Bikepacking Race Plans

[didnothingfatal]

Stumbled across these, and they might be of interest to someone. Designed by Lynda Wallenfels who won last years Arizona Trail Race,

Multi-day Self-supported Bikepacking Race Plans

[pedalhead]

Yeah lwcoaching have plans for pretty much everything, even singlespeed racing. I've never bought one, but they do give you quite a useful feebie look at each type of plan.

[didnothingfatal]

I'm tempted by getting the plan, but not convinced their would be anything extra useful in it based upon what you can see in the free PDF, plenty of books on bike training out there for the generic training, mix in long weekend rides on the mountain bike loaded as per bikepacking, and few trips to test gear. She also recommends training for 'hike a bike'

Basics of plan;

The plan has 4 primary blocks:
Weeks 1‐3: Neuromuscular power and aerobic development. Optional overnight bikepacking
excursion to dial in equipment. Hike‐a‐bike practice. Adjust technical skills to riding loaded.
Weeks 4‐6: Threshold and VO2max power development. End block with an overnight
bikepacking training mission.
Weeks 7‐9: Tempo power development. Building the ability to stay on the gas for long periods of
time. Dial in bikepacking system to minimize stops and maximize efficiency. End block with 3
day/2 night bikepack training mission.
Weeks 10 – 12: Rest, taper and final race specific preparations and key workouts to bring you to
a peak at the start. AZTR starts week #12 day 5 on Friday morning.

Altenatively, WRT starts week #12 day 6 on Saturday.
Bikepack Racing 101 by Lynda

[thomthumb]

i have a singlespeed plan. i certainly haven't followed the plan - it certainly has made me think about training a little more though.

+ves. there were some really useful sessions in the plan - things that i certainly have tried to do.

-ves. lack of repitition, i like my week structured. the plan has different sessions on the days each week. ie. my typical week would be monday intervals, thursday 3hr ride. weekend longer ride saturday normally being a day off the bike. this plan means that one week sat is a rest day, next week weds, or friday.

I would recommend the plan but i would bear in mind that it might need working on .

training for hike a bike sounds good - I hate pushing my bike - i am so slow at it. i got completely demoralised last year on the bb200 watch everyone push their bike up a field faster than me.

[pedalhead]

yep I think unless you have no other commitments in life, a generic plan such as one from LW Coaching is always going to require customizing to fit your own life. As someone with a full time job, wife & two little children, I still manage to ride out or on the turbo 5 or 6 days a week, but -most importantly- always in the same time slots each week. If the slots changed time & duration every week I think my head would explode as I simply couldn't keep up with that and function in any other area of life!

On the singlespeed thing...I found it quite tricky to come up with a sensible singlespeed endurance-based training plan (that's all I ride/race with, other than a geared road bike for some training). In fact, I probably still haven't got a sensible plan! Doing targeted training on a SS bike is all but impossible unless you're just doing hill repeats or similar. There's definitely no substitute for a geared bike on the road, with at least a HR monitor but power too if possible. Of course, the latter is a lot less interesting (for me at least), particularly on longer 4+ hr rides. One positive thing I've done is to replace spinning class/turbo high intensity work with a specific off-road singlespeed ride. Just blast the hills, get the HR right up, recover with gentle spinning at the top. Dunno if it's just me but I'd far rather be doing high intensity intervals out on the real hills than spinning nowhere on my turbo.

Overall, my basic theory is to get the base training in now to get that efficiency built up, mainly on the road but also some off-road, work a bit of FTP development into it and then go into the build phase by doing a lot of high z3 long hills on the SS along with short z5+ stuff, also regularly throwing in some high cadence low power stuff. Having said that, last year I just "rode my bike a lot" and did ok, so perhaps this is all rubbish :?

[Ian]

Dunno if it's just me but I'd far rather be doing high intensity intervals out on the real hills than spinning nowhere on my turbo.

Not just you :)

I hated intervals when I did "proper" training. My singlespeed presents more of a challenge somehow - the desire to get to the top of steep and/or long is much greater than doing x minutes at y watts on a road bike.

[didnothingfatal]

The problem I have with these training plans is finding these perfect roads and hills, that let me maintain a specific heart rate zone for a specified time.

[Ian]

Yeah, that was a problem for me too on the road. Less of an issue off road as the speed is slower the climbs don't need to be so long. That said, I've got the 5 mile gradient up through Talybont Forest at my disposal which provides at least 25 minutes of pain depending how hard I go at it.

[pedalhead]

The problem I have with these training plans is finding these perfect roads and hills, that let me maintain a specific heart rate zone for a specified time.

Absolutely! I spend a lot of time looking at OS maps trying to work out appropriate bits, usually unsuccessfully.