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Summer training sessions

by Carl Brewer last modified 2008-10-27 02:20

Why don't we train together over summer?

It's a good question, we (aboc) run a Tuesday night spin session and a Sunday evening DISC session over 'winter', but nothing over summer. Why is this?  Especially when nowdays many aboc riders are trackies or at least have track bikes.  This is a recent change, but a significant one.

One of the main reason is that during 'summer' (daylight savings) there's really no need to do indoor training, the weather is generally dry and it's light so everyone can do their own training on the road.  The Tuesday session was orginally set up to keep people riding during the dark nights over winter when most of us have jobs etc that make it hard.  It's quite specific and tailored to individuals (and very intense!), but that's what it was - for many it's a core training night over winter, and for riders not on coaching programs with a coach it's a way to get on a bit of a program for 'free' as I pay a lot of attention to everyone that comes along and try to make it as valuable a session as possible for each attendee.  Sunday evenings was similar, we wanted to train track skills etc, and it fits in well with most people's weekends.

So what do we do over summer?  Riders with coaching programs do their programs. aboc wasn't really set up to cater for group training sessions and while we do it over winter, it wasn't a core thing. It looks like there may be some demand for that now though, and if there is, aboc may need to adapt to this demand. We used to run a race skills session on Saturday mornings but last year it ended up as two of us (Dino and I) as the only attendees, which was a waste of both of our times, and now Dino races on Saturdays it's not ideal for him to train on Saturday mornings as well, even if it's a skills-focussed session it's still tiring.  Blackburn runs a number of track sessions over summer at the velodrome in the early evenings that are suitable for a wide range of riders too.

So, what do we do?  Who wants to do what? I'm working with a couple of juniors on Thursday nights in at the Mermet in Hawthorn, we race on Saturdays at Blackburn, many of the trackies who would come to a session are racing on Tuesdays at DISC also and of course many race at Glenvale or St Kilda on Sunday mornings too.  There's not much of a slot to use that will work out for many, about the only really suitable time is Sunday afternoons at Blackburn which will have to give way on the weekends that the Bontrager Summer Sprint Series runs on.  I don't want to run a low intensity (low quality) session, which means I want people who come to be fresh. If you want to do junk miles and then try and do high intensity work when tired, there's plenty of other coaches only too willing to take your money, but that's not a path I want to take. I want to provide the best value and quality I can if I'm to run another regular session.

So, if you want to do a training session over summer, let me know and let me know what you'd like it to be, and I'll do my best to accomodate it.

Even for riders with programs

Posted by Dino Apolito at 2008-10-27 05:13
Group training sessions offer several advantages even to riders on programs. Structured training programs are great for fitness, strength and all that stuff and can be done solo but you really need to train with other people to develop skills and learn tactics.

I think this is especially true with track racing where "little" things can make a big difference to the outcome of a race.

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