Getting started
Once you have decided to ride the Saimaa Cycle Tour. It’s important you start training for the event right away. Many of us will be dealing with winter weather conditions, which can make riding a bike a little unpleasant. It will be much easier to stick to your training goals and stay motivated when you enjoy your training. I suggest getting outside and trying some winter sports like cross country skiing, snowshoeing, fat biking, nordic walking, hiking, skating and running when it’s not enjoyable to be on the bike. Cross training through the winter will increase your total training volume and is a great way to add to your overall fitness and maximize your cardiovascular strain.
If you prefer to ride outdoors, winter cycling can be a great way to develop your bike handling skill and build mental toughness. If you have access to an indoor bike, rollers, or turbo-trainer that can also be a valuable part of your winter training strategy.
The more options you have when the weather gets nasty the easier it will be to accomplish your training sessions and make progress towards your goals. Another strategy we can use during the next few months is splitting our long training sessions up into two shorter sessions. When there is a lack of time or something else making it difficult to get out and train, get creative and look for ways to mix it up.
As an example a long 2 hour ride on the weekend could be split into a 60 min cross country ski in the morning and 60 min ride on the indoor trainer in the evening.
How much should I train?
I would suggest at the very least a commitment of 5-6 hour per week over the next six months is required to complete this event. Ideally you will have a minimum of 1500 kilometers training prior to the event and completed a couple long rides between 150-175 kilometers before the middle of June.
Still the question of how much you should train is going to be very individual. To find your answer to this difficult question, begin by asking yourself how much you can train, how much you want to train and then go with the one that gives you the smaller number. Next a good exercise for you is writing down the days of the week and filling in how much time you have each day for training. After you do this talk with the significant people in your life to make sure you have their support. In my experience the support of your family and friends is critical to the sustainability of your training program.
Training Plan
See below for more details about Easy Day and Hard Day routines.
WEEK 1
Monday - Easy Day
- 60-90 min continuous exercise
Tuesday - Easy Day
- 60-90 min continuous exercise
Wednesday - Hard Day
- Session 1: 30 min strength training
- Session 2: 2 x 10 min neuromuscular high torque, low cadence
Thursday - Rest Day
- Complete rest or make an easy 20-60 min walk
Friday - Easy Day
- 60-90 min continuous exercise
Saturday - Hard Day
- Session 1: 30 min strength training
- Session 2: 2 x 10 min neuromuscular high torque, low cadence
Sunday - Easy Day
- 100-120 min continuous exercise
WEEK 2
Monday - Rest Day
- Complete rest or make an easy 20-60 min walk
Tuesday - Hard Day
- Session 1: 30 min strength training
- Session 2: 2 x 10 min neuromuscular high torque, low cadence
Wednesday - Easy Day
- 60-90 min continuous exercise
Thursday - Easy Day
- 60-90 min continuous exercise
Friday - Rest Day
- Complete rest or make an easy 20-60 min walk
Saturday - Hard Day
- Session 1: 30 min strength training
- Session 2: 2 x 10 min neuromuscular high torque, low cadence
Sunday - Easy Day
- 100-120 min continuous exercise
The Training Sessions
Easy Days (marked with green color)
It’s important to keep your easy days easy. These continuous slow long distance sessions typically range from 1-6 hours in duration and are made at an intensity where breathing feels comfortable and you are able to carry on a conversation without much effort.
If you’re on the bike try to maintain a cadence between 90-115 cadence throughout the session. If you’re doing a session 90 min or longer you could add 4-5 x 15 seconds cadence sprints where you spin an easy gear at maximum leg speed for a full 15 seconds.
It’s not absolutely necessary to train exclusively with the bike. If you prefer to run, cross country ski, snowshoe, swim or row I would recommend spending your training hours doing something you enjoy.
These sessions will generally make up the biggest portion of your training around 80%.
Hard Days - Interval Training (marked with orange color)
Over the next two weeks I have given you high torque, low cadence intervals with the purpose of improving your neuromuscular system. Start with a 20-30 minute warm up. Then do 2 x 10 minute intervals in a big heavy gear that you can just turn over at 40-60 rpm. Rest 10 min between efforts and use an easy gear that you can spin a cadence of at least 90 rpm. These are not maximal efforts, you should not have to lay down after them but they should feel somewhat hard while you are doing them.
If you’re not the bicycle you could turn this into running hill/stair repeats. Or you could do 3 x 8 minutes hard in any other exercise modality. With up to 8 min recovery between efforts.
Hard Days - Strength Training (marked with orange color)
Core and body conditioning will make you a more robust rider and strength training has been used to increase both short and long duration endurance capacity. If you’re new to strength training give this session a try.
All the movements for this strength training session can be found here.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkkzmpRneOpTAnC8x7_-xNaRePO6sg5lu
Warm Up - Dynamic Stretching 6 exercises 1 set 8 reps
1. Prisoner Stand Ups
2. Down Dog with Toe Touch
3. Cat-Camels
4. Kneeling thoracic rotations
5. Down Dog to Runner's Lunge
6. Glute Raises-Fire Hydrants
Block A - Strength Training: 3 exercises 1 set 8 reps (each side)
1. Back Leg Elevated Single Leg Romanian Deadlift
2. Skater Squat (you can hold on to something)
3. Split Squat
Block B - Strength Training: 3 exercises 1 set 8 reps (each side)
1. Tall Kneeling Press Up
2. Single Arm 1.5 Floor Press
3. Single Arm DB Row Off Floor
Block C - Core Training 3 exercises 1 set 6 reps (each side)
1. Deadbugs
2. Forward Off Knee Crawls
3. Half kneeling Side Plank Hip Lifts
4. Side Plank Half Kneeling
Summary
- Start training right away.
- Decide how much time you have to train. A minimum of 5-6 hours per week over the next 6 months is most likely required to finish this event.
- Get your family and friends involved, you will need their support.
- Incorporate other enjoyable forms of endurance exercise into your weekly training to keep things fresh.
- If a long training session doesn’t suit your schedule try splitting it into 2 sessions over the same day.
- Keep your easy sessions easy and listen to your body
That’s it for this one, I will be back in a couple weeks to talk about assessing where you are and setting up your training zones. And of course I will have another two weeks of training for you.
- Jamie