If my goal were to be flying in April, well I'd already be logging some serious workload because I'd be planning to start race specific (hard intervals) training in February. But since my 2012 goal event is in September, I will need to be prepared for the hard stuff in July.. that gives me a lot of time, in fact that gives me 8 months to prepare myself for the hard work of race specific training... and that's a good thing because I've been off the bike for a long time!
I will break the 8-months into 2 periods: Base & Build. The base will prepare me to build, and the build will be a workload greater than base. The build will last 3 months, so that means my base will be 5 months. It will go something like this; Base 5-mo, Build 3-mo, Race Prep 2-mo.
Its important to remember that the workload needs to be continuously increasing (progressive). When I transition from base to build, everything will need to get harder.. and continue to get harder all the way to the race prep phase. You might be thinking how can we design a base/build plan that progressively gets harder (every 3-weeks or so) for 8 consecutive months? I guess that's why Base training has earned a reputation as being a period of EZ miles!
But even though base training may be a time to hold the reins back, its not a time to get to comfortable in the same routine week after week. Remember, the workload needs to increase progressively, so every 3-week cycle needs to feature more work than the previous cycle. This progress needs to move forward all the way to the build phase.. at which time we will really dig in and ramp it up. We need to make sure and leave plenty in the tank for the build!
I am coming from a completely sedentary 1year vacation. I am completely de-trained.. have been completely de-trained for several months. This is the only reason I am planning to spend 5-months to build a base. Right now I'm riding about 5hrs per week, and its a pretty slow 5hrs.. but as long as I gently increase the volume, my fitness will grow (hopefully free of injury) while at the same time provide ample recovery to keep fatigue at a minimum and motivation at a maximum. With 5-mo I should be able to enter the build with big fitness, big freshness and big motivation... a long, slowly progressive base should be just the ticket!
