Training To Beat A World Record!!!

I am also a 16 yr old girl cyclist and excell in pursuits

I'm currently living in Queensland Australia and would love to hear any ideas about pursuit training. i have great will power and will do what ever it takes and would like to hear some opinions
other than my coaches.

while it is good to get more and more knowledge, it can very very fustrating for you coaches that most likely have a progressive proven plan that will maximise your opportunity to reach your goal. If you need other advice then perhaps your coaches are not upto it. The worst thing you can do is start training to a plan that your coach has not set, it will waste both of your time. That said, if you do find a new fantastic training system talk about it with your coach. Said as a coach. John

I agree with John. I thought everyone on the Talent Team received coaching advice? Have you discussed your goals and queries with them?

Ric

I think John and Ric have covered the "listen to your coach " bit so i'll skip that

The next thing i would say is that its probably not realistic to expect to beat a world record in less than a year.

People train for years to beat world records and even then most of them don't get there. I'd take a look at the average age of the top females in the pursuit and that should give you an idea of the time frame for a world record attempt.

If you do have the motivation and the tenacity then anything is possible but i'd just warn against unrealistic expectations.

Don

Let me start by saying congratulations on your aspirations.

The pursuit is a great event for a junior to learn and develop within. All facets of training are developed, skills that have a long term benefit are learned and great improvement can be made.

A time of 3 min for a junior girl is definitely not anything to be discouraged by. As your talent scheme has realised. I live in the home of junior pursuiting, Australia, and have seen many boys and girls pursuit to great times. A number of the girls that have competed at the World Championships for Australia successfully over the last five or so years have all found large improvement out of a consistent program.

I am often amazed at the names and times each year that pop up come National Championships. Many have been very average riders just a short time before.

The main part of your program must be the involvement of a network of supporters. The talent scheme, your coach, nutritionist, etc and your parents.

As for what training maybe best, riding your bike is the most important. If you have almost a year to go you will realise that you can't spend a whole year at the velodrome doing 2000m pursuits. You would go mad.

The road bike is your most important tool. The pursuit is a aerobic event, and as such you need to increase your aerobic power. Just think of the training that is done by the kings of pursuiting - (Boardman, McGee, O'Grady, Roberts - the list goes on and on) they are all excellent road riders.

People may argue that your event is only 3 mins long. But remember you must riding a qualifying round, quarter, semi and final. You rely heavily on your road training to make sure you ride the same time, each time.

Just take it the intensity easy for quite a while and concentrate on making that engine as efficient and big as possible before you start winding up the pace.

Chris Boardmans book has a great section on pursuit training and is worth reading the rest.