by Head Coach Kendra Wenzel

With the daylight short this time of the year and work hours usually demanding, it may be difficult to juggle the endurance training suggested before racing in the spring and summer months. What do you do when you have eight to nine hours of work, partners and/or family to care for and spend time with, meals to eat and settle, and all the other household and living tasks to complete each day?

Just thinking about all of this can be tiring in itself. So where do you start?

Start by planning out the month when you receive your training calendar. If you have a work schedule, look at the days that look particularly demanding in your training schedule and see how they may fit into your daily work and personal schedule. (If you’re a full time racer without other, work, then it works the opposite way. You plan your work and personal schedule to best fit around your training and recovery schedule!) If you have a SemiCustom or Custom plan, your general plan for the month will already be worked around your other commitments, but it’s possible that if your work or personal schedule changes that you will still need to make adjustments with your coach.

If you find that you end up with a week that is stacked both with work and training, it’s time to make some choices. Call your coach for help with this. That’s what we are here for! In general though, here are some guidelines to help you plan.

1. Wenzel Coaching training Individual level training programs are generally built with a full day off every 10 days. If you are a full time working rider or a master rider who also works, it’s likely that you will need a day off more often than scheduled. It’s okay to add this extra day off! If you are feeling like you need it, then it’s better to take it then to push through.

2. It’s okay to split up training rides into a morning and evening session if you have both the time to recover and eat properly around both sessions.

3. The flip side of double workouts is that if you are jamming in training sessions daily for weeks in a row, it will eventually wear you down from the stress and rushing around in addition to the training fatigue. An alternative is to pick several days a week for longer, higher quality training. Then use your other days to recover with naps or quality family time. For instance, as a coach I’d rather see a working rider do this pattern:

Monday: Day off
Tuesday: Weight training/Spin Class (where you do your own thing)
Wednesday: 2 hours, mid to high end Basic endurance ride
Thursday: Day off or active recovery
Friday: Weight training
Saturday: 3-4 hours Basic Endurance ride
Sunday: 3-4 hours Basic Endurance ride

Than this craziness:

Monday: Weight training
Tuesday: 1:15 Endurance in AM, 1:15 Endurance in PM
Wednesday: 1:15 Endurance in AM, Weight training/Spin Class in PM
Thursday: 1:15 Endurance in AM, 1:15 Endurance in PM
Friday: Plans for 1:15 to 1:30 in AM and weight training in PM, but turns into 45 min on the trainer in the PM only because the rider is worn out from the week.
Saturday: 3-4 Basic Endurance, plus the weight workout that didn’t get done on Friday
Sunday: Planned Basic Endurance 3-4 hours, but end up doing group ride 3-5 hours to try to make up for the workouts that got blown off during the week and then end up being too tired the following Monday to do the weight training that day.

Still, that’s not to say that the above schedule cannot be done for several weeks, but it will likely require a following week with less training and more rest in order to recover from it. Meanwhile, the first schedule has two dedicated rest days and nearly as many realistic training hours if completed, while the second schedule is unlikely to be completed.

4. Ride in the morning when possible. Riders who ride before work generally get in better quality and longer workouts than riders who leave training for the evening. Training in the morning allows you to eat enough of a snack to get you through your ride, and then eat a real breakfast afterward without worrying about how it’s going to digest on your ride! If you choose to ride in the later evening, you are sometimes left with eating dinner late or not eating much and potentially not replenishing enough of what you’ve burned. Riding in the morning is not as easy to blow off as riding in the evening, as long as you set your alarm! If you are already awake, you may as well get up and go after your goals! Meanwhile, riding later can also leave you feeling amped and make it more difficult to go to sleep until you’ve calmed down. If you’re not a morning person at all, then you may have no choice but to train at night. If that’s the case, then just be sure to build a routine around it so that you get the meal and rest you need. See if you can get out of work earlier to ride longer once or twice per week rather than having the shorter, squeezed-in workouts. You can always make up for the missed job time on your shorter or easier training days, as long as everything isn’t too stressful.

5. If for time’s sake you have to make a choice between getting in a weight workout or ride for the day, choose weight training if you are more than two months away from your racing season. Choose the ride if you are within two months to go until your first racing.

6. If you are feeling run down or on the edge of being sick, give the coach a call right away. If you start getting the sniffles or a scratchy throat, don’t head into the weight room thinking it will be an easier workout. Heading into the gym when you are first sick will usually leave you feeling way worse the following days. Take the time off you need to become healthy and then get on the program again. Health is priority #1 at all times when it comes to training.

7. If days are short and work is long, consider scheduling a holiday during the winter to someplace warm. Even just a four day weekend of consistent riding where you and you coach tweak your training program to include more miles and a short break from weight training, can boost your winter base and get you feeling on track.

8. Call your coach to check in, even when things are going well.

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Coach Karl Etzel takes 3rd place at the 12 Hours of Temecula MTB race

Shannon Simm completes her first endurance MTB race, covering 70 miles and 9,500 vertical feet of climbing at the 12 Hours of Temecula

Wenzel Coaching has teamed up with quality bike company Van Dessel to bring a training camp to riders who purchase their top road and multi-sport bikes. The way it works is simple: Buy the Van Dessel Solstice road bike or Project WR tt bike and receive a three or four day training camp in Half Moon Bay, CA as part of your purchase! All you have to do is get yourself there! Camp will include bike fitting, optional testing, coached training rides, lectures, and all lodging, in hotel breakfasts, and dinners out on the town! Camp dates are March 15th or 16th through the 19th.

More details will be posted on the Wenzel Coaching and Van Dessel sites in the next week!

Landi began her journey towards becoming a cycling coach in February of 1998 while training for the Lake Tahoe Century. She has gone on to do numerous other centuries and shorter distance events, and has been riding for fitness, health and endurance for 10 years. Her emphasis on fun, personal achievement and support of others makes her an asset to the Wenzel coaching team and her clients.

Landi's coaching style draws on her education and work as an Organizational Psychologist. She likes to help people to achieve their goals by identifying their strengths, weaknesses, and their inner motivation to succeed.

"My ultimate goal is to help as many people as possible make the transition from occasional rider to confident cyclist," says Saifer.

Karl Etzel is one of Wenzel's primary coaches for ultra-endurance MTB and road events, and also has a strong background in cyclocross. With over 17 years of experience riding and racing, he brings a wealth of knowledge to the coaching staff. Hia meticulous approach to preparation for ultra- endurance races helps clients get the most out of their fitness in these grueling events.

Karl believes that athletes in any walk of life can improve their performance through focusing on training efficiency and specificity. He particluarly enjoys helping athletes with busy professional and family lives make performance gains, while successfully integrating racing into their schedules. Karl is an active competitor as a 24-hour soloist and works in the health technology industry in San Jose, CA.

with coach David Peckinpaugh, M.S.

The purpose of hard training is to break the body down so that it will adapt to increase your strength and fitness. The adaptations take place during the rest and recovery after the hard training. If you continue hard training while fatigued you will not be getting faster; you will just be increasing the depth of your fatigue. If this continues for several days (called overreaching) it can be reversed with a few days of recovery. If hard training continues beyond this phase of overreaching, you may be putting yourself at risk for full-blown overtraining syndrome.

While many of the signs and symptoms are subjective and can be difficult to identify, it can help to recognize them early. The treatment for overtraining syndrome consists of weeks or months of rest and recovery (and a marked decrease in fitness) so keep an eye out for the signs before it is too late!

Common signs of overtraining may include:

� Unusual decline in performance
� Loss of muscular strength and coordination
� General fatigue
� Change in appetite and body weight loss
� Sleep disturbance
� Irritability, restlessness, anxiousness
� Loss of motivation
� Lack of mental concentration
� Feelings of Depression
� Chronic illness
� Changes in some blood enzyme levels
� Abnormal heart rate response to training (may be too high or too low)

How do you avoid this? Listen to your body. Rest when you body is telling you that you need to. If you feel fatigued, can’t get your heart rate up, or are feeling unusually apathetic, it is a sign that you need to use that day’s training as a rest day. This can be an extra day off or training in the Recovery Heart Rate Zone. Be sure sure to go into a scheduled hard day of training fully rested and ready to do in order to get the most out of that training. If you aren't feeling ready for a day of hard training, be sure to contact your coach to figure out what to do. Remember that there are no points awarded to the most tired athlete at the starting line.

If you find yourself training tired frequently or have the signs of overtraining, be sure to contact your coach as soon as possible to discuss the situation.

We now have Wenzel Coaching training gear in hard to find sizes...for the whole family!!