Do you pre-plan? Planning is an important key to your cycling success.
Many riders fail to achieve their potential because of missing this simple yet crucial step!
Good cyclists don’t muddle their way through the year randomly doing any weekly race that is on. They have a race plan for the year.
Pick the events you want to do well in then get them in your calendar. Once you have your main events locked in break your goals down into smaller goals. Make them specific, tangible and achievable. A goal like “being a good bike racer” is too broad. Have a goal like improve your top end speed by three km or do ten hill repeats on your most un-favoured hill every Tuesday.
These are more specific goals. Think about addressing your weaknesses… Maybe you need to work on your bunch riding skills, your sprinting or your short hill climbing power?
Link these goals to the events you want to do well in.
Once you have your season’s races picked and your goals sorted it time to construct your weekly training plan based in this information. Start working back from the dates of your main events and pick the races and plan the training you’ll be using to help you build to these key events. Your cycling coach can really help you with translating your goals into a proper structured training program.
Having an overall goal broken down into weekly and daily targets with a structured weekly training plan will help you keep motivated and on track with your training.
Communicating your goals and plans to your partner, family and work colleagues will help ensure that they are all on the same page too. That way there are no surprises. They then understand why you have to get out and spent time on the bike or go off to the gym to train… Why you’ll be arriving late to work on a Tuesday morning or why you’ll need to be away from home for half of Saturday…
Another important thing is to review you cycling goals on a regular basis and adjust them if required.
But planning is more than just writing goals and setting up a training schedule…
It’s also about being prepared for events. Accommodation, organising bike equipment, packing for races, a good toolkit, check lists and a well-stocked and pre-packed cycling sports bag. Planning and organising well before hand will mean that you will arrive at your major events relaxed and under control. That way you can be totally focused on the event and not distracted by other things.
Nothing worse than trying to find accommodation at the last moment or arriving at your race without a vital piece of equipment like your helmet or knicks. I’ve seen it all before and been guilty of it myself. All that hard training jeopardised by not addressing the smaller details. Packing your cycling sports bag the night before the event and going through a written check list before leaving home are simple things that you can do to avoid unnecessary drama when you get to the race.
A little time invested in pre-planning makes a big difference to your cycling success.
Check out this article to help you with your base training.
