Cross Country End of Season Fitness Builder (Sport/Cat 2)

Author: Drew Edsall Kenda/Felt Pro Mtb Team

8 weeks - $84.95
Total Hours: 101
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If you are a Cat 2 (Sport) mountain bike racer and want to build your end of season race fitness, then this race program is for you.

This in season race program will fit you well if you are racing multiple races within the next 2 months such as those seen in a XC regional and state championship series such as the US Cup East , US Cup West, SERC, FSC, and GSC series.

This program is designed by Endurance Coach and Professional Mountain Bike Racer Drew Edsall of www.coachdrewedsall.com. Drew is a noted mountain bike stage racer, XC racer, and endurance athlete with experience in many disciplines.

To do well on this program, you will currently need to be training 8-12 hours a week and have the dedication and commitment to put in 8.5-11 hours on the bike.

You will need access to a heart rate monitor and will need to know how to use it. You can do all of the training on a road or mountain bike.

In this plan you will have the option to race or do a hard workout every weekend. The plan is based around training principles proven to help improve your fitness while racing in season. The main focus is to build your "high end" fitness. You will feel faster and quicker two to three weeks into the program and finish the season strong.

With this program you will also receive nutritional information, a detailed description of heart rate zones, and a start-up guide that introduces you to interval training.


Expect the following from this plan:

*8.5-11 hours of riding per week
*2 months of pre-designed workouts with the option of racing or doing a hard training ride every weekend
*6 days of riding per week(Monday,Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday)
*1 off day per week(Friday)
*All rides that are longer than 2 hours will be scheduled on weekends
*Rides during the week range from 1-2 hours
*Clear and precise instructions on how to execute each workout
*You are required to read the Introduction to Training prior to starting the program. You will have access to this attachement once you have purchased the program.
*When looking at the graph below you will recognize that the hours on the schedule appear longer then what I have described above. This is because the hours are based on both the racing workouts and optional hard workouts combined. Most weeks will be 3 hours shorter then shown on the graph below. Every week you will have two workouts on Saturday and two workouts on Sunday. If you have a race that weekend, then you do the race specific workouts on Saturday and Sunday(1 workout each day). If you don't have a race, then you do the other workouts those days. This is all specified in the start up document also.

You can also find more info on Drew and his coaching at www.coachdrewedsall.com or at Mountain Bike Radio, "The Dirt with Drew Edsall"

  What do you get with a training plan?

Sample workouts:

Workout #1 : Bike
Zone 1 or less recovery ride
Planned Time: 1:00:00
Very easy spin in Zones 1 or less. If you feel like you are spinning too hard, then you most likely are. This is a very eas recovery ride.
Workout #2 : Bike
30 minute LT bike test
Planned Time: 1:30:00
BT: Warm up well. Then ride a 30 minute time trial on flat course. Punch HR monitor 'lap' button 10 minutes into Time Trial. Average heart rate for last 20 minutes predicts Lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR). Once you get home, log into your training peaks account. Go to your my settings, training zones tab, enter your threshold HR, and select Joe Friel's training zones for cycling. Your HR training zones are now set for the entire training program. Nice job!
Workout #3 : Bike
Zone 1 or less recovery ride
Planned Time: 1:00:00
Very easy spin in Zones 1 or less. If you feel like you are spinning too hard, then you most likely are. This is a very eas recovery ride.
Workout #4 : Bike
4 x 90 second Taper Intervals
Planned Time: 1:10:00
Ride easy for most of the time. Within the workout include 4 x 90 second Zone 4-5 intervals. Build into these slowly. Take 3 minutes recovery between each. Finish the workout with easy spinning zones 1-2 only.
Workout #5 : Day Off
relax
Planned Time: 0:00:00
Relax. Off Day
Workout #6 : Bike
Pre-ride course
Planned Time: 1:00:00
Ride Zones 1-2 mainly including 3-5 x 30 second accelerations within the workout. Take 2-3 minutes between these. These accelerations should be build ups to race pace(Zone 4).
Workout #7 : Bike
Easy mtn bike "flowing"
Planned Time: 2:00:00
Ride Zones 1-3 off road. During this ride focus on "flowing" through the trails. Look ahead and into the trail, brake before/after and not into the turns, and think/plan ahead.
Workout #8 : Race
Race
Planned Time: 2:00:00
Warm up 20-30 minutes including 3-5 x 30 second race pace build ups. Take 2 minutes rest between each. Show up to the line 10 minutes before your start. Race smart!
Workout #9 : MTB
Hard Mountain Bike Ride 3 x TT's
Planned Time: 2:50:00
Ride easy for 15 minutes. Then do 3 all out TT's on a mountain bike course similar to a race course you would find at your next race that takes about 20 minutes to complete. Take 10 minutes rest between each TT. Try to make your second and third TT's faster then your previous ones (i.e. 2nd faster then the first, third faster then the second, get faster as the workout goes on). Finish the workout with easy spinning Zones 1-2.