I’ve had a few requests about my thought process for creating a training plan so I thought I’d use my next event, the Fred Whitton cycling challenge, as an example. 

The Fred Whitton Challenge is one of the most popular sportives in the UK and is also famed as being particularly difficult. Dubbed ‘The Daddy of them all’ by Cycling Weekly, riders rank it alongside European events such as the Marmotte in terms of difficulty. 

www.fredwhittonchallenge.co.uk

This year the event is taking place on the 7^th June so from the 1^st January it means I have a full 5 months to train…I think I might need it! 

So, without further ado here’s my process: 

[ Set your goals and expectations ] 

{ Theory }

The first step is to write down why you are doing this…is it for personal satisfaction, charity, fitness, to support a friend…whatever it is, make sure the ‘why’ is nailed down, and make sure you are honest with yourself as i will certainly be your reason for carrying on when times get tough. 

The second step is to write down what you want to achieve, this will vary from person to person but will massively influence the thought process going forward. Remember, ‘if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there’ Lewis Carroll. 

Remember, if what you are doing is all to raise as much money as possible and the endurance event is just the vehicle to do it then the training will be totally different to one looking to be at the sharp end of their only ‘A’ race of the year. 

One mnemonic I live by is, every goal needs to be S.M.A.R.T – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time linked 

Run through each step with this in mind, it will help you frame and confirm your thoughts. 

{ Practise }

My ‘why’, it’s a personal challenge for me. 2019 was a hard year for many reasons and I had to defer my Fred entry to 2020. I chose the Fred as it’s billed as one of the hardest in the UK, that’s a challenge that excites me. 

For the event my initial goal was to ‘just complete the Fred’ but on reflection I didn’t feel that it was specific enough so I set myself two targets. Having never done anything like this before and after a little research I can see predicting times is a little challenging. So, I have a basic goal of finishing in under 10 hours, and an ideal goal of under 9 hours.  

I think this is realistic as I can do a 100-mile ride in around 6 hours and plugging in some numbers to the various cycling calculators online suggests 9 hours is reasonable for my weight and current fitness level. If the weather is awful then 10 hours is a more realistic time. 

[ Create a calendar & be realistic with your availability ] 

{ Theory }

Put a training plan into your diary, and make it accessible to those who you share your life with. You are far more likely to follow the plan if it is written down and your family can buy into it. Trust me it will minimise any ‘I’ve invited xyz to stay with us next weekend’ versus ‘but that’s the date of my key long-distance session for the whole training plan’, <queue avoidable argument and cancelling of training>. 

{ Practise }

I use Excel and simply fill a column with all the weeks of the year on, and I then enter any events I already know are in the diary. I try to fill it in as much as possible; birthdays, holidays, school holidays, work trips and the all-important anniversaries, (vital for a happy home life), all get added.

Don’t forget your partner interests too, if they gym / train for an event you may need to split spare time if you have kids. They might have clubs / groups they go to every 2nd Tuesday of the month, don’t be selfish / unrealistic / stupid to assume they will be dropped just because you ‘need’ to train on that day.

I find this useful as it’s a very simple way of planning around your daily life. Remember, however important you think that ‘A’ race is, it’s not as important as being there for your work / friends / family. 

You can see from the image that I’ve got a family holiday 2 weeks before the Fred. It might be a bit early for a taper, I prefer to only have a week, (from experience my old bones take a bit of time to build back up if I slow down for too long), but that’s how it is. A couple of birthdays early on in the year should be no problem, other than I know both will probably be boozy affairs as they are both milestone ones. 

I know I could go on holiday with all the best intentions to continue training but the experienced realist in me says that won’t happen. The important thing here is to accept it, add it to the plan and move on. The bigger picture is that 2 weeks of training that late in the day really won’t make or break me, I’m not looking to shave 1 hundredth of a second off my time to win Gold remember… 

Putting this all together means I will finish my training plan on the 8^th May, and a quick count back to 1^st Jan gives me 18 full weeks to fit in a plan. Most endurance plan range from 12 –20 weeks depending on event and fitness so I’m comfortable that I have plenty of time to achieve my goal. 

 

[ Time of the year ] 

{ Theory }

One important factor people often forget is the seasons you will be training through to get to your event. I certainly learnt a lesson training for the Paris Marathon in April. I spent most of my time in January and February running through the cold and wet weather, often in the dark which is not my idea of fun.

Ask yourself how you will achieve your plan; can you train inside, can you learn to love the gym running machine, can you afford the turbo trainer / gym membership etc etc etc. Don’t let any of these things be a barrier to you completing the plan.  

I guarantee if you aren’t 100% behind it then you will find an excuse to not go out. 

{ Practise }

I’m quite lucky here in that as it’s a cycling event, and as I have a Wahoo Kickr turbo trainer, I have the ability to pick a plan based on indoor cycling / turbo training for most of the cold months, sneaking in any outdoor cycling when the weather Gods allow.  

With the British weather I should still have a few months where the clocks go forward and the sun peeps out to mean I’ll get a few months of totally outdoor training to help with the all-important bike skills and actual real road experience. 

[ Choose a plan ] 

{ Theory }

We all have our preferred plans. I’m an avid reader so have read most books about fitness, exercise etc. For my Half Ironman training I leant heavily onto the Joe Friel Triathlete Training Bible, for the Paris Marathon good old Hal Higdon.  

If this is your first ever event to train for, pick a plan that you feel most comfortable and confident with. You’ll only truly know how it works for you once you’ve tried it but any plan is better than no plan, trust your instincts, you know your body better than anyone else. 

Possibly the most important part of this is to combine it with the previous steps and make sure you are totally realistic with your time availability. Signing up to a plan that requires you to do 20 hours a week when you really only have 10 free is a recipe for failure, you’ll be playing catch up immediately and probably get yourself stressed and injured trying to catch up. 

Same goes for your current fitness level, don’t pick one that starts week 1 with a 6 mile run when the furthest you have run all year is 3…it will only get harder, you’ll quickly get found out and you will have lost a few weeks worth of training.

{ Practise }

The Joe Friel plan essentially works on a ‘3 weeks on, 1 week rest’ cycle going through a base phase, (think long slow miles), build phase, (think adding sprints and speed), through to peak, (maintenance), taper and race.  

This served me well but I found that as I’ve got older my body struggles with 3 intense weeks and then then getting back up on it from the rest week, so I have adapted it to a 2 week on, 1 week easy. 

I’ve also learnt that event specific training is far better for me. I’ve found that I need to train for open water swims or a hilly cycle, by doing just that in training. Maybe it’s just psychological that I know that I’ve prepared and have beat them in training, but it works for me. 

For the Fred I’m moving slightly into uncharted territory, I’m used to training for 3 events in a triathlon and splitting my time accordingly. Just having one thing to focus on might be a revelation or it might send me to distraction. 

I am currently working through a Sufferfest training plan, Fitness Kickstarter. Their Mountainous/Hilly Gran Fondo, (ie the training plan most specific to The Fred), is 10 weeks long and working back from the 8^th May, left me with 10 weeks at the start of the year to fill. As this will be the first real training plan I have tried from SufferFest it means I can commit to it, try it out and either be confident moving into the Fred specific plan in March or look for something different and still have time. 

Which leads nicely into… 

[ Commit to it ] 

{ Theory }

Sign it off, share it with the family, put it on social, do whatever you need to gain accountability…but commit to the plan. If you are still questioning it now, I suggest you go back through the steps above and revise it. 

{ Practise }

You’re reading it! Part of the reason I set up this blog is to keep me honest and to document my thoughts and plans, as much for my own benefit as for yours. 

The ability to try out a Sufferfest program is a real slice of luck as it just gives me that extra little bit of confidence going into my Fred plan proper. 

[ Roll with the punches ] 

{ Theory }

This final one is a starter for another post perhaps, and you’ll only realise it once you’ve started training but it is worth bearing in mind while you seek perfection… 

…don’t expect perfection in any training plan. Things will happen, life will throw up some ‘left-fielders’, goal posts will move. The trick here is to tread a fine line between sticking religiously to your training plan and not getting too stressed when work throws you a deadline all nighter / trip away / tiring day. 

The real skill is to never, and I repeat never, chase missed days. A good training plan is set with the right activities to achieve the correct increase in intensity and development, trying to cram a missed day or two into an extended brick session too many times will invariably lead to injury or tiredness and then result in missing more sessions and so the cycle continues. 

The idea of the steps above are to minimise this, the calendar creation is vital and hopefully you can now see how important it is to put everything you possibly can into it. As the saying goes, ‘if you fail to prepare, you have prepared to fail’… 

Hope these give you some structure to plan your training, always interested in hearing any other thoughts…