Jodie Batchelor and Jane Fitzpatrick

Jodie and Jane resting before starting the Road Time Trial at the Veterans National Championships  

The Veterans National Championships were run in Geelong mid November this year by the VVCC. Cycling-Inform had success with a great result from Jodie and Jane; two of the people that I specifically coached for the event. Congratulations to Jodie and Jane for their fantastic results…

Jodie picked up:

• Silver in the 35-39 500m Individual time trial
• Bronze in the 35-39 Road Time Trial
• Bronze in the 35-39 2000m Pursuit

Jane picked up:

• Gold in 35-39 2000m Pursuit (and fastest woman for all age groups)
• Silver in the 35-39 Road Time Trial
• Bronze in the 35-39 Road Race

Jodie’s program was focused on the 500m Individual Time Trial which is her specialist event. She was making a comeback after being off her bicycle since Jan of this year due to a cycling accident, involving a car, just before Christmas last year. The program I put together for her was focused on developing power and lactate resistance. These are the two major components for the 500m sprint. She only had four weeks to prepare so building any aerobic base was dropped in order to focus on her power and speed. The first week of her plan relied very heavily on reactivating what base she had built almost 12 months ago. The rest of the plan was around lots of very specific Work on the indoor ergo at specific cadences and Matt’s Functional Strength DVD. This was backed up with very small road rides during the weekend which were for recovery and perfecting her sprinting skills. We spent quite a bit of time at the local velodrome selecting her optimal gear ratio for both the 500 and 2000m events.

Jane’s program was focused on the Road Time Trial. Jane has only recently started riding, but she comes from a background of basketball and marathon running so has a good aerobic base. She also has a good physique for time trialling. We had a little more time to train her so her program was almost the reverse to Jodie’s. We focused on building a good cardio base, transition her body to a cycling specific proprioception pattern and improving her ability to operate at her lactate threshold rate (LTR). Again, these are key components of a time trial. Long solo road rides on the weekend at a specific cadence were fundamental backed up with very specific drills on the road during the week. Being relatively new to cycling, Matt’s DVD played an important role in building specific cycling functional strength. Jane’s first road time trial and first 2000m Pursuit were taking place at this event, so I also focused on coaching her through how to approach and Ride each race. This also included practice drills for the 2000m on the local velodrome, working on her skills and again discovering her optimal gear ratio.  

One of the keys for the success was working with Jodie and Jane at setting specific goals. The plans included the classic base, build, and peak cycles of periodisation, with a proper taper to peak for each specific event at the nationals.  

Both Jodie and Jane put on a fantastic performance at the Nationals. Well done!