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 Merida Bikes MTB Marathon in Wales (Spring and Night) on the 11-12th April 2009, the week commencing 6th April is week 17 and “Event week”. So your training programme will have commenced on 16th December 2008. 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 (link).

• If your first Merida Bikes MTB Marathon or GORE BIKE WEAR Road Sportive is not until the summer, the same principles apply. Use the chart to see when to commence the 17-week program.

• The programme consists of 5 “phases of training”. These are –
o Base training phase
o Pre-season training phase
o Early season training phase
o Peak fitness phase
o Event phase

• All phases (except event phase) consist of 4-week cycles.

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 Merida Bikes MTB Marathons or GORE BIKE WEAR Road Sportives. 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