Beat my friends

Who is this for?

You want to get one over your friends.

Suggested plan length

12 weeks

Milestone to focus on

• 5 min efforts

What this plan will help you develop

This is a well rounded plan that is focused on developing your ability to feel comfortable in the bunch but also having the punch to push out a few strong efforts. Therefore, you can punch over a short climb and still maintain a strong pace over the top. This is where a lot of people give up, but you won’t.

Tips and tricks to think about

• For the short efforts, imagine you have your friends on your back wheel. They’re breathing hard but they’re still hanging on. When you start these efforts, ensure you maintain the pace throughout the whole effort
• For the longer efforts, mix up your cadence. By introducing lower cadence work will help develop your strength. Think of it as squats on the bike. Just be careful, if you any niggles. Lighten the load.
• For the challenging efforts, ensure you’ve fuelled properly. So that means, have a good snack 90 mins before and aim for 40-60 g of carbs per hour.

Training plan breakdown

Foundation 1 +

Suggested weekly volume: 5 to 15 hrs

Difficulty: 4/10

The goals:

• Building fitness
• Introducing you to key demands of the goal e.g. little bit of power and building your ability to maintain the bunch pace
• Getting comfortable with structured training

Foundation 2

Suggested weekly volume: 6 to 17 hrs

Difficulty: 5/10

The goals:

• Building fitness
• Working on a short efforts 5 sec to 90 sec that is spaced with lots of endurance. This means, when you start your next effort, you’re feeling pretty fresh
• Slowly getting comfortable being able to maintain a good pace and then pick it up

Foundation 3

Suggested weekly volume: 7 to 20 hrs

Difficulty: 6/10

The goals:

• It’s spicing up a little more now. You’ll ride 5 to 8 short and tough efforts, where the last couple will feel tough
• Developing your ability to hold bunch pace for longer

Build 1

Suggested weekly volume: 5 to 20 hrs

Difficulty: 7/10

The goals:

• Being able to hold bunch pace and then pick the pace up. It’s like punching over a climb
• Reducing the effort duration but increasing the intensity for your short efforts
• It will be normal to be fatigued at the back end of the week

Build 2

Suggested weekly volume: 5 to 20 hrs

Difficulty: 8/10

The goals:

• Increasing the effort duration of bunch pace efforts into punching it over the climb efforts
• Long and controlled medium pace efforts
• Working on the snap to kick out of corners

Build 3

Suggested weekly volume: 5 to 20 hrs

Difficulty: 8-9/10

The goals:

• The most challenging block of training
• Develop your ability to ride a hard climb and then maintain bunch pace over the top
• Longer power efforts that will push you

Recovery

Suggested weekly volume: 5 to 10 hrs

Difficulty: 3/10

The goals:

• Recover
• The hard work is done in the other phases, if you’ve trained smart. It’s the recovery week where your fitness gains are made.

Peak

Suggested weekly volume: 3 to 10 hrs

Difficulty: 6/10

The goals:

• Testing your 5 min power
• Building to the the plan end date
• Thinking back to all those tough sessions. It’s time to shine.