16 Week Mountain Training Plan

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March 3, 2018 at 3:58 pm #8404

Krusher01
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Hi,
I have just started the base period in the 16 week plan, and my trip itinerary has changed to now include a 7 day cycle tour as well as the alpine route. Thinking about your comments in TFNA that endurance and strength training don’t mix in the same workout and that cycling doesn’t transfer to climbing very well, I was planning to add 2-3 sessions of cycling specific training (below AeT) each week on top of the remaining sessions in the 16 week plan. I am thinking about sessions around 45mins duration. I also thought I should add this on the days that are not recovery and not the ME days. Am I on the right track here or would you recommend a different approach?
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Posted In: General Training Discussion

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Anonymous on March 3, 2018 at 4:47 pm #8405

Krusher:

In my experience the transfer from mountain running to cycling is way better than the other way around. So if you are doing a lot of vert in your running training you should do OK on the bike (other than getting a sore butt). If your bike trip is on alpine passes with big climbs then toss in 1x/wk of uphill cycling ME workout. Otherwise I think you might want to add do one long ride a week if you are going to be riding for over 2-3 hours/day on this trip. All this extra training is going to mean reducing the load someplace else maybe. This depends on current levels of fitness for alpine climbing/approaching and biking though.

It is always going to be a compromise of some kind when you start mixing objectives. That doesn’t mean you can’t mix them but just understand that you will probably not maximize both areas.

Scott

Participant

Mariner_9 on March 4, 2018 at 3:49 pm #8419

“Otherwise I think you might want to add do one long ride a week if you are going to be riding for over 2-3 hours/day on this trip.”

I’ll second that.

My experience, going from cycling to running (mostly flats) back to cycling, was that it took a few months to build up my ‘running fitness’ or my ‘cycling fitness’. Might have something to do with the muscles used – but could just be my perception.

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Krusher01 on March 6, 2018 at 2:25 am #8470

Thanks for your advice. I just want to endorse the training plan – in the transition period I have gone from having to train at walking pace, to a slow intermittent run/walk and am now able to run for the duration of the training period. My pace is faster than ever before and I have shaved 2 minutes off my running race pace in just that short time. I can’t wait to see the results at the end of the base period. Thanks for everything you do to make this site so useful. I really appreciate it!

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