In early May Mariah from Boulder contacted me to help design a program to prepare her for the end of summer cross country Tipperary Creek mountain bike race in Winter Park. This race tackles 25 miles of single track trail with well over 3,000’ vertical feet of climbing and is a classic test piece of climbing endurance and descending prowess.
The first third of Mariah’s 12 week race ready program was dedicated to her onboarding process. I began Mariah’s onboarding by interviewing her about her athletic history, current fitness and ability level on the bike, reasons for seeking coaching, lifestyle (diet, sleep routine, alcohol consumption, stressors), scheduling needs to build training around, and getting a sense of her goals. We began our coach/athlete relationship by meeting for a one on one assessment ride at Centennial Cone trail in Clear Creek Canyon so that I could first get a sense of Mariah’s abilities on the bike.
The skills and fitness Mariah would need for the Tipperary Creek race were already well developed. She showed particular aptitude for steady, long duration climbs, and was fast and capable on the sections of flow trail downhill. She was very comfortable on her bike and it was evident that she was already well accustomed to longer endurance rides. She was less comfortable attacking short, steep climbs and tended to walk her bike down steep sections of technical downhill and tight switchbacks.
Mariah began riding mountain bikes with her family as a teenager, and dabbled with racing including a podium finish at the first Colorado high school state championships in 1999, but for most of her adult life did not take the sport too seriously. In college she rowed varsity crew and trained hard to compete with her team. After college she moved to Boston for a job with her partner, got married, and while she continued to ride her mountain bike recreationally she did not ride frequently or devote much attention to it. She and her husband got a dog, then had two kids, and Mariah found herself balancing a busy life as she juggled the demands now placed on her. Fast forward and 40 year old Mariah’s children are both in school or in summer camp programs much of the time, and she has more free time on her hands than she has had in years. She and a biking buddy decided to sign up for the Tipperary Creek race together. She also decided to enter a local race taking place in Boulder a month before Tipperary Creek in order to gauge her fitness and remember what racing feels like. Mariah’s current level of aerobic fitness is high and her skillset navigating flow trail, the type of trail she will mostly encounter during Tipperary Creek, is strong. She rides often, frequently goes to yoga, enjoys dancing and skiing, and plans outdoor activities with her family most weekends, but she did not feel ready for the competitive demands of racing. When I asked her about her goals for training and racing she was vague. She told me she wants to have fun, finish feeling strong, and ride her bike more than she has in past summers. Together we needed to create a training plan that would balance her workouts with the demands placed on her by her busy life outside of mountain biking. Additionally, she needed help differentiating and defining her training and racing goals. Before we began this process, though, I set up a time trial climb and descent for Mariah to get an idea of where we were at the beginning of onboarding. We used these same time trials again four weeks later to see how Mariah responded to the initial block of training we came up with, so that we could use the following eight weeks leading up to her race as effectively as possible.
Two days after our Centennial Cone ride together I had Mariah time herself at Maryland Mountain in Black Hawk. The uphill portion of this time trial was the Mill Creek climb, and the downhill portion was Fast Money. Once she logged her times we discussed goal setting, and I prescribed her a three week block of training followed by several easier days, repeating the time trials, and another one on one end of onboarding assessment ride we would do together.
Working together I helped Mariah develop three purposeful training goals and two racing goals. We clearly defined the parameters of her lifestyle at home, how training could be built into her schedule, and how she would balance her health, fitness, mental well being, family life, and work.
Initially Mariah’s responses to goal setting did not clearly align with her desire to seek coaching or specifically develop aspects of her riding. She wanted to have fun, ride more, and feel good during her race. None of those desires were dependent on coaching to realize. Through honest conversation with Mariah about her strengths and weaknesses, what she was willing or unwilling to sacrifice, and her reasons for wanting to undertake such a serious challenge she was able to expand and define her goals more precisely.
Training goals: Mariah’s schedule this summer gave her about two hours and sometimes up to three hours of free time most weekday mornings. She generally spends her weekends doing family activities which may include riding bikes with her kids and husband, but which couldn’t be considered structured training. Once and sometimes twice a week, Mariah attends a yoga class she loves and which she wanted to incorporate into her training plan. With these parameters she defined the following three goals:
1) Mariah wanted more structure and less free play on her bike rides. Her base aerobic fitness was quite high so workouts would be designed to target her relative weaknesses more than they would build on her strengths. Each week other than rest weeks would include an interval workout designed to increase her anaerobic fitness and power on shorter, steeper climbs, and a workout designed to target a specific technical skill such as navigating switchbacks. Because of the flexibility Mariah understandably needed in her schedule due to family and work, she hesitated to commit to doing specific rides on specific days but felt confident that she could spend 4 days per week on the bike, with 3 targeted workouts. The 4th day would be a bike ride for fun with family.
2) In addition to her weekly yoga class, Mariah would begin a simple weight lifting routine that she could do at home with dumbbells. When she came home after her morning yoga class, she would turn up the music she likes and do deep squats, deadlifts, push-ups, and pull-ups for 30 minutes. She had no history with weight lifting prior to this training program, but was confident that she could do it once a week. Figuring out proper form, amount of weight to lift, sets, and reps would be part of the onboarding process and would require some tinkering.
3) Mariah believed that she could improve her diet and sleep hygiene and committed to doing so. She ate healthfully, but identified that she would be OK cutting back dessert to twice per week, and having one glass of wine instead of two with dinner. Usually she and her husband are exhausted at the end of the day and fall into bed to watch Netflix, but Mariah really enjoys drawing and painting, and wanted to spend an hour from 9:00 – 10:00pm doing art to wind down instead. Further, she wanted to be stricter with herself about having lights off at 10:00pm.
-Racing goals: Mariah’s lifestyle did not permit a high volume load of training or many long endurance workouts. Because Tipperary Creek is a long race, this would be an unfortunate hole in Mariah’s ability to train. Thankfully, her base fitness levels coming into the program were already quite high. Additionally, she did have some advantages that would help make up for that gap in her training. She lives close to Winter Park and was able to check out the race venue twice during the summer leading up to the race. She rode the Tipperary Creek course twice in July, once to preview and familiarize herself with the challenge she would face, and again two weeks later with her training partner where they practiced a race simulation. For the race day itself, Mariah planned to arrive in Winter Park a few day ahead of time so that she would have a third opportunity to ride the course in the days leading up to the race. She also took part in a short, low key local race in Boulder about a month before Tipperary Creek to get her mind back in race mode and try out some race strategies, such as pacing, hydration, and passing. Mariah was able to refine her original vague race goal, ‘finish strong and feel good,’ into two specific, purposeful goals:
1) After her second ride on the course practicing a race simulation, Mariah and her training partner finished the ride in just over three and a half hours. Believing that she could ride certain sections of the course faster and with a proper taper before competing, she decided her aim would be to complete the race in less than 3:15.
2) Each time she rode the course there were a couple of technical sections Mariah had to walk, but she felt that they presented a reasonable challenge if she could improve her overall ability to navigate technical rock gardens. Mariah decided that her second race goal would be to cleanly ride the entire course without walking her bike during the race. In the couple of days leading up to her race while she was at the venue, Mariah opted not to ride the entire course again, but rather to spend time on just those tricky sections of the course where she most needed practice.
To structure a 12 week program around these training and racing goals I broke up Mariah’s training into specific blocks. The first four weeks were the onboarding process discussed above and included the one on one rides and time trials at the beginning and end of that block, developing a beginner friendly and easy to start weight lifting program, and an introduction of skills and interval workouts to see how Mariah responded to training. The next five weeks were the core work of fitness and skills building where the difficulty of workouts ramped up. After the first two weeks of the five-week block, there was a relatively easy 3-4 days of recovery, followed by the hardest two weeks of the program and another relatively easy 3-4 days of recovery. The final three weeks of Mariah’s program were a period for her to taper before her big race. Let’s take a look at what certain weeks of the training plan might look like:
Week 1) Beginning of training program
-1 hour yoga class followed by half hour weight lifting
-3 hour assessment ride at Centennial Cone with Coach Pete
-1.5 hour time trial ride at Maryland Mountain, rest at summit at least 10-15 minutes between climbing TT and descending TT. Do not do this workout on back to back days with assessment.
-1.5 hour interval workout at North Table Mountain. 3x hill repeats on west road cut. ~10 minutes each RPE 8, ~10 minutes rest between intervals. 25 minute warmup zone 2, 15 minute cooldown zone 2 dropping to zone 1.
-Unstructured weekend ride for fun with family
-2 rest days
-total structured training time: 7.5 hours, average RPE during workouts 8/10
-try to schedule endurance workout and interval workout before rest days
Week 7) Recovery week during the middle of summer
-1 hour yoga class followed by half hour weight lifting
-1.5 hour ride at Marshal Mesa, easy efforts on the climbs, focus on maintaining flow and speed on the descents. RPE 4/10
-1 hour ride Boulder Reservoir loop, very relaxed pace. RPE 1/10
-Unstructured weekend ride for fun with family
-3 rest days*
-total structured training time: 3.5 hours, average RPE during workouts 3/10
*Recovery weeks following demanding training are the MOST important part of a long term program, especially for masters 40+ athletes like Mariah. Great attention to self care should be given on rest days. The upcoming block of training following this rest week will be the most demanding of Mariah’s program and it is imperative that she enters into it completely recovered, motivated, and mentally recharged. This is an excellent time to consult with her coach to make any adjustments or tweaks to her training plan.
Week 9) Hardest training week of the 12 week program pre taper*
-1 hour yoga class followed by half hour weight lifting
-3 hour race simulation with training partner at Tipperary Creek. RPE 10/10
-2 hour ride at Walker Ranch to practice technical skills such as switch backs, steeps, and rock gardens. If you do not ride a section try it 2x more before moving on. RPE 8/10
-2 hour interval workout at North Table Mountain. 4x hill repeats on west road cut ~8-9 minutes each RPE 10, ~10 minutes rest between intervals, 25 minutes warm up zone 2, 25 minutes cool down zone 2 dropping to zone 1
-3.5 hour endurance ride on gravel bike from home. Stay at high end of zone 2 entire time. RPE 7.5/10
-2 rest days
-total structured training time: 11 hours, average RPE during workouts 9/10
-order of workouts is important, schedule rest days after race simulation and intervals
*At the end of 9 weeks Mariah will have made all the fitness gains she can make and the emphasis now shifts from a training mindset to a racing mindset. From this point on there is no purpose in aiming for more fitness gains. Some intensity workouts will still be included but volume will be decreased significantly. Mariah also has an unexpected family event come up towards the end of her taper period that will keep her away from her bike, her yoga studio, and her dumbbells for a week. We come up with a simple plan during this time to maintain fitness and relieve stress as best as possible. She will bring her running shoes and go for a brisk 20 minute jog every other day while she is gone. While this family event is less than ideal during this time Mariah’s mindset and stress levels are more important than specific workouts. The taper period before a big event is often stressful anyway, and this event will likely increase her stress further so she will need strategies to manage this. Frequent and gentle stretching, meditating, going for walks in nature, going to the spa or getting a massage, reading books, doing art, etc are all excellent coping mechanisms. This period off the bike and away from structured training could be beneficial to Mariah if she is able to stay relatively active and see this happenstance in a positive light. The Dirt Warrior’s Desiderata has equipped Mariah with the mental tools to manage this break in her program so she could see this week from a standpoint of resilience, mental toughness, and as an opportunity to quickly rebound from a setback.
Week 12) Race Week
-The week leading up to Mariah’s race is much more about mental tactics than specific workouts, although enough intensity needs to be included to keep her mind and body sharp for the intense effort of her race. As soon as Mariah returns home from her family event it is a great idea to go for an unstructured ~2 hour mountain bike ride she enjoys with some hard climbing efforts and focused descending efforts. A full rest day early in the week and another full rest day 2 days before the race are vital. Mariah will arrive at the venue where her family has rented a house 3 days before the race. That evening is a great time for Mariah to ride for 1.5-2 hours on sections of the course that gave her problems during her pre-rides in July. The morning the day before her race is a great time to do this again. These rides will focus on skills and technique but will include a few short hard efforts – nothing to fatigue her but enough to break a good sweat and breath hard. These rides to work on tricky sections of the race course are very important, one of Mariah’s two race goals is to cleanly ride the entire course. The afternoon and evening before the race it will be important for Mariah to eat well and relax, easier said than done while dealing with the stress of an important race the next morning! On the morning of the race Mariah needs to wake up early enough to attend to all of her pre-race necessities, most importantly eating a big enough breakfast of foods that agree with her with enough time to digest before her 9:00 start time, and allowing herself at least 15-20 minutes before the start of the race to get in a good warm up. The morning of a big race is a stressful time for even the most experienced competitors, but one of the best tactics to deal with this is budgeting more time to take care of your pre-race rituals than you think you will need so that you do not feel rushed. When Mariah arrives at the start line she will do her best to tune out the chaos and stress around her, knowing that she has done her best to prepare for this event and that she is capable and in control of realizing her race goals. She knows she must ride her own race and not concern herself with whatever the other competitors decide to do. She has practiced her pacing several times on this course already and will stick to her plan. She is excited at the chance to test herself.
Post race analysis and steps forward – Mariah’s race does not go exactly to plan, but she had a great experience, learned some valuable lessons, and is motivated to continue training and refine some of her race strategies for the following season. She ended up almost accomplishing both her goals, finishing in 3:22, and only getting off her bike once which she didn’t believe cost her any significant time. She felt that she started out too fast because the other women went out so fast, and that going into the first big climb she was more out of breath than she hoped to be. Later in the race many of those same women who went out so fast at the start faded. She was able to recover well following the first and biggest climb as the first downhill is very long, and from the second climb onwards she felt strong and paced herself well. In retrospect she felt that the race mostly played to her strengths with long steady climbs and mostly smooth fast descents, but was happy to have trained her weaknesses over the summer, and is now curious to enter a race that is more technically demanding and contains more powerful steep climbs.
Following her race Mariah is not interested in structured training or racing again through the rest of autumn but is very motivated to ride a lot with friends and family and enjoy her fitness. She is looking forward to getting back on a cross training program including more weight and plyometric training during the winter in addition to lots of skiing. In thinking about the upcoming mountain bike season she would like to have a specific training program that begins earlier in the spring to include a few races that would challenge a broader skillset, perhaps a short track race, a hillclimb, an enduro, or a longer endurance race. Here are the important takeaways from Mariah’s 12 week training and racing program:
-12 weeks was an excellent time frame to explore the world of training and racing but Mariah could clearly see at the end that beginning structured training time earlier in the spring would be beneficial.
-The goal setting process was hugely helpful for her, she was able to define several goals that tested and motivated her, and almost achieving them left her hungry to refine her training and tinker with her racing strategies.
-Mariah became acutely aware of her strengths and weaknesses on the bike and is developing a more balanced strategy going forward to target her weaknesses and improve on her strengths. During the training block we mostly targeted weaknesses, but for a race like Tipperary Creek we could have better employed specificity to improve her strengths. Few workouts during the 12 week block targeted long endurance climbs or riding flow trail descents. In the long run as an overall rider Mariah benefited from targeting her weaknesses. When applied to racing it would be better to create workouts that mimic race conditions, even if those workouts play to her pre-existing strengths.
-Mariah responded very well to structured training, but was very ready to be done training after her race. Working with an athlete like Mariah it is important to consider burnout and temper Mariah’s impulse to begin a structured winter cross training program and early spring cycling program. With all athletes the hunger and motivation to train and compete is more important than specific structured workouts, and even more so with relatively inexperienced competitors like Mariah. While Mariah trained and competed with enthusiasm over 12 weeks I would expect there to be a drop in motivation if this were a 9 month program. For an athlete with Mariah’s level of experience it is very important to keep workouts relatively simple, flexible, and above all fun. As a coach moving forward with Mariah I would keep a close eye on signs of burnout and over-training if Mariah were to begin a much more structured program the following season. If Mariah did decide to follow a specific winter cross training program and begin structured training on the bike in early spring, I would strongly consider cutting the volume of Mariah’s training by a quarter to a third of what she did over the twelve week period this season when racing season starts in late spring next year.
-The Tipperary Creek race took place the third weekend of August which coincided with her children going back to school, returning from a week long vacation at sea level with minimal exercise, and her family having just welcomed a new puppy. There is no doubt that these coinciding events forced Mariah’s focus away from the race and added multiple layers of stress to her race preparation. Resting properly and adhering to a taper period in the weeks leading up to a big race are very important, and unfortunately for Mariah these were interrupted. For someone juggling a busy schedule outside training and racing, more care needs to be paid to choosing events and races that better align with an athlete’s life periods of lower stress. Mariah would likely have been better prepared if the race had been two weeks earlier or later. For an athlete racing a lot this might matter less, for someone racing just a few races a season this is an important consideration.