Your Essential Spring Training Guide

Be honest. Admit it. Tell the truth. Let it all out. You don’t like it. Your friends don’t like it. Your kids don’t want to do it. Your dog is dead against it. (Your old Citi Golf definitely hated it – remember the ‘choke’, anyone?)

Absolutely no one in their right mind – except maybe a few *taai ou ballies *who farm in the northern Free State – wants to jump out of bed first thing in the morning in the dead of winter and hit the outdoors.

In the Cape it’s too wet (and cold, and dark, and, well… ‘Capey’) for early-morning bike riding. On the Highveld it’s bone-achingly cold, ditto for the KwaZulu-Natal interior. Perhaps the only place you could train comfortably through winter is Durban – though if you’re a bona fide Durbanite, you can’t function once the temperature drops below 25°C anyway.

But spring has sprung! And with it the opportunity to rekindle your love affair with pre-work rides, early-morning rides, and rides not requiring thermal leggings and rain jackets. In theory, you can now stop halfway through a ride to actually enjoy the coffee rather than just using the steaming cup as a means to jolt some life back into your frigid fingers.

But here’s the thing. In all the excitement of spring, and after a chilly season of too many hot chocolates and second helpings, even the most dedicated bike riders can forget the pre-season basics. Yes, that includes dedicated training demons who’ve been smashing the pedals of their indoor trainers all through the winter months.

What’s the trick, then, to getting back in shape and firing on all cylinders for that stacked summer race calendar you have planned? Well, like everything when it comes to improved performance, there’s no trick. Just careful planning, strategy, and most importantly, patience.

Photo Sam Clark.

Just ride

If there’s a mantra that unifies the approach of our expert training panel, as you haul your bike off the wall and reacquaint yourself with impatient motorists, it’s this: ‘Whatever you do, don’t rush!’ Take your time. Pick a goal event. Focus.

“The first thing you should do after a slow winter is work on consistency”

“The first thing you should do after a slow winter is work on consistency,” says Science to Sport cycling coach Reece McDonald. “A lot of people come out of winter and try to go from zero to a hundred. They think that riding hard will get them back into shape quickly.”

Forget that, McDonald says. Rather find a rhythm. “Just ride. Ride more than you did in winter. If you were riding once or twice a week in winter, up that to three or four times in spring. Once you have frequency and consistency, your body follows and starts to crave that exercise.

“My advice for riders is not to go out there, at the first sign of good weather, to smash intensity and intervals. Start with volume, and build your foundation. Be sensible.”

Patience is key to this process. “Please – be patient,” McDonald stresses. “Understand what you’re trying to achieve. Look at the training pyramid, which has a wide base and a narrow top. You can’t rush the process. You need to build the foundation so you have a bigger pyramid. Training is about consistency, and layering different physiological stress over time. Trust the process, and you’ll feel the benefit.”

These are words echoed by cycling coach Barry Austin – and former national champion Robyn de Groot, who is transferring her vast racing knowledge into a coaching career. Due to the current popularity of the indoor trainer (and the mad shopping rush of every cyclist, in the bad old lockdown days, to add one to their home), many committed riders are able to train through the colder months, or when the weather turns foul. But they tend to focus on short, sharp bursts of training.

“With the tricky weather, I often find people tend to lack endurance time in Zone 2, either completing rides on the indoor trainer or shortening their long rides if the weather gets bad during a ride,” says De Groot. “With that in mind, it’s always a good idea to focus your post-winter riding with a good base of Zone 2 rides. Patience is key to anything worthwhile in life. Trust the process, go through the motions, keep showing up, and you’ll find success.”

Austin breaks it down to an even simpler philosophy. “Just ride,” he says. “After winter, I recommend Zone 2 rides. Low cadence, focus on strength, and make it fun – whatever gets you on your bike. There’s a famous Eddy Merckx quote: ‘Ride as much or as little, or as long or as short as you feel. But ride.’ I like that philosophy. This can be a group ride, a road ride or a mountain-bike ride – whatever tickles your fancy.”

Like Ronaldo, be goal-oriented

The great, grimacing man of the beautiful game is all about having a goal, whether that’s scoring goals or having the hardest abs in the Saudi Professional League. He knows what he wants and has a plan to get there.

Our coaching panel suggests you do something similar. (Don’t worry about the abs, though.) If you don’t like racing, that’s okay. Your goal doesn’t have to be the Sun-Foil Nababeep Vleisfees 200-Miler Gravel Downhill event all your friends are desperate to enter.

“I believe it definitely helps to have goals set for the next quarter – three months away,” says De Groot. “These can be performance-driven, competition-based – like a race – or process-driven, like working on a weakness.

“Spring is a great time to target areas to improve on before entering the racing season. Your training is generally undisturbed by events. I suggest writing goals down and determining a timeframe, so you can measure if there’s been growth. That’s what I do with my athletes. The good thing about entering an event is that it sets a deadline, which is great to help you stick to a training plan.”

McDonald agrees: “Choose a race that you really want to train for. Give yourself four to six weeks, and do your preparation around that race. Racing is good training because racing always teaches you something.

“But if you don’t like racing, that’s also good. Set yourself some personal challenges – maybe there are some Strava segments you’ve always wanted to smash, or maybe you want to try and finish an extreme long ride. You can choose anything that’s going to get you motivated and committed.”

Austin notes that motivation varies from rider to rider. “There must be engagement from the athlete. It’s no good following a process or a plan that you’re not engaging with. I always say to my athletes: ‘Don’t f**ollow my plan, use my plan.’

“The engagement could be a race, a long-term goal, the improvement of your health or chasing a time on Strava; but the most important thing, I think, is to find out what drives you, to find out why you’re doing this. For example, if you love trail riding but you start following a programme that keeps you on the indoor trainer, you’ll eventually burn out.”

According to Austin, that motivation can be distilled down to a simple question: ‘What makes you ride your bike?’

Don’t forget the fun

Indeed, with goals and tactics – and the pressure to do well at events – it’s easy to lose track of why you’re riding in the first place. This is not to say that being competitive is a bad thing, but it’s just as important to remember that bike riding is first and foremost about having fun.

“If you’re not enjoying yourself, then why are you even riding?” says McDonald. “It is possible to train for an event or a goal and still have fun at the same time. Find the things that you enjoy about riding, and incorporate them into your training. If you like stopping for coffee, then stop for coffee – just build your training around that.

“Your motivation to train is always going to fluctuate. That’s why being able to enjoy your time on the bike is so important.”

For Austin, fun comes in the shape of doing the type of riding that he enjoys, and looking for ways to maximise that enjoyment. “There’s an ‘urban assault’-style route near where I live,” he says. “I’d been cooped up indoors for a period through winter, and needed to get out. There was a gap in the rain, and I took it – I spent an hour outside riding a route that I really enjoy.

“Look for these things, when you ride; remember that riding is fun.” And he adds that “being a curious rider” adds to the fun, and to the learning.

“I don’t always have all the answers. You shouldn’t feel like you have all the answers either. I think curiosity is a great way to learn. Look at how much kids learn from being curious and playing around. It all comes back to play – you learn the most through play, and I really think that carries over to cycling, too.”

ROBYN’S 7 STEPS TO SUCCESS

As a former pro cyclist and now coach, Robyn de Groot has seen first-hand how athletes can hinder their own success. Take Robyn’s advice on how to avoid common mistakes that riders make when trying to achieve their goals.

1. Don’t compare yourself to others.

   Rather focus on being your best. Try not to get caught up by external distractions.

2. Don’t be scared to rest.

   The best rest harder! I’ve often seen clients and athletes afraid to take rest days or recovery rides. When you learn the importance of these days – and weeks – in the training plan, you’ll embrace them. It yields far superior results.

3. Select key sessions in a training week.

   Approach high-intensity sessions recovered, well-fuelled and with high energy.

4. More is not always better.

   Training smart instead of more can yield better growth. If you’re struggling with this, a coach can help change your mindset.

5. Train as hard as you plan to race.

   It makes the races feel easier.

6. Fuel your tank.

   Have a nutrition strategy, and test it out in training; so that when it comes to race day, you know what works well for you.

7. Show up.

   This applies mentally and physically. Give each training session your best. A session with sub-optimal effort is a session lost, and it’s time you won’t get back. Make it count, and always try your hardest on the day.

Robyn de Groot’s four-week plan to kickstart your spring

With this spring training plan, you’ll soon be back to summer fitness. In general, most of Robyn’s clients stick to indoor training during the week, saving outside rides for the weekends. You will need to adapt the programme so that it fits in with your other work and life commitments. (If you’re short on time, definitely use the second rest day!) In order to determine ‘Zones’ as per the table below – either power or heart rate – Robyn suggests you perform a LTHR test or FTP test prior to starting.

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