Training for a cycling event #1

A brief guide on preparing for cycle events

If you are new to cycling and have already entered an event then well done. You are half way there. If you haven’t, then what are you waiting for?

Sportives, races, charity rides, in fact any cycling event that sets a challenge are ideal ways to motivate yourself into training. Once you’ve booked, then there is no going back.

But where do you start?

A good place to start is at the end. Get a diary and mark the date of your event, then work backwards, counting the weeks until you reach present day. This will give you a period of time that can now be split into training blocks.

Setting targets

Each of these block should be focussed towards your ultimate goal, but can be stepping stones along the way, each with their own target. This process allows you to manage your training into realistic chunks that can be less daunting than a larger timescale.

Within each period you may want to focus on specific areas that you have identified as being areas that you wish to improve on such as: limbing, endurance, speed. Once you have identified a target for each block it is a good idea to record these somewhere and your progress towards them. This is where keeping a training diary is a vital tool in progressing and realising your goals and targets. In the next post we will cover the basic details of keeping a training diary