May 28, 2025 • 26 mins
OVERVIEW
How do you climb fast at the end of a race? Many road, gravel, and mountain bike events finish at the top of extended climbs. In Episode 250 of "The Time-Crunched Cyclist", a listener asks how to prepare for a 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) finishing climb at the end of a 2-3 hour race. Everything comes into play: aerobic fitness, power at lactate threshold (LT2), anaerobic capacity, VO2 max, durability, and tactical savvy. Coach Adam Pulford breaks it all down, tells you how and when to focus on specific aspects of fitness and conditioning, how to test durability, and finally, how to tactically take advantage of your fitness on race day.
TOPICS COVERED
- Physical demands of hill climb finishes
- "Edge-finding" or fatigue resistance workouts
- How to test your durability with a workout
- Train "performance first"
- Train specificity last
- Workouts: OverUnders, Front Loaded Power Intervals, Speed Intervals,
- How to execute an effective taper
- Racing tactics on uphill finishes
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HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
From the team at CTS.
This is the Time Crunch Cyclistpodcast, our show dedicated to
answering your trainingquestions and providing
actionable advice to help youimprove your performance, even
if you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches whomake up the team at CTS.
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
(00:30):
other coaches and experts in thefield to provide you with the
practical ways to get the mostout of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now on to our show.
Now onto our show.
How do you climb fast at theend of a race?
(00:50):
Well, you train for itspecifically, but should you
have every single workout befocused on performing late in
the game or sprinting on tiredlegs or, in today's case, a 5k
hill climb to the finish?
No, you shouldn't.
Why, because you might leavesome watts on the table and not
(01:12):
go as fast as you couldotherwise.
Welcome back Time Crunch fans.
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford, and today we'll discuss
all of those questions and moreon this episode of the Time
Crunch Cyclist Podcast.
So what I'll do is I'll readthe original question coming
from one of you, our audiencemembers and listeners, and at
(01:33):
the end of the podcast I'lldescribe how anyone can write in
and ask a question, if you havea question for me, as it
pertains to all things endurancetraining.
So here is that originalquestion.
My name is Luca and I'm a 56year old Italian competitive
amateur cyclist.
I train six hours a week 90minutes on Tuesday, 90 minutes
(01:55):
on Thursday and three hours onSaturday.
My target race will be August3rd and it's a 70 K circuit race
with a 5K hill climb to thefinish.
I'm asking you how I couldorganize the next 11 weeks that
precede my targeted race.
My current form is decent inthe sense that I have
participated in some races andmanaged to arrive to the first
(02:19):
group in the sprint withoutgetting any results, but my main
difficulty is keeping up withthe group's wheels on the climbs
.
Thanks for the reply, luca.
Yeah, well, thanks for writingin, Luca, and thank you for
listening to the show.
It's always great to hear fromour listeners.
So, luca, because I read thisand you wrote in a couple of
(02:42):
weeks ago, but I kind of putthis one to the top because it
does have some timestamps to itand uh, and it fits well because
many of us are in a race phaseright now um, recording at the
end of May and leading into June, july and August.
So I think this is going to hit, you know, uh, timely for many
people.
So the answer to your questionis yeah, you definitely want to
(03:02):
specifically train for that hillclimb late in the race, but to
get there you need to do a lotmore and we'll go over that.
But it's about base building,building aerobic capacity,
maximizing FTP and things likethat.
To the answer, right?
So I'm not going to give you an11 week training program here,
(03:29):
nor did you insinuate, you knowor think that I would.
But it's a great question and Ithink the answer to that
question has a lot ofapplicability to everyone
listening here.
So to get things started, let'sidentify the demands of the race
.
Okay, like you said, it's 70 Kand it's a circuit, so it should
take maybe around two hours ora little less, not knowing
exactly the full course or thedetails, but let's just go with.
That.
5k hill climb up to the finishwill likely take a master's
(03:52):
level rider around 15 or 20minutes depending on the total
elevation, gain, gradients andpitches and also Luca's ability.
But since he said that he haddifficulty keeping up with the
group on climbs, we'll justassume that he doesn't have the
kom for this one and he likelyum will just likely err on the
longer side of things on that.
(04:14):
So maybe like a 20 minuteeffort.
Finally, we can assume that, uh, fueling into in tactics will
go into optimal performance onthe day.
We'll just touch briefly onthat toward the end, but
training and specificpreparation will be the majority
of the key ingredients to havea good day on race day.
So how do we get there?
Let's start with the good old,boring stuff.
(04:36):
Okay, you want to maximize yourbase period, your base training
period, and so at this point inthe season which, like I said,
we're recording here in May,you've likely finished up your
base training period and so atthis point in the season which,
like I said, we're recordinghere in May, you've likely
finished up your base and someof your build phases and it's
time to move on to moreintensity and more specific
training.
But a few key reminders of whatshould have gone on in the
(04:59):
months prior to and there stillcould be a little bit of time to
do this.
You want to maximize volumeconsistently for many weeks.
And if you do that meaning youtrain to the maximum on the days
and I know that you put in howmuch you train in there but
anytime that you can sneak inanother ride or a little extra
(05:19):
volume, do that for sure.
And when you do that, when youmaximize volume for several
weeks in a row, you're going tobuild a big amount of CTL and
that CTL, or aerobic training,builds that aerobic capacity
which will grow your FTP andyour VO2 max and get you ready
to race hard and intensify thetraining, so that base and build
(05:42):
time periods should be majorityof zone two and zone three
intensity.
Then you start in on yourtargeted threshold intervals.
Now a good workout to do maybeat the tail end of May or the
tail end of this build timeperiod, before you get into the
intervals, is what I'm saying.
That good workout is somethingthat I call edge finding
(06:03):
workouts or fatigue resistanceworkouts.
So simply riding hard for two,maybe three hours.
So one of those long rides,luca, your Saturday long ride,
you do a fatigue resistanceworkout like this.
So it's two to three hoursnonstop, just riding hard and
finding the edges of your highaerobic and low threshold
(06:24):
ability and this helps you toprepare for the testing of
durability later to come in thenext phase of training, which
I'll describe here shortly.
Now I do this by identifyingthe peak rate of work in
kilojoules per hour or a highnormalized power for maybe
around hour and a half or twohours historically, and then I
(06:44):
try to match that or beat thatin a solo training session.
Now you can scale it up tothree or four hours or longer
races if you'd like, but this isa very demanding session, both
physically and mentally, becauseyou're just like you're always
on.
It's a great day for trainingthe gut, with fueling as well,
(07:05):
but overall you do this andyou're going to be real tired
the next day, take two or threedays to fully recover before you
go on to hit some intervals,but it's a great preparation for
what is to come.
Now, if you want more detailson how to do that, listen to
episode number 201, and that'sentitled the science of
durability and fatigueresistance training.
(07:26):
So, beginning in June, which isabout when this will launch,
you're about eight weeks outfrom competition.
Your training should be focusedon a mixture of threshold and
VO2 work for sure, and it'll getmore specific leading into the
event.
Now.
My best advice here to startthis phase of training is to
test your durability.
Do this by taking one of thoseSaturday rides, luca okay,
(07:50):
because that is your longestride of the week and do a
durability test by ridingessentially in, mostly aerobic,
for around 1,500 kilojoules atleast okay.
If it's more than that, that'sfine.
1,500 to 2,000 kilojoules.
You want to make sure that youdo that total amount of work and
then do a 20-minute max efforton a hill climb.
(08:11):
If you can.
You can do this inside on Zwiftor TP Virtual to simulate that
and control for all the elements, or you do it outside, and
that's even better because it'sactual, real life climbing Okay.
So it's a.
It's a great workout to do, andwhat it's going to do is it's
going to tell you moreinformation about how durable
(08:34):
you are.
So what I do then is you look atyour 20 minute fresh max effort
and then you look at this 20minute fatigued effort, and the
whole goal is to minimize thegap between the fatigued and the
fresh, okay.
So whatever that is, generallyspeaking, if the difference is
10% or less, you got a prettydecent durability score.
(08:59):
If it's 10% or greater, youneed to work on it.
So try to get it within 10% ofthe fresh 20-minute peak power,
and that's going to be a goodthing.
Either way, you want tominimize the gap.
So even if it is 9%, you stillwant to aim to improve that over
time and this will help youcome race day on the final hill
(09:21):
climb itself.
Stay on the final hill climbitself.
If you want more details abouthow to do that and how to set up
a session around that, checkout episode number 207.
It's something entitledImproving your Durability or
something like that.
With eight weeks out here, likeI said, the training focus
(09:42):
should be on threshold and VO2.
Another good workout that Ilike for this is under overs.
So under overs, something likethree by 15 minutes with, and
what we're going to do is we'regoing to break those 15 minutes
up into little segments, and soyou go four minutes under at
zone four and one minute over atzone five.
(10:03):
You repeat that three times.
Then you take your recoveryperiod, which should be right
around six or seven minutes fora 15 minute hill climb like that
, and repeat.
So you're trying to get in.
You know that, uh, right around45 or up to 60 minutes of total
time in zone.
And the reason why I like theunder overs is because typically
you know a hill climb finishlike that it's not just going to
(10:25):
be steady three or 4% the wholeway.
Even if it is, the race willdictate some tactics or some
hard anaerobic accelerations andyou need to be ready for that.
So even when you're eight weeksout, it's good to incorporate
some dynamic intervals that goon with that.
That that includes someanaerobic accelerations in it.
(10:47):
Now you can do some of thoseunder overs uh, both in a fresh
state and in a in a fatiguestate at the end of long rides
and things like this.
But you don't want All of thefocus to be on just durability.
You want to increase your FTP,you want to increase your raw
power outputs or your mean maxpower for pretty much all
(11:08):
durations, from sprint to 20minute hill climb during this
phase, and if you can intensifyyour training, you're going to
improve your performance.
So I like to say trainperformance first or take that
performance first approach.
What I mean by that is whenyou're doing intervals.
And if you want to intensifythe training, like we're talking
(11:29):
about, you want to do effortsthat are eight, 10, 15, 20
minutes in durations, steady,hard, under overs, front loaded.
We'll talk about that here morein a minute but you want to do
those when you're most fresh.
So what that means is after agood warmup I've talked about
this on a couple other episodesbefore but you know, maybe it's
(11:50):
15, 20 minutes of riding with acouple of openers and then you
do it.
You don't wait until hour threeto do this.
The reason for it is when youhit the intervals when you're
fresh, you have more muscleglycogen, you have more energy,
you have more mental energy, youhave more focus.
You're actually going to domore work.
(12:10):
You're going to do more power,and when you do more power and
you do more work, you're goingto get more training effect.
And when you get more trainingeffect and assuming that you
rest you get more adaptation,and this is what we want.
More adaptation is going tomake you stronger, faster and
more resilient, more durable inthe long run.
(12:32):
So, contrary to what some thinkor say, always doing intervals
late in the ride is not the bestway, because you could be
leaving some watts and thereforeadaptation on the table, and
really what most people arereally wanting are watts and
adaptation.
That's the whole point oftraining as a cyclist.
(12:53):
So, just as a quick summary,when you're that eight weeks out
, doing a little bit longerintervals like I said, the 12,
15, maybe 20 minute intervals,and having both under overs, as
well as maybe some hill climbfinishes with an acceleration
those are good things to do whenyou're a little bit further out
, but we're intensifying thetraining.
Now let's focus on when you'reabout four weeks out so this
(13:16):
would be the beginning of Julyyou want to intensify the
training even more and you'regoing to be doing shorter
intervals with more power.
So there's lots of ways to dothis and um, and we can we can
take it in many differentdirections, but I'll keep it
focused on what Luca describedin in, probably what's going to
benefit him.
So you want to focus on zonefive training as well as higher
(13:40):
at this point, training as wellas higher at this point, and you
want to do this solid two timesper week.
So having high intensity twotimes per week, then the longer
ride on Saturday and there maybe some durability training
component on that Saturday,which will fit Okay, but the
days between should be recoveryor short, easy endurance rides.
I think it sounds like you'reconstricted in total time anyway
(14:04):
.
So that should map out wellwith you just taking rest days
completely off the bike, becausewe want to keep the hard days
hard and easy days easy as weintensify the training a lot and
that's to get the best resultsout of the training.
Remember, stress plus restequals adaptation.
You can't form the adaptationunless you rest.
(14:27):
Now by intensifying the traininglike this, you may actually
increase your 20-minute power.
Like I said, we're interestedin making the power bigger or
increasing the mean max poweracross the board really, but
especially 20 minutes and lessacross the board really, but
especially 20 minutes and less.
Now this in theory coulddecrease durability where it
could widen the gap from yourfresh to fatigue 20 minute power
(14:48):
.
But in my experience in workingwith athletes, raising your FTP
like that kind of raises theship of all things, including
durability, so long as you don'tneglect some of the late ride
efforts.
So keep some of those effortsin on the Saturday long ride
toward the end of the ride andyou won't have a problem with
(15:12):
maintaining the durability.
Okay, but having that hillclimb late in the race will
require some of those big poweroutputs after 70 K of riding.
Okay.
So durability is a bigperformance determinant of a
race like this.
Let's get nitty and grittyabout the specifics about that.
In these last three to fourweeks you want to do another
(15:32):
session.
You want to test yourdurability again, because before
, when we were talking thateight, maybe 10 weeks out, you
start that phase with adurability test.
You start that phase with adurability test.
Fast forward to the here andnow.
You should have some responseto the training that you're
doing.
So go test again, do the samecourse of right, around 1500
(15:53):
kilojoules of mostly aerobicriding and then hit a 20 minute
max effort at the very end.
See if you've made anyimprovement.
Okay, my guess is, if you'redoing this training, you will,
and ideally you'll do this fourto six weeks out from the last
time you did it, just weeksbefore.
Okay, because that four to sixweeks, that's enough from the
(16:16):
last time you did it to see someperformance improvement and
it's also enough to keep ontraining properly leading into
the race.
Now some specific intervals todo in the final three to four
weeks.
Look like this Front-loaded VO2max intervals, which I'll get
into here in a minute as far asa workout to do that.
But anytime I say front-loadedwhen I'm working with an athlete
(16:39):
, it's usually going to be 30 or60 seconds of an anaerobic
acceleration to start theinterval and then you settle
into, for a VO2 max effort, zonefive, which is about 106 to
121% of FTP.
So what you do is you spike uphard and I just generally say go
hard and then settle into zonefive.
(17:00):
Other good workouts orintervals is speed intervals or
30 30s and you can start withsix minute 30 on, 30 off and
extend out to about 10 minutesand that 30 on is real hard
perceived effort of nine orhigher.
And I individualize thepercentage of FTP for that.
A good place to start isprobably 140 to 170% for most
(17:24):
people.
30 on, 30 off and that off isendurance riding.
So you're spinning with highcadence high cadence on on both
components, by the way 90 to 110for the on portion and maybe
spinning around 90 for the offportion.
Okay, now To structure thiswithin a workout itself.
In the final three to four weeks, doing a combination of fresh
(17:47):
and fatigued is the best waythat I like to prepare somebody
for performance late in the game.
What I mean by that is you haveyour total intervals and you do
a main set of intervals whenyou're fresh.
So you warm up a couple openersand then hit let's use the
front loaded VO2 max intervals.
Here you do four by fiveminutes.
Use the front loaded VO two maxintervals.
Here you do four by fiveminutes of the front loaded
(18:09):
intervals, and Luca for you thiscould go on the the what
Tuesday or Thursday session, andthen you do four of them with
maybe four or five minutesrecovering between then.
You ride endurance and then youdo your fifth and final
interval late in the ride,before your final cool down.
(18:30):
Okay, so what you're doing isyou're fatiguing yourself with
both intensity and enduranceriding and then you're you're
having some performancecomponent later on in the ride
to train your body to deal withall the fatigue late in the game
.
So it's a really good way tokind of combine that.
Now you can do that onSaturdays as well.
If you want to move one ofthese sessions to Saturday, ride
(18:52):
even longer, okay.
So take four by five early onwhen you're fresh in the ride,
get yourself nice and tired,then ride for an hour or more
and then hit the fifth and finaleffort late in the game.
It's going to specify that.
Training of all the things thathappen with fatigue, including
increased muscle acidity,increase inorganic phosphate
(19:12):
molecules right, you're depletedon glycogen, mentally you're
kind of over it and you justwant to get home right.
All of those things it's reallygood to train for during this
like three to four weeks cominginto the key phase.
Now, finally, I like to give youthis advice on actual race
(19:33):
preparation Do a group ride thathas a long climb in it, either
halfway through or at the end ofthe ride.
Just make sure you don't skipthe hill climb itself, right.
Or you could make your own hillclimb like this If you're
prepping for this and you have agroup of people that you ride
with on a regular basis, makeyour own uh, two and a half hour
(19:54):
group ride, with the last 15minute uh being on a, uh on a
hill effort.
Okay, a couple of things ontactics that you could do, uh,
to go for the win on that raceday.
First of all, don't be firstwheel leading into that hill
climb right.
Have someone else do the workand even on a hill climb, uh,
kind of depending on it, lettingsomeone else do the pace work.
And if there's a headwind.
Don't be the guy in front.
(20:15):
Don't be the person in front.
Do as little as it takes to win.
That's my general uh advice toanyone listening here that races
bikes.
Now, second approach, or kind ofa second piece of advice, is
there's some people like to usea waterfall climb tactic.
Now, this works if you're not agreat hill climber Personally
(20:39):
I'm not the biggest fan of it,but it works for riders who
maybe they're fit but they'renot the best hill climber.
What this means is you go in,not first wheel, but you go in
maybe your fourth or fifth wheelor top third of the group, and
the whole strategy is go in andcarry that momentum, but then
you trickle down the hill andyou let other people pass you as
(21:01):
you go.
But you're identifying how manypeople are passing you and
maybe just kind of catch on to awheel.
Let them do some work, get someadvantage there, kind of get
that energy that comes with somepeople riding next to you,
right.
But what you're doing is, asopposed to coming in the very
last wheel, right, and havepeople accelerating up and then
you have to do a hard search togo get them, what you're doing
(21:23):
is you're starting up sooner,trickling down and ideally carry
some momentum with other ridersand then attack over the top or
attack to the finish.
Okay.
So, again, not my personalfavorite, but it is a tactic out
there.
Finally, if you do all thetraining, luca, like we're
talking about here, and you havegood climbing legs, you have
some anaerobic pop.
(21:43):
What you need to do is analyzethe hill climb, identify the key
moments that are going tohappen right, it was hard
pitches or maybe someswitchbacks where there's going
to be a good place to attack orsome others will attack at that
point.
You also want to identify theperson or people that you need
to beat.
Stick to their wheel.
(22:04):
Don't let them go do as littleas it takes to win and then
attack right around them and gofor the glory at the top right,
because that's what it takes andthat's what it means.
So those are some good tactics,just in real life bike racing
scenarios on a final hill climblike that.
But my last and final piece ofadvice is a good taper will help
(22:26):
.
I don't have all the time rightnow to get into what a good
taper is, because that's a wholepodcast or maybe even two to go
into the details of it, but aproper taper can increase your
performance by two as much as 6%for most people, and that's
more.
That's more performanceincrease than jacking yourself
(22:48):
with sodium bicarb or buyingsome ultra high-end climbing
wheels to save you a hundredgrams or something like that.
So a couple of key points ofwhat goes into a good taper is
we're really looking forfreshness here, okay.
And when it comes down to a oneday race, do this.
You want to reduce your volumeby up to 50% the week leading in
(23:11):
.
So it's a pretty drasticreduction of volume.
And so in your case, luca, it'skind of shooting from the hip
here.
You know, if you're doingaround six hours of training,
you can reduce all the way downto three hours of training, but
you want to keep the frequencyabout the same.
So keep on riding Tuesday,thursday, and then you race on
Saturday.
Keep some intensity in there.
So maybe you got some openers,some sprints and some pops.
(23:32):
Maybe you keep some short speedinterval efforts in there.
And then you also want to focuson maximizing sleep and
recovery Okay.
So add more sleep to the mix,more carbohydrates leading into
the event, and that polarizedtraining works really good here.
So if you just kind of thinkpolarized keep training or keep
the hard days hard, easy dayseasy and probably one hard
(23:55):
session the week leading intothe race itself.
That's going to keep you ontrack.
Finally, a lot of people like todo openers the day before and I
see a lot of tapers go awrywhen they just go way too hard
the day before the race.
Reason being is you freshenedup, you tapered, you feel great
and so you do your openers oryour efforts.
(24:17):
Or maybe you go recon the hilland you just go way too hard and
that causes too much fatiguegoing into it.
All you need is a short rideand a couple 20 to 30 second
openers and that's all you needfor a good day.
So to wrap this up, my bestadvice on how to train for race
of the hill climb finish isdefinitely do some hard hill
climb efforts at the end of yourlong ride to simulate that race
(24:40):
effort.
However, to do this best, youneed to build your fitness and
maximize your volume and yourCTL as high as possible before
it's time to start hitting theintensity Around.
Eight weeks out is a great timeto intensify the training, like
we discussed, and you can startthings off by testing your
durability, because that's goingto give you good insight on
(25:02):
where you're at from a fresh anda fatigue state to best prepare
for this race itself.
Now, three to four weeks out,intensify the training even more
with VO2 work and speedintervals and increase overall
power, but don't neglect thefatigue resistance training on
the weekend.
Finally, keep a proper taper inthe mix and that'll give you a
(25:22):
little boost to performance andhave fresh legs come race day.
So that's it.
That's our show for today.
If you liked what you heard,please share it with a friend or
a training partner, and if youhave any questions of your own,
ask me by heading over totrainrightcom backslash podcast
and click on ask a trainingquestion.
Those get sent directly to meand my team at CTS and we'll do
(25:44):
our best to answer it on afuture episode.
Thanks again for listening andwe'll meet back here next week
for more actionable trainingadvice.
Thanks for joining us on theTime Crunch Cyclist podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
If you want even moreactionable training advice, head
over to trainrightcom backslashnewsletter and subscribe to our
(26:06):
free weekly publication.
Each week you'll get in-depthtraining content that goes
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast that'll help you take
your training to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.
From the team at CTS.
This is the Time Crunch Cyclistpodcast, our show dedicated to
answering your trainingquestions and providing
actionable advice to help youimprove your performance, even
if you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches whomake up the team at CTS.
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
(00:30):
other coaches and experts in thefield to provide you with the
practical ways to get the mostout of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now on to our show.
Now onto our show.
How do you climb fast at theend of a race?
(00:50):
Well, you train for itspecifically, but should you
have every single workout befocused on performing late in
the game or sprinting on tiredlegs or, in today's case, a 5k
hill climb to the finish?
No, you shouldn't.
Why, because you might leavesome watts on the table and not
(01:12):
go as fast as you couldotherwise.
Welcome back Time Crunch fans.
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford, and today we'll discuss
all of those questions and moreon this episode of the Time
Crunch Cyclist Podcast.
So what I'll do is I'll readthe original question coming
from one of you, our audiencemembers and listeners, and at
(01:33):
the end of the podcast I'lldescribe how anyone can write in
and ask a question, if you havea question for me, as it
pertains to all things endurancetraining.
So here is that originalquestion.
My name is Luca and I'm a 56year old Italian competitive
amateur cyclist.
I train six hours a week 90minutes on Tuesday, 90 minutes
(01:55):
on Thursday and three hours onSaturday.
My target race will be August3rd and it's a 70 K circuit race
with a 5K hill climb to thefinish.
I'm asking you how I couldorganize the next 11 weeks that
precede my targeted race.
My current form is decent inthe sense that I have
participated in some races andmanaged to arrive to the first
(02:19):
group in the sprint withoutgetting any results, but my main
difficulty is keeping up withthe group's wheels on the climbs
.
Thanks for the reply, luca.
Yeah, well, thanks for writingin, Luca, and thank you for
listening to the show.
It's always great to hear fromour listeners.
So, luca, because I read thisand you wrote in a couple of
(02:42):
weeks ago, but I kind of putthis one to the top because it
does have some timestamps to itand uh, and it fits well because
many of us are in a race phaseright now um, recording at the
end of May and leading into June, july and August.
So I think this is going to hit, you know, uh, timely for many
people.
So the answer to your questionis yeah, you definitely want to
(03:02):
specifically train for that hillclimb late in the race, but to
get there you need to do a lotmore and we'll go over that.
But it's about base building,building aerobic capacity,
maximizing FTP and things likethat.
To the answer, right?
So I'm not going to give you an11 week training program here,
(03:29):
nor did you insinuate, you knowor think that I would.
But it's a great question and Ithink the answer to that
question has a lot ofapplicability to everyone
listening here.
So to get things started, let'sidentify the demands of the race
.
Okay, like you said, it's 70 Kand it's a circuit, so it should
take maybe around two hours ora little less, not knowing
exactly the full course or thedetails, but let's just go with.
That.
5k hill climb up to the finishwill likely take a master's
(03:52):
level rider around 15 or 20minutes depending on the total
elevation, gain, gradients andpitches and also Luca's ability.
But since he said that he haddifficulty keeping up with the
group on climbs, we'll justassume that he doesn't have the
kom for this one and he likelyum will just likely err on the
longer side of things on that.
(04:14):
So maybe like a 20 minuteeffort.
Finally, we can assume that, uh, fueling into in tactics will
go into optimal performance onthe day.
We'll just touch briefly onthat toward the end, but
training and specificpreparation will be the majority
of the key ingredients to havea good day on race day.
So how do we get there?
Let's start with the good old,boring stuff.
(04:36):
Okay, you want to maximize yourbase period, your base training
period, and so at this point inthe season which, like I said,
we're recording here in May,you've likely finished up your
base training period and so atthis point in the season which,
like I said, we're recordinghere in May, you've likely
finished up your base and someof your build phases and it's
time to move on to moreintensity and more specific
training.
But a few key reminders of whatshould have gone on in the
(04:59):
months prior to and there stillcould be a little bit of time to
do this.
You want to maximize volumeconsistently for many weeks.
And if you do that meaning youtrain to the maximum on the days
and I know that you put in howmuch you train in there but
anytime that you can sneak inanother ride or a little extra
(05:19):
volume, do that for sure.
And when you do that, when youmaximize volume for several
weeks in a row, you're going tobuild a big amount of CTL and
that CTL, or aerobic training,builds that aerobic capacity
which will grow your FTP andyour VO2 max and get you ready
to race hard and intensify thetraining, so that base and build
(05:42):
time periods should be majorityof zone two and zone three
intensity.
Then you start in on yourtargeted threshold intervals.
Now a good workout to do maybeat the tail end of May or the
tail end of this build timeperiod, before you get into the
intervals, is what I'm saying.
That good workout is somethingthat I call edge finding
(06:03):
workouts or fatigue resistanceworkouts.
So simply riding hard for two,maybe three hours.
So one of those long rides,luca, your Saturday long ride,
you do a fatigue resistanceworkout like this.
So it's two to three hoursnonstop, just riding hard and
finding the edges of your highaerobic and low threshold
(06:24):
ability and this helps you toprepare for the testing of
durability later to come in thenext phase of training, which
I'll describe here shortly.
Now I do this by identifyingthe peak rate of work in
kilojoules per hour or a highnormalized power for maybe
around hour and a half or twohours historically, and then I
(06:44):
try to match that or beat thatin a solo training session.
Now you can scale it up tothree or four hours or longer
races if you'd like, but this isa very demanding session, both
physically and mentally, becauseyou're just like you're always
on.
It's a great day for trainingthe gut, with fueling as well,
(07:05):
but overall you do this andyou're going to be real tired
the next day, take two or threedays to fully recover before you
go on to hit some intervals,but it's a great preparation for
what is to come.
Now, if you want more detailson how to do that, listen to
episode number 201, and that'sentitled the science of
durability and fatigueresistance training.
(07:26):
So, beginning in June, which isabout when this will launch,
you're about eight weeks outfrom competition.
Your training should be focusedon a mixture of threshold and
VO2 work for sure, and it'll getmore specific leading into the
event.
Now.
My best advice here to startthis phase of training is to
test your durability.
Do this by taking one of thoseSaturday rides, luca okay,
(07:50):
because that is your longestride of the week and do a
durability test by ridingessentially in, mostly aerobic,
for around 1,500 kilojoules atleast okay.
If it's more than that, that'sfine.
1,500 to 2,000 kilojoules.
You want to make sure that youdo that total amount of work and
then do a 20-minute max efforton a hill climb.
(08:11):
If you can.
You can do this inside on Zwiftor TP Virtual to simulate that
and control for all the elements, or you do it outside, and
that's even better because it'sactual, real life climbing Okay.
So it's a.
It's a great workout to do, andwhat it's going to do is it's
going to tell you moreinformation about how durable
(08:34):
you are.
So what I do then is you look atyour 20 minute fresh max effort
and then you look at this 20minute fatigued effort, and the
whole goal is to minimize thegap between the fatigued and the
fresh, okay.
So whatever that is, generallyspeaking, if the difference is
10% or less, you got a prettydecent durability score.
(08:59):
If it's 10% or greater, youneed to work on it.
So try to get it within 10% ofthe fresh 20-minute peak power,
and that's going to be a goodthing.
Either way, you want tominimize the gap.
So even if it is 9%, you stillwant to aim to improve that over
time and this will help youcome race day on the final hill
(09:21):
climb itself.
Stay on the final hill climbitself.
If you want more details abouthow to do that and how to set up
a session around that, checkout episode number 207.
It's something entitledImproving your Durability or
something like that.
With eight weeks out here, likeI said, the training focus
(09:42):
should be on threshold and VO2.
Another good workout that Ilike for this is under overs.
So under overs, something likethree by 15 minutes with, and
what we're going to do is we'regoing to break those 15 minutes
up into little segments, and soyou go four minutes under at
zone four and one minute over atzone five.
(10:03):
You repeat that three times.
Then you take your recoveryperiod, which should be right
around six or seven minutes fora 15 minute hill climb like that
, and repeat.
So you're trying to get in.
You know that, uh, right around45 or up to 60 minutes of total
time in zone.
And the reason why I like theunder overs is because typically
you know a hill climb finishlike that it's not just going to
(10:25):
be steady three or 4% the wholeway.
Even if it is, the race willdictate some tactics or some
hard anaerobic accelerations andyou need to be ready for that.
So even when you're eight weeksout, it's good to incorporate
some dynamic intervals that goon with that.
That that includes someanaerobic accelerations in it.
(10:47):
Now you can do some of thoseunder overs uh, both in a fresh
state and in a in a fatiguestate at the end of long rides
and things like this.
But you don't want All of thefocus to be on just durability.
You want to increase your FTP,you want to increase your raw
power outputs or your mean maxpower for pretty much all
(11:08):
durations, from sprint to 20minute hill climb during this
phase, and if you can intensifyyour training, you're going to
improve your performance.
So I like to say trainperformance first or take that
performance first approach.
What I mean by that is whenyou're doing intervals.
And if you want to intensifythe training, like we're talking
(11:29):
about, you want to do effortsthat are eight, 10, 15, 20
minutes in durations, steady,hard, under overs, front loaded.
We'll talk about that here morein a minute but you want to do
those when you're most fresh.
So what that means is after agood warmup I've talked about
this on a couple other episodesbefore but you know, maybe it's
(11:50):
15, 20 minutes of riding with acouple of openers and then you
do it.
You don't wait until hour threeto do this.
The reason for it is when youhit the intervals when you're
fresh, you have more muscleglycogen, you have more energy,
you have more mental energy, youhave more focus.
You're actually going to domore work.
(12:10):
You're going to do more power,and when you do more power and
you do more work, you're goingto get more training effect.
And when you get more trainingeffect and assuming that you
rest you get more adaptation,and this is what we want.
More adaptation is going tomake you stronger, faster and
more resilient, more durable inthe long run.
(12:32):
So, contrary to what some thinkor say, always doing intervals
late in the ride is not the bestway, because you could be
leaving some watts and thereforeadaptation on the table, and
really what most people arereally wanting are watts and
adaptation.
That's the whole point oftraining as a cyclist.
(12:53):
So, just as a quick summary,when you're that eight weeks out
, doing a little bit longerintervals like I said, the 12,
15, maybe 20 minute intervals,and having both under overs, as
well as maybe some hill climbfinishes with an acceleration
those are good things to do whenyou're a little bit further out
, but we're intensifying thetraining.
Now let's focus on when you'reabout four weeks out so this
(13:16):
would be the beginning of Julyyou want to intensify the
training even more and you'regoing to be doing shorter
intervals with more power.
So there's lots of ways to dothis and um, and we can we can
take it in many differentdirections, but I'll keep it
focused on what Luca describedin in, probably what's going to
benefit him.
So you want to focus on zonefive training as well as higher
(13:40):
at this point, training as wellas higher at this point, and you
want to do this solid two timesper week.
So having high intensity twotimes per week, then the longer
ride on Saturday and there maybe some durability training
component on that Saturday,which will fit Okay, but the
days between should be recoveryor short, easy endurance rides.
I think it sounds like you'reconstricted in total time anyway
(14:04):
.
So that should map out wellwith you just taking rest days
completely off the bike, becausewe want to keep the hard days
hard and easy days easy as weintensify the training a lot and
that's to get the best resultsout of the training.
Remember, stress plus restequals adaptation.
You can't form the adaptationunless you rest.
(14:27):
Now by intensifying the traininglike this, you may actually
increase your 20-minute power.
Like I said, we're interestedin making the power bigger or
increasing the mean max poweracross the board really, but
especially 20 minutes and lessacross the board really, but
especially 20 minutes and less.
Now this in theory coulddecrease durability where it
could widen the gap from yourfresh to fatigue 20 minute power
(14:48):
.
But in my experience in workingwith athletes, raising your FTP
like that kind of raises theship of all things, including
durability, so long as you don'tneglect some of the late ride
efforts.
So keep some of those effortsin on the Saturday long ride
toward the end of the ride andyou won't have a problem with
(15:12):
maintaining the durability.
Okay, but having that hillclimb late in the race will
require some of those big poweroutputs after 70 K of riding.
Okay.
So durability is a bigperformance determinant of a
race like this.
Let's get nitty and grittyabout the specifics about that.
In these last three to fourweeks you want to do another
(15:32):
session.
You want to test yourdurability again, because before
, when we were talking thateight, maybe 10 weeks out, you
start that phase with adurability test.
You start that phase with adurability test.
Fast forward to the here andnow.
You should have some responseto the training that you're
doing.
So go test again, do the samecourse of right, around 1500
(15:53):
kilojoules of mostly aerobicriding and then hit a 20 minute
max effort at the very end.
See if you've made anyimprovement.
Okay, my guess is, if you'redoing this training, you will,
and ideally you'll do this fourto six weeks out from the last
time you did it, just weeksbefore.
Okay, because that four to sixweeks, that's enough from the
(16:16):
last time you did it to see someperformance improvement and
it's also enough to keep ontraining properly leading into
the race.
Now some specific intervals todo in the final three to four
weeks.
Look like this Front-loaded VO2max intervals, which I'll get
into here in a minute as far asa workout to do that.
But anytime I say front-loadedwhen I'm working with an athlete
(16:39):
, it's usually going to be 30 or60 seconds of an anaerobic
acceleration to start theinterval and then you settle
into, for a VO2 max effort, zonefive, which is about 106 to
121% of FTP.
So what you do is you spike uphard and I just generally say go
hard and then settle into zonefive.
(17:00):
Other good workouts orintervals is speed intervals or
30 30s and you can start withsix minute 30 on, 30 off and
extend out to about 10 minutesand that 30 on is real hard
perceived effort of nine orhigher.
And I individualize thepercentage of FTP for that.
A good place to start isprobably 140 to 170% for most
(17:24):
people.
30 on, 30 off and that off isendurance riding.
So you're spinning with highcadence high cadence on on both
components, by the way 90 to 110for the on portion and maybe
spinning around 90 for the offportion.
Okay, now To structure thiswithin a workout itself.
In the final three to four weeks, doing a combination of fresh
(17:47):
and fatigued is the best waythat I like to prepare somebody
for performance late in the game.
What I mean by that is you haveyour total intervals and you do
a main set of intervals whenyou're fresh.
So you warm up a couple openersand then hit let's use the
front loaded VO2 max intervals.
Here you do four by fiveminutes.
Use the front loaded VO two maxintervals.
Here you do four by fiveminutes of the front loaded
(18:09):
intervals, and Luca for you thiscould go on the the what
Tuesday or Thursday session, andthen you do four of them with
maybe four or five minutesrecovering between then.
You ride endurance and then youdo your fifth and final
interval late in the ride,before your final cool down.
(18:30):
Okay, so what you're doing isyou're fatiguing yourself with
both intensity and enduranceriding and then you're you're
having some performancecomponent later on in the ride
to train your body to deal withall the fatigue late in the game
.
So it's a really good way tokind of combine that.
Now you can do that onSaturdays as well.
If you want to move one ofthese sessions to Saturday, ride
(18:52):
even longer, okay.
So take four by five early onwhen you're fresh in the ride,
get yourself nice and tired,then ride for an hour or more
and then hit the fifth and finaleffort late in the game.
It's going to specify that.
Training of all the things thathappen with fatigue, including
increased muscle acidity,increase inorganic phosphate
(19:12):
molecules right, you're depletedon glycogen, mentally you're
kind of over it and you justwant to get home right.
All of those things it's reallygood to train for during this
like three to four weeks cominginto the key phase.
Now, finally, I like to give youthis advice on actual race
(19:33):
preparation Do a group ride thathas a long climb in it, either
halfway through or at the end ofthe ride.
Just make sure you don't skipthe hill climb itself, right.
Or you could make your own hillclimb like this If you're
prepping for this and you have agroup of people that you ride
with on a regular basis, makeyour own uh, two and a half hour
(19:54):
group ride, with the last 15minute uh being on a, uh on a
hill effort.
Okay, a couple of things ontactics that you could do, uh,
to go for the win on that raceday.
First of all, don't be firstwheel leading into that hill
climb right.
Have someone else do the workand even on a hill climb, uh,
kind of depending on it, lettingsomeone else do the pace work.
And if there's a headwind.
Don't be the guy in front.
(20:15):
Don't be the person in front.
Do as little as it takes to win.
That's my general uh advice toanyone listening here that races
bikes.
Now, second approach, or kind ofa second piece of advice, is
there's some people like to usea waterfall climb tactic.
Now, this works if you're not agreat hill climber Personally
(20:39):
I'm not the biggest fan of it,but it works for riders who
maybe they're fit but they'renot the best hill climber.
What this means is you go in,not first wheel, but you go in
maybe your fourth or fifth wheelor top third of the group, and
the whole strategy is go in andcarry that momentum, but then
you trickle down the hill andyou let other people pass you as
(21:01):
you go.
But you're identifying how manypeople are passing you and
maybe just kind of catch on to awheel.
Let them do some work, get someadvantage there, kind of get
that energy that comes with somepeople riding next to you,
right.
But what you're doing is, asopposed to coming in the very
last wheel, right, and havepeople accelerating up and then
you have to do a hard search togo get them, what you're doing
(21:23):
is you're starting up sooner,trickling down and ideally carry
some momentum with other ridersand then attack over the top or
attack to the finish.
Okay.
So, again, not my personalfavorite, but it is a tactic out
there.
Finally, if you do all thetraining, luca, like we're
talking about here, and you havegood climbing legs, you have
some anaerobic pop.
(21:43):
What you need to do is analyzethe hill climb, identify the key
moments that are going tohappen right, it was hard
pitches or maybe someswitchbacks where there's going
to be a good place to attack orsome others will attack at that
point.
You also want to identify theperson or people that you need
to beat.
Stick to their wheel.
(22:04):
Don't let them go do as littleas it takes to win and then
attack right around them and gofor the glory at the top right,
because that's what it takes andthat's what it means.
So those are some good tactics,just in real life bike racing
scenarios on a final hill climblike that.
But my last and final piece ofadvice is a good taper will help
(22:26):
.
I don't have all the time rightnow to get into what a good
taper is, because that's a wholepodcast or maybe even two to go
into the details of it, but aproper taper can increase your
performance by two as much as 6%for most people, and that's
more.
That's more performanceincrease than jacking yourself
(22:48):
with sodium bicarb or buyingsome ultra high-end climbing
wheels to save you a hundredgrams or something like that.
So a couple of key points ofwhat goes into a good taper is
we're really looking forfreshness here, okay.
And when it comes down to a oneday race, do this.
You want to reduce your volumeby up to 50% the week leading in
(23:11):
.
So it's a pretty drasticreduction of volume.
And so in your case, luca, it'skind of shooting from the hip
here.
You know, if you're doingaround six hours of training,
you can reduce all the way downto three hours of training, but
you want to keep the frequencyabout the same.
So keep on riding Tuesday,thursday, and then you race on
Saturday.
Keep some intensity in there.
So maybe you got some openers,some sprints and some pops.
(23:32):
Maybe you keep some short speedinterval efforts in there.
And then you also want to focuson maximizing sleep and
recovery Okay.
So add more sleep to the mix,more carbohydrates leading into
the event, and that polarizedtraining works really good here.
So if you just kind of thinkpolarized keep training or keep
the hard days hard, easy dayseasy and probably one hard
(23:55):
session the week leading intothe race itself.
That's going to keep you ontrack.
Finally, a lot of people like todo openers the day before and I
see a lot of tapers go awrywhen they just go way too hard
the day before the race.
Reason being is you freshenedup, you tapered, you feel great
and so you do your openers oryour efforts.
(24:17):
Or maybe you go recon the hilland you just go way too hard and
that causes too much fatiguegoing into it.
All you need is a short rideand a couple 20 to 30 second
openers and that's all you needfor a good day.
So to wrap this up, my bestadvice on how to train for race
of the hill climb finish isdefinitely do some hard hill
climb efforts at the end of yourlong ride to simulate that race
(24:40):
effort.
However, to do this best, youneed to build your fitness and
maximize your volume and yourCTL as high as possible before
it's time to start hitting theintensity Around.
Eight weeks out is a great timeto intensify the training, like
we discussed, and you can startthings off by testing your
durability, because that's goingto give you good insight on
(25:02):
where you're at from a fresh anda fatigue state to best prepare
for this race itself.
Now, three to four weeks out,intensify the training even more
with VO2 work and speedintervals and increase overall
power, but don't neglect thefatigue resistance training on
the weekend.
Finally, keep a proper taper inthe mix and that'll give you a
(25:22):
little boost to performance andhave fresh legs come race day.
So that's it.
That's our show for today.
If you liked what you heard,please share it with a friend or
a training partner, and if youhave any questions of your own,
ask me by heading over totrainrightcom backslash podcast
and click on ask a trainingquestion.
Those get sent directly to meand my team at CTS and we'll do
(25:44):
our best to answer it on afuture episode.
Thanks again for listening andwe'll meet back here next week
for more actionable trainingadvice.
Thanks for joining us on theTime Crunch Cyclist podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
If you want even moreactionable training advice, head
over to trainrightcom backslashnewsletter and subscribe to our
(26:06):
free weekly publication.
Each week you'll get in-depthtraining content that goes
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast that'll help you take
your training to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.
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