FasCat Cycling Training Tips Podcast

In case you’ve been living underneath a rock, gravel racing is hot AF right now. It’s registration season for the 2020 calendar, and races are filling up faster than a Walmart on Black Friday. One of our favorite races of 2019 and a first year event in our backyard, Steamboat Gravel, was a smashing success and it’s back with more ambition and awesome for next year. Frank sat down with one of the brains behind the event, Mark Satkiewicz to chat about the state of gravel racing, how SBTGRVL went this year, and what new changes to expect in 2020. Plus how to register for next year’s race. For all things SBTGRVL, check out https://sbtgrvl.com/ and we’ll see in Steamboat! If you’re enjoying the podcast, consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts and subscribe wherever you listen so you don’t miss the latest episode! Visit our thriving forum at forum.fascat.wpengine.com to continue the conversation, and save 25% on your next training plan by using code 25podcast at checkout @ fascat.wpengine.com. Thanks for listening! 28566Training for SBT Gravel? Click here to buy the plan for 2020!   The post A Conversation with Steamboat Gravel Founder, Mark Satkiewicz appeared first on FasCat.

This week is a conversation with recently retired pro cyclist and FasCat Coach Allie Legg, who raced for the Twenty20 Sho-Air women’s professional cycling team after getting started in cycling at a young age in the sport of BMX racing. Allie has recently joined the team at FasCat as a coach, and has a tremendous amount of experience to share thru her coaching. Coach Frank and Allie discuss BMX racing, life in the pro peloton, coaching, gravel racing, offseason training, yoga, and a ton more. Read more of Allie’s coaching bio here. Thanks as always for listening and leaving us a review on the Apple Podcasts store, and subscribing to the show wherever you listen. You can also save 25% on your next training plan by using code 25podcast at checkout! 28158Looking for an off-season training plan to keep you focused on 2020? Check out this best-selling plan. The post Coach Allie Legg : Life in the Pro Peloton, Gravel Racing, and Offseason Training appeared first on FasCat.

This week we are talking about the new Netflix documentary The Gamechangers, plant-based Frank, Zwifting, the Excel Sports discount, Ray Dalio’s book, Principles, and Jackson’s morning routine. We hope you enjoy! If you are a training plan customer or FasCat Athlete, don’t forget to check out Excel Sports (excelsports.com) and select FasCat Coaching under the how did you hear about us? dropdown menu for some wicked discounts! And continue the conversation in our exclusive forum at forum.fascat.wpengine.com. 27878Buy our most popular off-season training plan today. The post Grab Bag: Gamechangers, Zwifting, Principles, and Morning Routines appeared first on FasCat.

We’re back with another discussion of one of FasCat’s main training philosophies: Sweet Spot. A big question we receive by athletes is “how much sweet spotting should I actually be doing?” In fact, our training tip on the subject remains one of our most popular. So today we break it all down and explain how much is enough for the pre-season, during the base build, and in season race mode. We’ll talk about how sweet spot applies to the different disciplines within cycling, and share our top tips. We highly recommend going and listening to our episode on the invention of Sweet Spot where Frank discusses the basis of the philosophy. As always, thanks to everyone for rating and reviewing the pod on Apple Podcasts, sharing with a friend or teammate, and continuing the conversation in the forum. As a FasCat Coached athlete and training plan customer, you can now take advantage of our new partner Excel Sports with a FasCat team discount. Instructions are on our forum and are provided at the time of purchase. The post How Much Sweet Spot Should You Do? appeared first on FasCat.

We’re back with another installment of our Ask FasCat series, where we take listener questions submitted via our forum and add our take to help make you faster. This time, the focus is cyclocross training, as the season is in full swing. We hit questions ranging from offseason ‘cross training, fueling for race day, to the best way to quantify cyclocross training and more. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions, and be sure to check out our forum for more cycling conversation @ forum.fascat.wpengine.com. 25924Looking for that perfect in-season CX training plan? Click here to start fast. Shownotes: Fatigue Dependent Training Plan Design and Podcast The Perfect Cyclocross Pre-Race Routine Better Metrics for Cyclocross than TSS/CTL > Whoop Reference Mid-Season Cyclocross Break and Peaking for CX Nationals If you want to help us out, you can leave us a review on the Apple Podcasts app or in iTunes and let us know what you like about the show, what topics you’d like us to cover next, or areas we can improve. It helps us out a ton! You can go straight there by clicking here. The post Ask FasCat #7 – the Cyclocross Edition appeared first on FasCat.

If you want to win on your bike, you’ll have to win in the kitchen first. We’re back with another #WinningInTheKitchen special, serving up a conversation about where this all begins: the grocery store. It doesn’t matter how dialed your kitchen is or how motivated you are to cook healthy food if you don’t bring it home from the grocery store first. So we’re here to share our Go Fast Foods grocery list and share some of our favorite tips and foods to help you on your offseason nutrition plan. Our focus is discussing the main areas to shop for: Greens Vegetables Fat Protein Carbohydrate Fruit For more on this topic, check out our previous podcasts, videos and training tips: Go Fast Food Choices: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/weight-loss-go-faster/ Winning In the Kitchen (read, watch & listen) https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/winning-in-the-kitchen/ Weight Loss for Cyclists (read and listen) https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/weight-loss-for-cyclists/ 30 Day Winning in the Kitchen Challenge https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/winning-in-the-kitchen-challenge/ And don’t forget to continue the conversation in our forum at http://forum.fascat.wpengine.com and use code 25podcast at checkout to save 25% on your next plan so you can put your new nutrition game to use! Thanks for listening y’all, we really appreciate it! Remember (!) What What Alaphilippe DO?!?! The post Winning in the Grocery Store | Nutrition for Cyclists appeared first on FasCat.

Since we talked about timing as it relates to training last week, this time is all about the timing of strength training/weight lifting for cyclists as it’s the perfect time to get started on that. In this episode, Coach Frank breaks down the FasCat 10-week strength training for cyclists training plan, and how to use it most effectively. We discuss: The fundamentals of our strength training philosophy and the three main exercises for this program The 4 phases: Adaptation > Hypertrophy > Strength > Power What to expect going through the plan and how to approach each week Don’t get behind the curve and start strength training when it’s too late! Training Tip: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/weight-lifting-for-cycling/ Last year’s Podcast: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/resistance-training-for-cycling/ Nino’s Circuit Training: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/ninos-circuit-training/ If you want to try our weight lifting for cycling training plan for yourself use the coupon code 25podcast to get 25% off your weight lifting for cycling training plan and you yourself can #FtFP! The post Weight Lifting for Cyclists Training Plan appeared first on FasCat.

by Jake Rytlewski,  September 2019 If you have ever heard of or been to Kalkaska, Michigan chances are you have done or heard of the Iceman Cometh. The Iceman Cometh is a 27 mile point to point mountain bike race in northern Michigan held yearly on the first Saturday of November. What started off as a small event with only a handful of races has turned into an end of the year party drawing over 4,000 racers. Even though there is a lot of talk about the after party, many riders like to finish of the year on a high note with a good result. 2757But how do you train for the Iceman Cometh MTB race? Here is a six week training plan showing you how! Of course the biggest variable is the weather where it can be anywhere from 70 degrees to 20 degrees and 6 inches of snow or anything in between. In our Iceman training plan, each week has a day dedicated to mountain bike skills. Try to ride in different trail conditions such as sand and mud so you will be ready and confident. Iceman is said to be a road racers course with all the two track and dirt roads. You will need a huge aerobic engine (hint hint: sweet spot training) as you will be spending a lot of time riding as close to your FTP as possible, while being able to make those anaerobic efforts getting over the short steep climbs. From the start you have to be ready to go Full Gas. This is true regardless if you are looking for a result or just to do personal best time. There is a holeshot at the start into the singletrack:  get in position to hit the trails in the front, and for those looking for a fast time you will want to take advantage of the draft from the other riders. You will be sprinting off the start line and fighting for position to get to and stay near the front for the first 2 miles. Once you hit the trails it is single file and there is very little passing. Without a good position you can find yourself losing the leaders, and or being held up by slower riders and crashes. With Iceman being more a road course it is crucial to draft and stay with the leaders. You don’t hit the first single track until 8 miles into the race. You get 2 miles of single track after the fast start and need to keep up. Again any mishaps or slow up will cost you as the race heads for Steve’s secret and some tough climbs before opening back up on some two track and dirt roads. After 4 miles of fast two track and dirt roads you will be approaching the Williamsburg road crossing. This is a great opportunity to get a feed or make sure are eating and topping off with fuel (click here for our fueling recommendations) . You will then have a fast mile or two before hitting the Vasa Trail. The Vasa Trail can either be your friend or enemy! If you have been able to sit in the draft, been staying fueled and have put in the training you can really enjoy the last 8 miles. Here you will find many little climbs that can make or break you race. These hills will take you 1 – 4 minutes at a full gas effort. You want to stay smooth through here and keep the pressure on over the top of the climbs. Use the last ones as a launch pad to try to separate yourself from the rest. You’ll want to be in the front before you hit the last twisty mile through the camp ground as you will find little opportunities to pass. For the first build cycle of this training plan you will be focusing on your aerobic engine with just hint of anaerobic efforts. You will begin with sweet spot and some long tempo intervals to help build up your aerobic engine to be ready to race hard for 2 – 3 hours. The plan mixes in the anaerobic efforts with tempo burst workouts during the week and the weekends mix in Zone 5 and 6 efforts in with aerobic intervals. In a race you will very rarely just sit at a steady pace throughout. By mixing in these surges it trains your body to be able to respond and recover between harder anaerobic efforts. During the second build cycle you will start working on your FTP with threshold intervals. Having a high FTP for Iceman is important as you will be spending a lot of time at it and above. The sweet spot intervals will continue during this phase as well, but they will be longer. You will be doing up to and over an hour total of sweet spot riding on your weekend rides. Really helping you be prepared to put in over 2 hours of hard race. These efforts are going to carry you through the fast two tracks and dirt roads. By the end of this cycle you start some Zone 5 intervals. Come the third build cycle you will be focused on intensity! You will be 4 weeks from the race and it is time to lower the duration a bit and ramp up the intensity. It is the time you want to be making hard race like efforts. You will be doing Vo2 Max and Zone 6 anaerobic intervals. These are going to help prepare you for the race surges and many short steep hills you will find on course including Steve’s Secret and on the Vasa Trail. These are the efforts you will be making though out the race from the start to the last hills on the Vasa Trail. Coach Jake racing to a 7th place PRO finish in the 2009 IceMan You can mix your riding on and off road. Just make sure that you are getting in the skills day. Even though the course is mostly two track there are sections you will to be ready for so you don’t lose valuable time or energy. Also every 4th week is a rest week! Make sure to take it easy and let your muscles regenerate from the accumulative training stress. This is when you get stronger and ready for the coming up training block! How to ride in the sweet spot Sweet spot is a training term and intensity you will frequently see in this training calendar. To ride in your sweet spot, adjust your pace between medium and maximal, in a zone you’d call “medium hard.” By power or heart rate, sweet spot is between 83 and 97 percent of your Functional Threshold Power (FTP). If you have a power meter, you can use it to pace yourself between 91 and 105 percent of your FTP, or even more if your form is good. Setting your FTP You will want to have a properly set FTP to help set up your training zones. You may already have one set from a long year of racing. You can use your peak 1 hour norm power or 95% of your peak 20 minute average power. Look to race files for possible peaks. Or you could conduct your own field test. This is a 6 week training plan. You will be doing race specific intervals. Make sure you have a recovery drink and food ready at the completion of each workout. Also be sure to staying hydrated and fueled during your workouts. Not only will it help you that day, but it also keeps you from falling in a deficit, especially as the workload increases. Work, family, and other commitments can make completing every workout a challenge. Even if you can only ride for one hour, perform the intervals and try to balance your time so that you can consistently ride each training day. It’s better to ride for one hour each training day rather than three hours one day a week. Set a personal goal for your own Iceman because improving as a cyclist is all about setting goals and working toward them. Copyright 2019 , FasCat Coaching Jake is an Associate Coach with FasCat Coaching.  He is a full time professional USA cycling and TrainingPeaks certified coach and finished 7th overall in the 2009 IceMan.  To talk with Jake about racing the IceMan, and building power on the bike fill out our New Athlete Questionnaire to set up a Coaching Consultation. Comments The post Training for the Iceman Cometh MTB Race appeared first on FasCat.

Phil returns to the FasCat Podcast to chat about his upcoming fondo happening in 6 weeks! Frank and Phil talk about his comeback from a terrible crash suffered earlier this year, what the vibe is like at the fondo, the food to expect, the training you need to do and much more! For more info, check out https://www.philsfondo.com/route-profiles-1#chocolate-chip 24136Click here to purchase the Phil’s Fondo Training Plan! Frank’s Phil’s Fondo Strava File: https://www.strava.com/activities/1232388406 Frank’s TrainingPeaks Power/GPS/Ride data: http://tpks.ws/C7MSXLCJIKUD2D2CNZVMRNK72A The post Everything Phil’s Cookie Fondo with Phil Gaimon appeared first on FasCat.

This week, Coach Frank sits down with Dirk Friel, the co-founder and Chief Evangelist of TrainingPeaks…the essential software for athletes. It’s what we use to coach our athletes, and what is used by countless other coaches, athletes, and pros to quantify and track their training. Frank and Dirk talk about the origins of TrainingPeaks, Dirk’s background in racing and coaching, the future of the software, Skimo racing, and more. It’s a great conversation with a legend in the world of endurance sports and training! As always, please subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts if you’re enjoying the pod And for more training tips, podcasts, and videos, check out all things FasCat at http://fascat.wpengine.com 23423Make it your best off-season with our best-selling 32-week resistance training and Sweet Spot training plan. The post Dirk Friel, Co-Founder of TrainingPeaks appeared first on FasCat.