James Thinks

Audax training plan

I've got some longer audaxes planned this year, so I thought I should actually have a training plan for once. I've avoided stating exactly what ride I'll do on what day as I know life is likely to get in the way, but I still have some targets which I think are reasonable. Perhaps publishing it here will keep me honest!

Jan - Feb

1 x interval session (outside or turbo) 30-60 mins per month.
1 x 50km+ ride per week (could turbo)
2 x 100km+ ride with 1000m+ climbing per month (could count as two of the 50km)
400km and 5000m total per month

Mar - Apr

2 x interval sessions (outside or turbo) 30-60 mins per month.
1 x 50km+ rides per week (could turbo)
2 x 100km+ ride (could count as one of the 50km)
1 x 200km+ ride with 2500m+ climbing per month (could count as one of the 50km)
600km and 7500m total per month

May - July

2 x interval sessions (outside or turbo) 30-60 mins per month.
1 x 100km+ rides per week (could turbo)
2 x 200km+ rides with 2500m+ climbing per month (could count as the 100km)
1 x 300km+ ride with 4000m+ climbing per month (could count as one of the 200km)
900km and 12000m total per month.

UPDATE 10th August 2018

Now that I've completed the two big rides - 400km and 1000km, I thought I'd mention what I would change about this plan.

The first thing is that a lot of longer rides probably aren't needed. As it turned out life got in the way and it was near-impossible to fit in all the long rides I had planned. It's subjective, but I don't feel like a 200km ride gives much more training benefit than a hilly 100km ride, especially if you do at least half of the 100km before having breakfast. 200km+ rides are really disruptive as I needed to take a day away from family at the weekend, or book a whole day off work. 100km can be done in half a day and if you start early, being back by lunchtime is possible. I do think it's worth doing at least one 200km+ ride in a longer training period, just to get familiar with the effects of fatigue on speed and rest times, but I don't see any real training benefit.

Secondly, I think interval sessions are great. I really felt like I got a lot of benefit from them in a short space of time and this was confirmed by my sleep monitor in terms of a lowering resting HR and physical recovery. So next time I'd do more of that.

The monthly distance and climbing targets were worth having as they did get me out on the bike regularly, though I might reduce them a bit next time.

I've also set out an updated training plan for PBP 2019, based on my lessons learned and aiming to improve my average speed.