Emma Silversides in action
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Emma Silversides races for the Global Racing Team. and she gives us an insight into the training she needs to do to stay with the peleton and ride with a pro road team.
Well, as they used to say when I was in the TA, if it 'ain't raining, it ain't training'. This means that a lot of SheCycles readers haven't stopped training for a long time! Until recently if you wanted to ride it was likely going to be in the rain!
I saw more fine weather over the last winter than I have throughout June and July, the sunshine certainly helps make training more pleasurable. I was fortunate enough to spend 9 weeks in Spain from mid-December to early-February. During this time training was very structured; sticking to a schedule was made easy since the weather was consistently good and we were very much isolated which minimized the possibility of coming into contact with infection.
I will attempt to explain how my training was structured without being too long winded. There were four key sessions, two recovery days of 1 hour 30 minutes of steady riding and one rest day each week. The key sessions comprised of:
a) A hilly ride (up to 4 hrs 20) with some 3-7minute time trial efforts later into the schedule.
b) An extensive endurance ride (up to 6 hours), relatively flat where possible.
c) A ride including up to 3 x 20 minutes intensive endurance, HIGH cadence intervals (for me this is about 155-165 bpm, but as a guide you should only be able to speak in short sentences). Also later in the schedule sprints of 150-200m were added to this session.
d) A ride including 3-7 minute time trial efforts (up to 6 of these) and resistance efforts (these are the worst, you can't talk and you feel weak to the point of faintness after them!).
The order in which the sessions appear isn't overly important but what is important is that one recovery day and the rest day are consecutive. My coach stresses that if this isn't the case over the winter (and indeed in the season) fatigue will accumulate and after a few weeks this becomes irreversible. The volume of training is built up over a three week period then brought back on the fourth week before the next build.
So once this is completed what happens? It's true that racing makes training easy, though it would be easy to over train if you don't keep your eye on things. Everyone is different, but for me I focus on ONE element each week in training during the sessons; so either endurance, intensive endurance with sprints, or resistance. I also frequently include motor pacing sessions to spice things up and add some speed work. Training in season is done on 'feel'. I have learnt to listen to my body and record as much about my training as possible. You could use the the
SheCycles Training Blog to keep a track of your training and riding.
This is all well and good but just doing the training is not the most important thing. Yes, there's more. What about routine, diet, illness and logging all the hard training and 'feelings' that you experiencing? I'll talk about this next time!
Sara B
