How many miles per year for a pro?
- Thread starter alpha2k
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jcjordan said:
Look, sorry if I'm being a little blunt before, but by and large the super-large miles talked about by aspiring elite cyclists are either misguided or a myth. Personal communication with an AIS physiologist has told me that there are Australian pro-tour professionals riding 400km a week in season who were severely burnt out and had terrible seasons when they first went to europe and were expected to ride 700km+/week. The demands of racing are high power and you limit your ability to train at said appropriate power if you stack k's on top of each other. At specific times of year or for specific purposes, there is probably a benefit to doing ultra-long rides and big weeks, but not all the time. The thing is, talking about ks/week is a ridiculous big **** contest. Sure, I've had weeks > 700km a week, and if everyone in a conversation were to talk about their big weeks and make it seem normal, I'd be tempted to fall in line and act as if my huge weeks were the norm. However, from assessing my training diaries and lining them up with my race results, I've discovered that I've beaten pro riders (pseudo-pro US domestic, admittedly) on 12-15 hours/week - about 280-380km in the hilly region I was living at the time. I am not the most talented cyclist and have never consistently done more than 450km/week. There is no reason to think that the truly talented guys have super-human recovery ability and the evidence suggests they are subject to the same parameters regarding intensity and volume as all of us. It's just their 100% is a little higher than ours.
I personally know 2 athletes in the SA-AIS program and have seen their training calendars. No way were they averaging over 500km/week for the year. I have also talked to a couple of the AIS physiologists about this very thing.
Sure, I'm just some random guy on a forum... but it makes sense when you think about it. Marathon runners physically can't train much more than 15-20 hours a week (often less) because the eccentric contractions in running are so hard to recover from, yet they still get LT/VO2max values similar to elite cyclists. Why then do we expect that cyclists should need to ride 30 hours a week to achieve a similar physiological response?
Then my answer would be the same...seriously. Of course, this goes into 'a TSS point is not always a TSS point', and this is with some very focused training. With that said, you can have success (meaning a top10-15 finish, without ridiculous amounts of natural ability) in a 4 to 6 day stage race with this sort of volume, if you do it right. I'd put the w/kg required slightly below that (5.2-5.3), but we're talking about the same thing, it sounds like.Roadie_scum said:
Honestly, a race like 'Toona or Cascade racks up about 1000 TSS points. Those are the demands, from a volume standpoint. Furthormore, I'm of the opinion that one can come very close to maximizing one's power on less volume than some deem neccessary. Those are my thoughts/experiences, and as there becomes less blood and hormone manipulation in the European scene (hopefully), I wouldn't be suprised if this school of thought gains a lot more traction.
RipVanCommittee said:
I might have misread your post, but I thought you weren't giving an answer but rather suggesting a lowball number you think some guys can get away with.
I'm with you on focusing training to maximise returns (with guys who are psychologically capable of doing that) but I don't think the TSS scores I suggest are particularly outrageous.
50,000 = on average less than 20 hours a week at an IF ~0.7
37,500 = on average 14 1/2 hours a week at an IF of ~0.7
If you focus your training a lot your average IF might be 0.8 or 0.85 yielding an average of less than 10 hours a week of focused training for 37,500 TSS points. If more than a few outlier pro's are getting away with that, I'm surprised.
I think we aren't actually arguing with each other as far as maximising ability on lowish volume - we both think it should be possible for some/many with the right training. But to do that, I'd think you'd be earning a bunch of TSS points from the intensity you do...
