So what do you guys do for winter training this year?

In my part of the world it gets dark around 3 pm now and while we don`t have any snow yet it`s really wet and miserable outside.
Time to hit the trainer!

My goal this year is to really get my ftp up as much as I can during the winter. So my first 8 weeks will have a Level 4 and 5 focus.
1 or 2 rides outdoors during the week on my cyclocross. Mostly endurance and tempo rides. This year I`m going to do some 10-15 sec sprints during the rides to keep the system sharp.

Last race was the second week of october since then a couple of weeks of unstructured training. Tested my Ftp last week, now it is time to lay down a plan. So any ideas will be welcome. Todays session will be 4x4 @ 120% + 20 @ 90%. Time to hit the trainer

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humm, not sure about hitting the L5 that soon, apparently the gains are quite fast and you can plateau quickly.

Personnaly, my winter training has started. I do a bit of L4 on the trainer and quite a bit of L6 as well. My L6 workout consist of short, sharp efforts of 15-30sec with short recovery, the purpose being to increase anaerobic repeatability, I dont really care about pure anaerobic power as there is a point in mtb racing where producing too much power will have your rear tire loose traction. I also do a faire bit of weight lifting, heavy stuff and I dont think it'll help my cycling power, but life is more then riding a bike.

I will start hitting L5 after christmas and lower the L6 volume. So jan-feb will be more L4-L5 for me, with gym circuit training. Meanwhile I still ride my MTB outside whenever I can, even after a L4 workout, to keep my skills sharpened up.

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2013 rocky mountain vertex 29er
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At the minute I'm mainly doing 90-120min sessions on the trainer after work, SST (3x20's) and some L4 stuff (2x20's) with a 3-4hr LSD road ride at the weekend with some short tempo intervals thrown in at the end.

I'm looking forward to a long spell off work over Dec/Jan (4wks) so then I'm going to focus purely on lots of 3-6hr LSD road rides with some SST intervals included in 3 & 2 day blocks. This should set me up nicely for L4/5 build work during Feb/Mar for my first planned peak in Apr

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"I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying."
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Bump!

A little update. My tested FTP was 275 watt in the beginning of November or 291 watt for 20 min.
I use the 20 min x 0,95% to calculate my ftp, I know there are different opinions on what is best but that`s the testing I`m going to stick with thru the winter. Been doing L4, sweet spot and a little bit of L5 work during the winter. Because of the weather I haven`t been riding outdoors as much as I would liked to but at least I have kept the intensity up. My 5min power is now 375 watt and FTP was in January 300 watt. Will do a block of training next week and then rest up for 2-3 days and test my Ftp again, I think that 325 watt for 20 min is going to be quite easy. The goal is to have an ftp of 325 watt on the trainer at
the end of April and right now I feel that I`m ahead of schedule. Have added some hours to the program the last couple of weeks and think ì`m starting to feel the effects.
This weekend will be two rides of ca 3 hours of L2 and a block of L3 in the middle of them.

I have plenty of time as racing doesn`t really kicks in here until may with the big races coming in june so I believe that my training form by then will be really good. Need to sharpen the skills with some races and then I`m good to go

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thats a nice progression you've had there.

On my side, im about to let the intensity down a bit and start focusing on longer rides/efforts, sweet spot and tempo stuff, hopefully the FTP sky rockets.

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2013 rocky mountain vertex 29er
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I have the same plan now that the weather is alot better here.
Hope it works out for the both of us.

Really thinking of getting a powermeter for the mtb, do you get any useful data out of it? For marathons maybe you could use it for pacing on climbs and fireroads?

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I love my mtb PM and wouldnt ride without it. Very useful for post race data analysis. I also do 95% of my training on the mtb, on the singletrack or tarmc/gravel roads.

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2013 rocky mountain vertex 29er
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www.cyclingtrainingnuts.blogspot.ca

I was afraid of that answer
Time to buy a quarq.

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Ride lots!