]

This illustrates exactly, one of the big issues with coaching masters or others with limited time. There is a point where below a certain number of hours per week, what I use for a training model will simply not work, as you'll end up losing fitness. The answer is basically that you have have to add a lot of tempo and VO2 stuff, a la Carmichael and his time crunched stuff, but just be aware it requires more frequent rest weeks and sometime several at a pop or you'll get burned out.

the polarized model works well if you can crack 12 hrs+ a week on the bike -- either really hard or zone 1-2

I only ride abour 8-9 hrs a week, what works for me ymmv

1 VO2 hills + Tabatas day (tuesday)
3 high tempo/low threshold days (wed, thurs, sun) crusing for 90-120min at avg HR 15 beats below threshold (power was 88-90% when I was using the PM)
1 fartlek day -- zone 2-3 with 4 VO2 hills thrown in (sat)

day off usually monday and friday

where tom avoids zone 3 and puts a lot of time in, I emphasize zone 3 and have more time off the bike for recovery. both approaches work....

[DOOFUS]

This illustrates exactly, one of the big issues with coaching masters or others with limited time. There is a point where below a certain number of hours per week, what I use for a training model will simply not work, as you'll end up losing fitness. The answer is basically that you have have to add a lot of tempo and VO2 stuff, a la Carmichael and his time crunched stuff, but just be aware it requires more frequent rest weeks and sometime several at a pop or you'll get burned out.

yep

I don't do VO2 until I have 12 weeks of sweet spot under my belt, and then no more than 6-8 weeks of 1 VO2 day a week, then a couple of easy weeks

[Velo Jayhawk]

This is all great information, and thank you to everyone. And I think you guys have pointed out, perhaps inadvertently, what partly explains what I am experiencing (part of it is the getting older, but that's a war I happily wage ).

My average week has progressed from maybe 8 to 10 hours in my mid 40s to now upwards of 12 to 15 at 52, and if things are going well at work & home, I usually stay pretty close to 15. At the same time, over the last couple years or so I have been pushing to make the hard workouts more intense. What I haven't been doing is going easy enough on the easier days - I end up riding at that same old medium-hard tempo that is so fun. But those rides have gotten longer as my hours have increased, so I'm thinking the total workload is getting to be too much in a given week to recover.

I think what I've effectively been doing is trying to combine the methods that Doofus and Tom have described, which just doesn't work. At least for the genetics I was dealt.

[wasfast]

Tom's comment that "this is not for everyone"...sheesh. That first week of April is in the neighborhood of 27 hours. Do you ever sleep? :-)

The context of what type of racing you're doing can change this significantly. These days for me, it's short TT's and thus staying away from crits, 'cross (a crit in the dirt/mud) and the track completely. I'm too old to heal up from a bad crash. I also can't see the payback in local amateur racing for doing 20hr weeks although I know plenty of Cat 1/2's that do.

I do training rides Tuesday, Thursday, Sat and Sun. I do that pretty much all year along but the type of work within those days changes. I'm currently doing one of the classic 4 x10's, 3 x 15's or 2 x 20's on Tuesday. Thursday is VO2 max with 5 x 3' at 110%. Saturday is a long aerobic ride, (solo to keep things in check) of 50-75 miles, 5K vertical. Sunday is more a tempo ride (sweet spot) with the emphasis on the back end of the ride.

[devlin]

I've come back to this thread after my recent race experience and for a little bit of an anecdote to highlight a few things. I've slowly been making my way up the ranks after being off the bike for a couple of years with and ankle injury (it's now fused). Recently, I've just been graded Masters A (top level for old farts in Australia, I'm 42 in July) but also decided to step up to A grade in the club events. So far my intervals have been replaced by hilly rides, which has served me well but riding the crit on Sunday, with the assembled field, showed me that maybe I need to do some flat interval work. It could also be I am now at the very bottom of that grade. There were about a dozen guys in the bunch that race and win in the NRS so it was fast. Anyway 50kph(31mph) down the main straight into a head wind was insane and going round the final bend, lap after lap, cranked right over in the 53x13/12 smashing at the pedals just to hold the wheel in front was eye opening to say the least. I was happy to finish in the bunch (break away of a dozen guys lapped us, and we still avg. 45kph(28mph)) but it shows that the training is specific. This weekend is a hilly 90km metro champs with just the old farts, no NRS guys, so I'm hoping that I will be a chance for a podium.

[DOOFUS]

yah

doing VO2s and Lacatate Tolerance work on hills is easier mentally, but you have to be able to put those watts out at a high rpm on the flat too

Tabata Tabata Tabata with high cadence

[devlin]

Yeah, I was thinking about it last night while training and it's definitely the cadence part on the flat. The power is there as I could close those 5m gaps pretty quick when riders in front of you drop the wheel but I was rolling a bigger gear to do it. You can only do that so many times.

25 years at this malarky and still learning stuff. I probably already learned this but just forgot about it.

[Tom Officer]

Motor pacing....that's the big secret!

[devlin]

If only I could. Highly frowned upon in our 'self righteous' black and white rules utopia. Not to say it's not done though just difficult to organise.

Hmmm..........sounds like an excuse to me.

[thollandpe]

I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a coach and certainly lack the credentials of Tom and Josh. But I did do OK back in the day as a young Masters racer.

First off I suggest you look at what you’re trying to accomplish. A lot of my teammates and competitors would train for 80-100 mile road races, but their racing diet was a lot of 15-20 mile crits. If you want to do what Tom Officer’s been doing, which is amazing, please disregard.

My budget was 8 hours a week, training and racing. Occasionally I’d get 12 hours on a double-race weekend or vacation. So my regimen was more like Doof’s. Always used a weekly club TT, 10 miles plus warmup and warmdown, to gauge my fitness and recovery.

And I’d pick my races carefully, a lot fewer than most and even fewer days back-to-back. Hardly ever succumbed to the temptation to ride multiple races at a crit. I found the effort expended in races was far beyond what I did in training, and so needed to recover physically (usually) and mentally (always) to do it well again. The lighter race schedule also worked because there was less time lost to bike prep and idle hours (often without family) in the damn car.

So to answer your question, 3-4 quality days a week if you're on the 8-hour plan. I'd scale that back to 2-3 with your 11-14 hours and be sure to work in a recovery cycle where you scale back every 3 weeks or so.