Off Season Training
Get recharged and ready for next season.
Mountain bike season normally winds down in October and picks back up around March or April, depending on what races you target. There are of course exceptions. I would even say even during the “season” there’s mini-seasons with the NICA race season going from mid-August through early October as the main event.
How do you prepare?
What you do prepare is entirely dependent on your goals. Are you just wanting to have fun? Maybe you want to finish your first race, or do that challenging trail/route that’s on your bucket list? Or maybe you’re even wanting to compete in a elite/varsity category in a very competitive field? Your first step always needs to be outlining your goals and working backwards to plan out your year. Write them down and review/reflect on them often.
What if I don’t know?
That’s ok, just start riding and having fun. Especially in a group it gets more and more fun. Then you can build off that energy while learning from others to figure out what you want. Biking is a life long sport and no single season, race, competitor, etc. should negatively impact your desire or benefit you get from the sport.
One great piece of advice that I got from a friend is the only way you figure out what you want is by trying, put some effort into the sport and see where it takes you.
What does it take?
Let’s assume you’ve got your goals outlined. Let’s go through some scenarios.
Just Have Fun
Great! This is a worthy goal. You can shed expectations and just enjoy the sport for what it is. The more you do it, the more you improve and the more fun it becomes. I think the key thing is that fun is different for everyone. Some enjoy chill rides, some have fun when they are getting that adrenaline rush on some double black diamond trails, and some have fun competing in races. Fun doesn’t always mean chill rides and there’s no wrong way to do this.
If you find yourself dreading the sport, because you’re training too much, or you’ve had a bad race, etc. Then my advice is to step away and come back when you want to and don’t force it. One caveat here, if you’re wanting to compete the fact is you’re going to have to do some stuff you don’t want to do, like that interval set you’ve been dreading. It’s part of the process. More to come on this.
Finish That Race or Trail
You’ve picked a race/trail, planned it out, set a date, and now you want to make sure you’re prepared. This is great because it puts a target on the calendar, you can work backwards.
Start with assessing how much fitness you’ll need, what gear might help you, or what skills you need to improve upon to have a great experience. Write it down, put some milestones on the calendar, and plan it all out.
Let’s say you planned to finish an ICUP race. Look at the course, estimate the time it’ll take to finish, look at the terrain and ride similar trails, etc. If it’s an 8 mile race and you think it’ll take 45 minutes then start riding 3-4 times a week for that amount of time and go from there.
If it’s a bigger race like True Grit (50 miles on tough trails) you’re going to really need to put some effort into this. Let’s assume it’ll take you 4 hours. Well, you’re going to have to work up to riding for that amount of time. Pick 1 day a week, ride for maybe 50% of the time and add 10% each week until you can ride for 4 hours. You’ll want to be able to do this within about 3-4 weeks before you you race to allow for recovery/taper periods.
Competing at The Highest Levels
Let’s say you’ve had some success, really enjoyed it, and are now wanting to compete at an elite level. Let’s go through some examples.
The top 10 Utah NICA Boys Varsity Riders averaged about 450 hours of riding by the time the state race occurred.
This is an average of 1.5 hours of riding PER DAY.
Stop caring about miles. What matters is time on bike while riding on similar terrain to what you’ll be racing.
This doesn’t exclude off the bike exercise which is absolutely needed. Think weights, cross-training, etc.
Sure it’s 1.5 hours per day but certainly there is some big rides in there to shift that average. Think 3-4 hour ride once per week and stay consistent with 1 hour rides throughout the week.
That’s a lot, especially for young athletes trying to balance family life, social life, work, and school.
So how do you do it? CONSISTENCY. You can’t cheat the clock and make up training by suddenly riding a lot just 4 weeks before you expect to race. It takes consistent training over time. Doing those intervals when you didn’t want to, getting that ride in at 6am because you have school and work later in the day, etc.
What is consistency really? It’s discipline applied. Having a goal and being willing to work for it to get there.
How to balance it all out?
You need to have balance. Too much training will get you hurt, not enough will leave you unprepared, and too much of anything will burn you out and reduce your enjoyment in the sport. So how do you do it? Here’s some tips I’ve learned over the years:
Remove the barriers. Get your clothes out the night before, have your bike prepared, just set your mind to the fact you’re doing that interval set. Removing all barriers helps limit the number of excuses you make to avoid doing what you need.
Ride with buddies. This is so important. Doing a long endurance ride with a friend can make those 3-4 hours zoom by. Doing it along feels like an eternity. So send that text the day before, plan it out, be the person organizing those group rides. You will not regret it.
Remind yourself of the goal. Why are you doing it? Keep the focus on your intended outcome and it'll keep you motivated.
Time off and Recovery is part of training. Your body needs to take time off to recover. Your mind needs to take time off to enjoy the sport. Integrate it into your training by planning it out. Shed the anxiety of losing fitness. I PROMISE taking 2 weeks off on occasion will allow you to break through any training plateau you’ve hit and allow you to reach new performance levels.
Design your training to incorporate all of this. Strategies like block periodization can help.
What Do I Do in the Off-Season?
Now that you’ve got your goals and some idea of how to get there you need to execute. What that looks like varies wildly depending on goals.
For an elite Varsity rider? They’ll need to be riding through the winter to build that base endurance to prep them for some tough sessions ahead.
For someone that just wants to have fun? Get outside, don’t be afraid of the weather, ride with buddies, have fun!
For a targeted race/trail? Well there’s no getting around it, start to ride enough to get you to the finish and simulate your race conditions.
There’s a lot to learn about endurance training. Thanks all!