{"id":638767,"date":"2026-04-30T15:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/638767\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T15:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:03:12","slug":"ride-less-get-faster-smarter-cycling-training-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/638767\/","title":{"rendered":"Ride Less, Get Faster: Smarter Cycling Training Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Estimated10 min read<\/p>\n

On the first day of 2022, I did a foolish thing. Buoyed by all the shiny possibilities of a new year, I signed up for the Off-Road Assault on Mount Mitchell (ORAMM), a 60-mile mountain bike<\/a> race with 10,500 feet of ugly uphill on and around North Carolina\u2019s Blue Ridge Parkway\u2014in the hottest part of summer: late July.<\/p>\n

It was the last thing I needed in my life. It was the exact thing I needed in my life. I am the poster child for hustle culture run amok. I\u2019ve monetized all my hobbies into three very demanding jobs. I\u2019m a full-time research producer on a true-crime TV series. I write for newspapers and magazines. In my \u201cfree hours,\u201d I manage a 45-acre regenerative farm. That mostly means sprinting from one emergency (the sheep have worms!) to the next (the dog thinks the baby chicks are popcorn shrimp!).<\/p>\n

After 10 years as a gig-economy worker, I realized everything in my life was in service of another dollar. Here held the allure of a long-distance mountain bike race: I\u2019ll never monetize mountain biking. I wince at anything off-camber and creep through rock gardens. Prepping for ORAMM would be simply in service to me.<\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

An eternal optimist about my time-management abilities, I sent off my registration and spent about three months training sporadically. Then I panicked. Twelve weeks before ORAMM, I enlisted the help of Christopher Harnish, PhD, an exercise physiologist, coach, and chair of the Department of Exercise Science at Mary Baldwin University in Staunton, Virginia. As he\u2019s a former USA Triathlon Off-Road national champion, dad, and full-time academic, I knew he\u2019d understand how to make the most out of minimal time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s entirely possible to take on any of the marquee gravel races, or a mountain bike marathon, or a gran fondo, without your training feeling like a second (or third, or fourth) job, says Harnish. It might even be the best way to train.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegular people train too damn much,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re always tired and it\u2019s because they\u2019ve got a real life, kids, and work.\u201d Training less with more time to recover is going to get you just as fit, he adds, as someone who is skimping on sleep to jam more hours and workouts into their week.<\/p>\n

If you can train an hour a day\u2014and slightly more on the weekends\u2014you can tackle just about any big ride, Harnish says. For ORAMM, a race I hoped to finish in 10 hours, my weekly training typically totaled 7 to 9 hours, with a peak of 12.5 hours. Here\u2019s the advice that made it happen.<\/p>\n

\"acA.C. Shilton<\/p>\n

I\u2019m smiling before I bonked on a long ride in Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area (don\u2019t skip your last round of carbs). The workout was 5 x 3 minutes of hill repeats followed by 3 hours of riding.<\/p>\n

\"hr\"Give Yourself Time to Build Up, and Screw Up <\/p>\n

\u27a4 Eight weeks is generally the minimum to prepare for a big event, but it\u2019s far better to start at least 12 weeks out, says Harnish. \u201cIt\u2019s enough time for you to build; it\u2019s enough time for you to make, and recover from, mistakes,\u201d like doing a few too many hard workouts in a row and needing extra rest, or bonking on a crucial long ride and having to Uber home. Give yourself 16 weeks if you\u2019re starting with minimal fitness.<\/p>\n

Ideally, you\u2019d map your schedule out in monthlong blocks. Three weeks would be spent building fitness followed by a recovery week. Harnish says three weeks is enough time to focus on an objective\u2014like improving aerobic capacity\u2014without risking overtraining. It\u2019s crucial to plan out blocks beforehand; otherwise it\u2019s tempting to push for three, then four, then five weeks before realizing you need a break. If your life is chaos, like mine, you may not be able to stick to the perfect 3:1 ratio. Don\u2019t sweat it. Find the weeks that are already a tangle of social commitments and responsible adulting and designate them as your recovery weeks. For me, times with heavy farm commitments\u2014stacking hay or castrating bull calves\u2014became down weeks. This let me not stress about fitting it all in during times that \u201call\u201d was just too much.<\/p>\n

Your Most Efficient Workout Is Going Really Fast<\/p>\n

\u27a4 Tuesdays were for short, high-intensity intervals, usually on the trainer. Research shows that high-intensity efforts spur metabolic changes\u2014specifically by building mitochondria, the powerhouses of your cells. Having more mitochondria boosts performance in events of any distance.
<\/p>\n

However, intervals are hard on your body. \u201cThere\u2019s a limit to how much high-intensity work will help you,\u201d says Trevor Connor, a former pro cyclist and founder of Fast Talk Labs<\/a>, adding that research shows that two weekly sessions are all you need. You won\u2019t necessarily benefit from a third session, he says, and four can be too much to recover from. Though painful, these sessions are blissfully brief. Sometimes it\u2019d simply be 10 30-second sprints. But for my favorite, called \u201cFibertap,\u201d I\u2019d complete a set of 4 x 2:30 efforts plus a few 30-second sprints as a stinger at the end, then wobble my way toward the shower. (Check out 3 Key Workouts below.)<\/p>\n

Get Intensity and Volume in One Ride With Tempo<\/p>\n

\u27a4 After a rest-ish day of an easy hour spin or 40-minute jog, I would kit up on Thursday for a tempo or \u201csweet spot\u201d training session. Typically, these workouts would have me doing 15-minute intervals at about a 7 on a 1-to-10 scale of suffering, where 10 is agony. I\u2019d repeat these 15-minute efforts two or three times with four or so minutes of recovery between efforts. At exactly the one-hour mark, I was ready for a nap and a snack.<\/p>\n

In recent years, short, painful intervals like my Tuesday sessions have been the darlings of the endurance world. Some coaches, like Connor, even go so far as to say training in the middle of your athletic capacity\u2014at tempo\u2014isn\u2019t worth the time investment. Connor feels that even though these workouts are hard, they don\u2019t spur as much improvement to your mitochondria as high-intensity rides do. However, some experts, like Andrew Richard Coggan, PhD, the director of the Exercise Physiology Laboratory at Indiana University\u2013Purdue University Indianapolis, feel that time spent in the middle range of your athletic capabilities allows you to integrate both intensity and volume into a single workout. And Harnish believes tempo can be a useful tool. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing magical about any intensity,\u201d he says. \u201cSome are best for certain outcomes, but all are helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

For me, these workouts were also confidence boosters. On race day, I tempo\u2019d my way up long climbs. My training was a crash course in what to expect when you\u2019re expecting to suffer.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegular people train too damn much. They\u2019re always tired and it\u2019s because they\u2019ve got a real life.\u201d\"bikeA.C. Shilton<\/p>\n

My view on an hourlong easy spin on the dirt roads near my farm.<\/p>\n

Shorten Your Long Ride with a Little Effort<\/p>\n

\u27a4 If intensity is starting to look like a magic bullet for decreasing your training time, know that intervals alone will not get you to the finish line. Long rides still matter.<\/p>\n

After three or so hours of steady cycling, your body ramps up production of both growth hormone and cortisol, which help you utilize stored fat as fuel, says Harnish. Getting your body to run efficiently off of fat is a worthwhile endeavor for anyone racing for hours and hours. Mentally, you also need to know the impending hell you\u2019ve signed up for. I told Harnish early on that I didn\u2019t have time for huge rides. I do 90 percent of my farmwork on weekends. Heading out for six hours every Sunday wasn\u2019t going to fly. Harnish had a workaround.<\/p>\n

First I pre-fatigued my legs on Saturday with a shorter effort\u2014like a 90-minute ride with a few tempo efforts mixed in. And on Sunday I\u2019d ride for three to four hours and add intensity at either the very beginning or the very end to reduce the amount of time I needed to grind away. Some weeks, I\u2019d start with a set of 4 x 4 minutes of hard effort up a climb, then head off for three more hours of riding. Other weeks I\u2019d put in three hours and finish with an interval set, or come home and put in a 20-minute time trial on the trainer.<\/p>\n

Brutal? Yes. But they were absolutely effective.<\/p>\n

In a long race like ORAMM, muscle cramps are the nemesis of most amateur racers. Harnish was frank with me: At some point in the day, I would cramp. His job was to make sure I didn\u2019t cramp until the very end. While scientists still don\u2019t fully understand the mechanisms that cause muscle cramps, research shows they\u2019re likely the result of overexertion, says Harnish. If we could get me to cramp during a long ride, we\u2019d know my limit and then work to extend it. But that can take hours if you\u2019re just riding along. Instead, Harnish built workouts that would introduce me to what he calls \u201cthe entire realm of fatigue.\u201d While I got the express tour of this realm, I still managed to see all of it.<\/p>\n

Fuel Like a Pro <\/p>\n

\u27a4 You may not have time to train like a pro athlete, but it takes no extra time to eat like one. From the very first long ride of my training plan, Harnish had me striving for at least 60 grams of carbohydrate an hour, mostly from solid foods, which may be less likely than gels to cause gastrointestinal distress when you\u2019re consuming them all day long. In a past life, I tried my nutrition strategy maybe once before the big day. This time, every long ride was also a snack buffet. Sixty grams of carbohydrate is a shocking amount. My favorite granola bar has just 20 grams, which meant I added in fistfuls of dried fruit and chocolate chips to make up the difference.<\/p>\n

It felt like I suddenly had a turbo. And, in case you\u2019re wondering: No, I didn\u2019t gain weight. I thought I might\u2014it was just so much food. But when I got home from a well-fueled ride, I noticed another side effect: I did not spend the rest of the day eating everything in sight.<\/p>\n

Sleep Is the Ultimate Recovery Tool <\/p>\n

\u27a4 Don\u2019t invest significant time in foam rolling, stretching, massage-gun sessions, or wriggling into and out of compression gear. They won\u2019t hurt, but the research simply doesn\u2019t show that they\u2019re worth the precious minutes they take.<\/p>\n

What is worth your time? Sleep. If I was regularly cheating myself of sleep to fit in 5 a.m. workouts, Harnish told me point-blank to skip a workout or two and snooze. \u201cProbably the most important recovery tool that nobody uses is sleep,\u201d he says, adding that a missed workout here or there in service of adequate rest wasn\u2019t going to derail my plan.<\/p>\n

Know When to Call It <\/p>\n

\u27a4 Finally, it\u2019s crucial for athletes with mega-hectic lives to acknowledge their non-training stress. Pressure from life can trigger the same stress hormones we purposefully trigger when we train. \u201cHigh-intensity exercise after a stressful day can actually compound the stress response,\u201d he says. That means you\u2019ll feel extra sluggish and may need more recovery time.<\/p>\n

Harnish\u2019s rule for training when you\u2019re stressed out is this: Try starting the workout. If you don\u2019t feel better a few minutes into the meat of the thing\u2014be it the first interval, or trying to hang on with a hard group ride\u2014then ride easy or call it a day.<\/p>\n

\"jamestown,Brett Carlsen<\/p>\n

Regenerative farming keeps me busy with tasks like moving my sheep and cows to new grazing areas every two days.<\/p>\n

\"hr\"<\/p>\n

In the last couple weeks of training for ORAMM, my marriage\u2014which had long been rocky\u2014went full rockslide. I stopped sleeping. Work that normally took me an hour to do was taking three because I couldn\u2019t focus. That made me fall behind, which added more stress. When I went to ride, I felt like a sack of sad bones bouncing around the trails. So I skipped a few sessions. But because I had consistently worked for the previous 10 weeks, Harnish told me there was \u201cno need to worry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two nights before ORAMM, I packed a bag and moved out of my house. Truly: A mountain bike race was the last thing I needed.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019d put in too much work to bail. I drove to North Carolina the next day, feeling completely adrift. A long-time mountain biking friend who lives 1,000 miles away met me at our rental house and held me while I sobbed. And then we got our bikes ready to race.<\/p>\n

Truly: A mountain bike race was exactly what I needed.<\/p>\n

Me and hundreds of other riders pedaled all day in unrelenting heat. I watched a woman slide off the side of the mountain, and we all dropped our bikes and ran to haul her back up. I lost my confidence on a downhill section harder than anything I ride at home. At a morale low, I talked myself back onto my bike for the final climb and waited for the cramps to set in. But a weird thing happened: I just kept climbing. Around me, men were slugging salt tablets like ravers doing MDMA in a club bathroom. I, however, seemed immune to their fate. It wouldn\u2019t be until the very top of the last climb that my first cramp would set in. By then, it was all downhill to the finish.<\/p>\n

I turned my bike onto the last section of hard singletrack and let go of my brakes. I\u2019d finish the race in 9:03, nearly an hour under my goal time. The finish line served as the perfect reminder of my ability to get through hard things. And the work to get there was the perfect reminder that in life and in cycling\u2014sometimes less is more. <\/p>\n

\"jamestown,Brett Carlsen<\/p>\n

My indoor trainer (a Wahoo Kickr Plus Zwift) was a huge time-saver, eliminating the need to ride across town for a big hill.<\/p>\n

\"hr\"3 KEY WORKOUTS<\/p>\n

(and why they work)<\/p>\n

My weeks were built around these speed, tempo, and endurance workouts. On the days in between, Harnish prescribed an easy hour to stave off detraining\u2014which happens surprisingly fast, he says. This also keeps you in a routine, a useful thing for time-crunched athletes.<\/p>\n

1 FIBERTAP<\/p>\n

Harnish calls this one \u201cFibertap\u201d because it taps out both slow- and fast-twitch muscles in under an hour. It became one of my favorites in that hurts so good way.<\/p>\n

10-minute warmupRide 4 x 2:30 up a hill or in a large gear on a trainer at a 9 out of 10 effort, with an easy spin for 4 minutes between efforts10-minute easy spinComplete 2 to 3 all-out 30-second sprints with 4 to 5 minutes of recovery5- to 10-minute cooldown<\/p>\n

2 TEMPO REPEATS<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re prepping for a long gravel ride, a century, or a mountain bike race, there will be times you need to ride at a tough intensity for a significant duration. As my training progressed, we swapped out this workout for Zwift group rides, which added small surges into the mix.<\/p>\n

10-minute warmup2 x 15 minutes on a flat road at a 7 out of 10 effort, with 4 minutes of easy spinning between5- to 10-minute cooldown<\/p>\n

3 HARD THEN EASY<\/p>\n

This was the worst\/best workout of my entire training cycle. The \u201chard then easy\u201d name is a misnomer. The easy never really feels that easy. As we got closer to the race, the length of the ride after the intervals increased.<\/p>\n

10-minute warmupComplete 4 x 4 minutes at an 8 to 9 out of 10 effort, preferably on a hill, with 4 minutes of easy spinning betweenRide 3 to 4 hours at a low intensity, paying particular attention to getting 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"10 min read On the first day of 2022, I did a foolish thing. Buoyed by all the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,12322,635,5105,82],"class_list":["post-638767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-core","tag-cycling","tag-features","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}