I haven’t done any racing and serious training during the past years. I have ridden my bike for fun. Some periods I did a lot of riding and some periods I did none. Lost a lot of fitness when I stopped racing some time ago and hope to get back to my previous level. That’s why I will be racing again next year.
I have had some weeks with almost no riding now and I want to start up my training again to get in shape for next season. Normally I would start with some base miles and a lot of endurance and build up slowly in to the racing season which starts in January and runs until October where I live.
Xert is immediately recommending me intense Vo2 intervals and FTP work. This doesn’t seem right and I would like to know what settings I should use to get a program that slowly builds towards the season. I am not planning to be in top shape for the first race and just want a slow build period with some big goals in spring/summer. Is a program like this possible with Xert?
Hi Guillaume! Exciting that you want to be training again for some races!
Can you share some details about your current TL (# of stars) and some of your settings (Program Type, Athlete Type, etc.)? That will help us put the recommendations from Xert in context
Currently at 3 green stars, freshness feedback 0, training status as of 9.30 (don’t actually know what this setting does…), program type continuous, athlete type climber (the races I am targeting are all mountainous), improvement rate slow.
It seems to think that I am massively behind on a goal right now and I need to ‘catch up’ fitness. If there is some way to reset the program and start back up from scratch that would be a good option. Just a full program that builds fitness slowly.
If you have been off the bike for a bike, it’s very likely that you have a large deficit. Ride by your time availability for a couple days (use the duration filter to filter workouts by the amount of time you have to ride each day). The training pacer will be back on track after about 7 days and you can proceed from there.
There is no periodization with the Continuous Improvement or Challenge program types (referenece: Program Type – Xert). Both those options will recommend workouts with a focus near your athlete type when fresh/very fresh (green/blue stars) and <2.5 endurance workouts when you’re tired (yellow stars). Only the Target Event Date (TED) is periodized, since there is something to periodize towards
So my first recommendation would be to switch to the TED program and pick a date for January when you anticipate you’ll start racing. That will likely put you in the pre-base or base phase (idk exactly many days January is away, but the TED program is 120 days long).
That sounds good! A Target Event Date program should get me at a good base level from where I can then select the continuous improvement function to build on that base during the season
I will just set the event date 120 days from now and build my race program accordingly.
That sounds great. Once you’re in the race season, it may be more appropriate to switch into the ‘Continuous Improvement’ option and set your Athlete Type to the typical Focus Type of your races (e.g. Rouleur if your races often have a 6:00 focus). This will be like keeping you forever in the ‘Peak’ phase of training during your race season.
Great. I’m really interested to see how Xert will work this season. Before I always used to work with a coach but that could be tricky when unplanned things in life happened.
Target date set to the 22nd of February now and planned workouts for the remainder of this week. It has recommended me 4 Free Ride Endurance workouts. Perfect base training recommendation
As you noted the periodization cycle can be manipulated. If you wish to extend Base phase beyond 45 days simply move your TED during Base phase to stay within the 45-day base phase window.
You also control ramp rate up/down to reflect your commitment level and changes to weekly schedule. Want to ramp up mid-phase? Raise the rate. Need to scale back? Lower the rate.
If you want a gradual increase in TL during phases, set your IR (improvement rate) to Slow.
“Status as of” setting under Goals determines what XATA uses for your advice “as of” time.
The default is 11:59pm which means advice as of end of the day. 1:00am would be advice at start of the day. Some users set to the time to when they normally work out each day.
I use the default end-of-day.
