The months ahead!

• The training planner is a 17-week training programme and is fully detailed below.

• To work out when to start the programme, simply count backwards 17 weeks from the date of your chosen marathon. For example if you are competing in the first Chain Reaction Cycles MTB Marathon in Wales (Spring and Night) on the 10-11th April 2010, the week commencing 5th April is week 17 and “Event week”. So your training programme will have commenced on 14th December 2009. If this is your first marathon event of the year, it’s important to keep up with some training over the winter months and not have too much of a lay off over Christmas! See winter training.

If your first Chain Reaction Cycles MTB Marathon or Road Sportive is not until the summer, the same principles apply. Use the chart to see when to commence the 17-week programme.

The programme consists of 5 “phases of training”:
- base training phase
- pre-season training phase
- early season training phase
- peak fitness phase
- event phase

All phases (except event phase) consist of 4-week rides. A start week – a build week – a push week and a recovery week

There may be several weeks before your 17-week programme is due to start, but that is definitely not an excuse to sit back and relax! Instead you will spend a little longer in the base training phase building endurance. The extended base phase still consists of 4-week blocks to progressively increase fitness and allow the body sufficient recovery.

MONTHLY PLANNER FOR MTB-MARATHON TRAINING

The 17-week programme outlined assumes that your MAIN focus for the season is one of the Chain Reaction Cycles MTB Marathons, Road Sportives or off-road criteriums. If you have entered several events, you will obviously want to be in peak fitness for each event and not fatigued due to over-training. Ensure that you have at least 2 recovery weeks after your first marathon and then gradually increase training again in 4-week cycles where possible. Use the training session examples and principles detailed in the peak and early season phases. You do not need to return all the way to the base phase. See inter-event training.