# Racing Expert as Master



## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

What does training look like for XC racing at a high level (winning/competitive at expert level) for 50+ years old? I've made a good transition from beginner to sport this year, and wondering what the expert level looks like for older dudes.


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## Canssago (9 mo ago)

There are fewer people racing at fifty plus and those that do are dedicated athletes. I am 52 and currently putting in 12-15 hours per week. Raced a few weeks back in a 40 plus race and was 25 out of 50 participants.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

Canssago said:


> There are fewer people racing at fifty plus and those that do are dedicated athletes. I am 52 and currently putting in 12-15 hours per week. Raced a few weeks back in a 40 plus race and was 25 out of 50 participants.


That's impressive. I have some development work to do to be able to absorb that much work. 4 hours on the bike is a decent week for me. My long endurance ride is just under 2 hours, and then a tempo/threshold workout and an interval workout pretty much fills the week. A solid expert cross and gravel racer I follow from around here can knock out 4-5 hours on his endurance rides at a decent pace, and he's older than me. I plan on working on endurance this offseason.


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## Canssago (9 mo ago)

Try to ride everyday is the best advise I have ever received. Also to be competitive in Expert you need proper sleep, diet and weight. At 6'1" I need to be around 170lbs to be competitive. I am about 20lbs over that and have been shedding weight every few weeks and hope to be back at racing weight next year.


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## Jayem (Jul 16, 2005)

Canssago said:


> Try to ride everyday is the best advise I have ever received. Also to be competitive in Expert you need proper sleep, diet and weight. At 6'1" I need to be around 170lbs to be competitive. I am about 20lbs over that and have been shedding weight every few weeks and hope to be back at racing weight next year.


I'd recommend to not ride every day, mix in workouts for core strength and other stuff. That will help to keep the weight off too. Just riding can lead your body to get very asymmetrical in terms of muscle development and that can lead to chronic pain, like back pain, etc.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

Canssago said:


> Try to ride everyday is the best advise I have ever received. Also to be competitive in Expert you need proper sleep, diet and weight. At 6'1" I need to be around 170lbs to be competitive. I am about 20lbs over that and have been shedding weight every few weeks and hope to be back at racing weight next year.


I’m 6’1” as well, and I’m a little over 180 now. I’d like to see 170, but it may be a stretch.
Ride every day? When I reach on an endurance ride I don’t have legs for a quality workout the next day, but maybe that changes a bit with more conditioning? So is it a recovery ride after a hard interval day? What does a week look like?


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## kosmo (Oct 27, 2004)

Canssago said:


> There are fewer people racing at fifty plus and those that do are dedicated athletes. I am 52 and currently putting in 12-15 hours per week. Raced a few weeks back in a 40 plus race and was 25 out of 50 participants.


Same. At 52, I was still at the sharp end of the spear, and putting in 12+ hours a week.



Jayem said:


> I'd recommend to not ride every day, mix in workouts for core strength and other stuff. That will help to keep the weight off too. Just riding can lead your body to get very asymmetrical in terms of muscle development and that can lead to chronic pain, like back pain, etc.


100% agree, especially as our bodies age. Gotta trick the machine into thinking it's still younger, vibrant, and balanced! For me a simple, at-home routine taking about 20 minutes works great. Probably should do more but I hate that stuff.


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## LMN (Sep 8, 2007)

Keep a high ride frequency. 4-6 times a week.
Moderate weekly duration: 10-15hrs
Have good training variety: Long easy days, mixed with short and hard days.
Eat healthy.

Really though, learn how to train properly. Probably the best resource is the cyclist training bible by Joe Friel. I personally like the older versions, the newer ones put too much of an emphasis on power meters. The other option is to hire a good coach. Finding a good coach is hard part. My experience has been there is an inverse relationship between what a coach charges and how good they are.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

LMN said:


> Keep a high ride frequency. 4-6 times a week.
> Moderate weekly duration: 10-15hrs
> Have good training variety: Long easy days, mixed with short and hard days.
> Eat healthy.
> ...


I like Friel's stuff. I have his older "training bible" books and his fast after 50 book. I am doing the periodization stuff, although it seems the fast after 50 program retains the high intensity work throughout the year to stave off the effects of aging. 

One thing that didn't make sense to me in Friel's program is recommending the longest endurance ride during Base should match the duration of your longest race. So for most sport races that's about 90-105 minutes. But it seems like the guys beating me do much longer endurance rides. And Thomas Pidcock won at Albstadt in a 78 minute race, but has legs to ride the Tour de France. Maybe the returns on endurance riding diminishes at some point, and Friel is balancing time constraints for most self-coached athletes, but I'm planning on building up my endurance rides to 2x (3-4 hours) of my anticipated race times this offseason.


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## Canssago (9 mo ago)

Dunnigan said:


> I’m 6’1” as well, and I’m a little over 180 now. I’d like to see 170, but it may be a stretch.
> Ride every day? When I reach on an endurance ride I don’t have legs for a quality workout the next day, but maybe that changes a bit with more conditioning? So is it a recovery ride after a hard interval day? What does a week look like?


I listen to my body. Most of the time I can go hard 3-4 days in a row and then do a few recovery rides back to back. I will take a day off when I get to the point of feeling overworked. Usually about 3 days per month. I used Joel Friel books when I was racing 100 milers. I would spend 6-10 hours on Saturday and Sunday and moderate to high pace. Now My longest ride each week is a few 3-4 hour rides mixed in with some 1 1/2 hard efforts. I also need to go hard for at least a hour the day before a race, most people taper prior where as I increase in intensity the few days prior. I know this is not normal but when I taper I have awful races.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

'Fast After Fifty' by Friel...highly advise you purchase it. 

As mentioned, the folks in their 50's racing tend to be strong. Most others stop racing by then. Keep up your aerobic capacity with specific interval work and take care of the rest of your body.


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## jimPacNW (Feb 26, 2013)

I'm 55, about 6'2"+ (used to be 6'3"...) and 175 pounds, I've been messing around with intermittent fasting, which helps with weight control I think.
I raced a couple of seasons of cat1/Expert in my early 20s, then took a bunch of years off (got really out of shape, up to about 50 pounds overweight for almost 20 years), I did my 10th spring season of masters cat1/expert this past winter/spring, I've also done 5 seasons of cat1/2 cyclocross in fall (those starts are insane). I've been having some trouble with my thumbs and a wrist (almost 2 years with the thumbs, and a year for the wrist), which make it hard to do much volume over 5 or 6 hours per week, and I had to recover from a patella break last October (cyclocross crash), but I managed 5 third place finishes in the 8 races that started in January, including a couple of top tens. I think I could certainly be a lot sharper if I could be doing 8+ hrs per week, which seems to be about the maximum for having a real job and 2 kids. About 5 years ago when I was doing 8 hrs at least every other week I was quite sharp, and got a couple of top 3 overalls (admittedly these are smaller local races, but a decent crowd always including quite a few of the faster regional guys).

Every other day riding seems to be working pretty well for training/recovery/family obligations. As for training, just don't skip anything (long rides, easy, intervals, hills). I do a lot of short very steep hill repeats, which I believe to be really helpful, critical imo for low volume training. In nicer weather I do a couple of road rides per week, one of which has been called 'fight club' with a bunch of the faster local road guys, and afterwards I often feel pretty rough. I have included some 'improvised squats' that I need to start doing again, which is two 5 gal water buckets about 1/3 full, and when I get home from a ride and come into the backyard, I do about 3 sets of 8 'squats', which seems to work well since I'm already warmed up. One 'long' ride at least every other week is critical, I think you could do well with 5 hrs one week, and 8+ the next week (including the 4 hr ride). My rule when I started riding/training regularly about 11 years ago was: no more than 3 days on in a row, no more than 2 days off in a row, - I start getting really nervous after 2 days off. Of course you are going to get sick etc, and take a week off, but that happens to everyone and you will recover pretty quickly if you have been keeping fit.

I have wondered: it seems most of us can get back most of the power and speed we built in our 20s/30s (a sort of 'engine memory')?, but is it really hard to build new power/speed in our 40s beyond what we had in our 20s/30s?, no matter what that was? It seems like a lot of guys who used to race expert 20-30 years ago and started back up again after a long break have pretty good success. Getting 'quite fast' at an older age but not having raced a lot as a youngster seems much more unusual, especially if you don't have fast trail experience (bicycle or moto): I wonder if carrying speed on a narrow trail might be difficult to learn at an older age, beyond what you were comfortable with in your 20s.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

Agree--Middle aged racers most likely have been athletic for awhile, even if they have had time away from structured training. It would be cool to meet someone who went from 0 to racing in their 40s or older.

I have spent tons of time on a bike my whole life and have raced off and on, road bikes and XC. What I haven't really every done is 3+ consecutive seasons of structured training, so I would tend to start again in beginner class and make it to intermediate before taking another break. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do in my 50s with consistency--no breaks from training. I'm already stronger this season than I was in my late 30s, so that's encouraging. I don't have the raw power of my <25yo self, but am lifting now to keep and build on what I still have.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

Dunnigan said:


> Agree--Middle aged racers most likely have been athletic for awhile, even if they have had time away from structured training. It would be cool to meet someone who went from 0 to racing in their 40s or older.
> 
> I have spent tons of time on a bike my whole life and have raced off and on, road bikes and XC. What I haven't really every done is 3+ consecutive seasons of structured training, so I would tend to start again in beginner class and make it to intermediate before taking another break. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do in my 50s with consistency--no breaks from training. I'm already stronger this season than I was in my late 30s, so that's encouraging. I don't have the raw power of my <25yo self, but am lifting now to keep and build on what I still have.


It's funny, it's taken me to be in my 50's to add the most structure to my riding and training. I'm def stronger this season in doing so having done some kind of training since the winter almost daily, be it riding, hitting the gym, doing yoga, and xc skiing and cycling classes in the coldest months. I've never taken off more than 2 consecutive days, but making sure I rest when needed. Seems to be paying off.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

Follow-up...

Masters racers, are you doing at least some high intensity work year-round (seems to be what Friel recommends), or staying with the regular periodization calendar where the off-season work is focused on endurance work and weight lifting?


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

Dunnigan said:


> Follow-up...
> 
> Masters racers, are you doing at least some high intensity work year-round (seems to be what Friel recommends), or staying with the regular periodization calendar where the off-season work is focused on endurance work and weight lifting?


I'm not a Zwift guy off-season (where year-round riding seems to take place) but keep up with some level of aerobic capacity work either through cycling classes at the gym or xc skiing. Super important to keep after it.


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## BansheeRune (Nov 27, 2011)

Jayem said:


> I'd recommend to not ride every day, mix in workouts for core strength and other stuff. That will help to keep the weight off too. Just riding can lead your body to get very asymmetrical in terms of muscle development and that can lead to chronic pain, like back pain, etc.


Sound...

Gettin back on my trials bike was useful in pointing out how important core strength really can be.


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## GlazedHam (Jan 14, 2004)

In Texas and age 56, I'm pretty competitive in Cat 1 at an average of 7 hours a week. Although I seldom do 7 hours in any one week ...kind of fluctuates between 3 and 10.


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## TazMini (Jun 21, 2019)

GlazedHam said:


> In Texas and age 56, I'm pretty competitive in Cat 1 at an average of 7 hours a week. Although I seldom do 7 hours in any one week ...kind of fluctuates between 3 and 10.


Curious what your training age is? Do you have a couple decades of year after year training? 

I think many people dismiss this ‘old man fitness’ giving people a massive base to work off of.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

TazMini said:


> Curious what your training age is? Do you have a couple decades of year after year training?
> 
> I think many people dismiss this ‘old man fitness’ giving people a massive base to work off of.
> 
> ...


I think there is definitely an advantage for having ridden for decades vs just starting out. Efficiency on the bike and handling skills all take time. I’ve raced off and on since my HS days, but never got super fast. I’ve always been riding some each year, but not always training. After a break from training I always have to start in the beginner class, but it probably comes back a little quicker than if it was my first time training.
A good number of the fastest sport racers at our local races are the 50+ dudes. Probably not their first season.


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