Surely Some Long Threshold Intervals Would Be Good Preparation for the Bupa Around The Bay?

I got an e-mail from Andrew. He wrote to say… “I did think it was strange not to have any intervals at all in the program. Surely some long threshold intervals would be good preparation for this sort of event.” I wanted to thank Andrew for his question because it raises a really important point about training for an event like this. Here was my response back to Andrew…

“Yes. I totally agree with you. This is the basic program intended to get you started and to figure out the sort of volume of training you’ll need for each event. Primarily you’ll use it for your stakeholder buy-in negotiations.

We have a more detailed plan being released soon that has specific intervals. I’ll let you know when it’s available. “

Andrew’s right. You do need to have intervals in your training for the Bupa Around the Bay 2013 and I total agree with him.

I’ve been coaching cyclists for many years now and it amazes me when I look at their historical data and see what they have been doing prior to coming on board with me. In many cases much of the training (sometimes up to 90%) they have been doing is either one of the following two things:

1) A waste of time
2) Actually making them worse

It’s one of the biggest issues that I see. Inefficient, time wasting training that is of little or no real value.

So yes, intervals do help a lot. You probably know that already.

** But you have to do the right type of interval, the right way and at the right time for it to be effective. **

Doing the wrong type of interval or doing the right type of interval the wrong way or at the wrong time can be as effective as… well not doing it at all.

So, it’s not as simple as just going out and randomly doing “some intervals” in a hope that you’ll get it right.

I’ll give you an example…

I had this client come on board to be coached by me. He was a seasoned racing cyclist at the top of his field but he came to me because he wanted to ride better. He told me he had plateaued.

This guy was fit. But no matter how hard or how long he trained he wasn’t getting any further improvement.

I tweaked his training for him. I specifically changed the intervals he was doing and I told him how to do them properly.

The results…

Six weeks later he’s riding better than he has in his entire life.

BTW, he didn’t need to ride for longer or harder either. In fact, I cut four hours of riding from his weekly training schedule.

** It’s about training smart and efficient. **

He was really happy. Not only was he riding faster and getting better results he was training less so he spent more time with his family. They were happy too.