Be inspired

The Strava website states that Strava is “Designed by athletes, for athletes, Strava's mobile app and website connect millions of runners and cyclists through the sports they love”. However, is it any use to help you build your cycling fitness? So, is Strava good for beginners cycling training? In my opinion as a professional cycling coach, yes it is an excellent tool that combines elements of social interaction, manageable competition and challenges, and features that allow you to track and direct your progress according to your needs.

Like any endurance event, mountain bike stage races are fundamentally about managing your energy. Training for the event is simple in many respects but the added dimensions of off-road riding make it important to develop fitness for harder efforts that are dictated by the terrain as well as your competitors.

It can be demoralising when you are unable to do your workout to the targets that you have set and it can be less effective if your targets are too easy. It isn’t unusual for people to have different thresholds for workouts on the indoor trainer compared to those outdoors.

Riding up hills at the right pace can make a huge difference to how well you perform in endurance cycling events, so I thought I would write down some details of how to get the pacing right.

So, how should you ride hills in endurance cycling events? You should ride up hills a little bit harder than you ride on the flat and use downhill for recovery. Because of the way wind resistance works, riding harder up hills is more efficient.

We recently had a workshop on goal setting for our training group and I thought it might be useful to write an article to explain the details of how goal setting can support a successful finish in a bike packing event or any other sporting event.

So, how can goal setting help you succeed in a bike packing race? There are three types of goals used in sport: Outcome Goals, your dreams; Performance Goals, measurable things; and Process Goals, things you do. These goals integrate into a plan for both training and your event that if followed effectively should lead bring success.

A question that people often want to improve is how to get faster at cycling up hills. This is often because they can’t keep up on hills during rides with friends, in training groups or in events or races. There are two main reasons why you might not be as fast as you would like to be when riding up hills but the reason you can’t keep up or have to slow down on hills is probably not due to how fast you are on hills but how much energy you have used before getting to the hill. Improving your overall cycling fitness and managing your energy effectively alongside improving your fitness for cycling up hills is likely to give you the biggest improvements in your climbing speed.

Many of us question how much training we need to do to meet our goals. It is an interesting question, as is how much training is too much? I thought I would take some time to write down my thoughts and experience on the subject in the hope that it will help you towards your goals. You should first focus how much training you can sustain now and then build up from there. The optimum amount of training at any time is a bit more than you are comfortable with but not enough to be overwhelming physically or mentally.

So how much sleep do endurance athletes need? A general rule of thumb is between 7 and 9 hours per night for adults, but studies suggest athletes may in fact need closer to 9 or 10 hours per night for optimum performance.

So how did stress have such a drastic effect on my training? When we are using up a lot of energy on stress this can limit the energy we have left for good quality training; in addition to this when emotionally stressed it can take us longer to recover. Unfortunately it is difficult to monitor this closely as emotional stress is very subjective; what causes debilitating stress for one person is a perfect motivator for another.

Perhaps the most effective thing you can do to improve your ability to run or cycle faster for longer distances, longer than 2 hours up to several days, is to improve your speed or power at your aerobic threshold. I thought it would be a good idea to explain why this is and how you can use the knowledge to get faster, so I wrote this article. So, why is aerobic threshold important? Your aerobic threshold dictates how fast you can go for durations of more than around 2 hours

There are a lot of applications available to track and analyse running, cycling and other endurance training sessions. I have used quite a few over the years and I thought it would be useful to combine my experience with that of my athletes and an in-depth survey of currently available diary application and analysis tools. So, what are the best cycling and running training and analysis applications? In no particular order, my top 3 applications are Strava, TrainingPeaks and Final Surge but I think combinations of applications work best. Read on to find out why.

So can walking help you be a better trail runner? As a way of cross training and getting in some guaranteed easy miles absolutely. But it’s a bit more complicated than just walking all the time and then becoming a good runner; you do still need to do some running to get fit, it’s more about varying the effort and intensity of your training, if you walk you are guaranteed to be working less hard than if you were running so it enables you to maintain some exercise without over straining. This can work particularly well for trail runners in several different ways

What you eat and drink during your long bike rides, races and events makes a huge difference to how fast you can go and how long you can ride for without having to stop or slow down. I have done some research and combined with my personal experience as a cyclist and a professional coach, here are some ideas that might help you.

So, what should you eat and drink during your long bike rides, races and events?

Life can be busy and it can often seem impossible to find the time to train for the event that fills your dreams. However, it isn’t impossible to reach ambitious goals and sustain a busy life, although of course there has to be some sacrifice.

You may have heard that fitness develops during recoveries and not during your workouts. Here is a bit more detail on the subject and the reasons why recovery is so important.

So, why is rest and recovery needed for you to get fitter and faster? Training is a process of stressing your body to create a response and then waiting for it to respond and build up stronger before stressing it a bit more so that it responds again. Each of these stress/response cycles is a step towards increased fitness with the response occurring during periods of recovery and adaptation.

I’ve been thinking about how people get fitter and stay fitter, in fact how we get better at anything, whether that is developing skills, being happier or achieving amazing sporting goals. It is all about creating and maintaining good habits. I thought it would be useful to share some of what I have learned from over 50 years in sport and my experiences as a professional running and cycling coach. So, why do you get fitter by developing good habits?

I’ve been thinking about how people get fitter and stay fitter, in fact how we get better at anything, whether that is developing skills, being happier or achieving amazing sporting goals. It is all about creating and maintaining good habits. I thought it would be useful to share some of what I have learned from over 50 years in sport and my experiences as a professional running and cycling coach. So, why do you get fitter by developing good habits?

Last week, I wrote an article about how to set the intensity of your interval training sessions and made a video about why you need interval training to help you get faster, so I thought it would be a good idea to explain why you should be doing interval training in more detail, to help explain in more detail how it will help you to get faster at your running, cycling or swimming. So, why do you need interval training to get faster?

One of the ways I have found most helpful in ensuring that I complete my training is having a solid routine that I can use again and again. Spending time establishing this routine has been part of what has helped me train regularly even when my motivation has been low.

I like simple, adaptable systems and the 5 pace system is such a system. Originally, I think, attributed to the running coach Frank Horwill and attributed to the success of Sebastian Coe, who’s 800m world record stood for many years. I have successfully adapted the system to work with cycling, leading to many successes with athletes at all levels including professional elite competitors and I thought it would be useful to share the details of how to apply the system to your training.

Power meters have been around for over a decade now and are becoming increasingly affordable, particularly if you look to the second-hand market. There are also many affordable alternatives to buying and fitting a power meter on your bike such as using a Wattike at the gym or a smart trainer. Even basic trainers can be calibrated to give power output when combined with Apps such as Zwift, TrainerRoad, etc.

I thought it would be useful to reflect on why I think training with power is a worthwhile investment. In fact, in many cases, I think it could be better to spend less on a bike and save enough to buy a power meter if you are serious about getting the best out of yourself.

Whilst I was pondering about things one evening, as I often do, I started thinking about why I got into running and cycling. I realised that although I like to train hard and do the best I can, there are many reasons that make entering and taking part in races or formal events worthwhile.

Here are my top 11: