Coach Frank describes a 3 month Unbound training plan that you can follow FREE for 30 days → https://fascatcoaching.com/app

Develop your Diesel Watt power by knowing how to train it in March, April, and May to arrive in Emporia fresh, fit, and ready to send it.

Whether you're lining up for the 200, 100, or XL, this video covers the training concepts that have helped thousands of FasCat athletes finish strong,from sweet spot base building to full gravel simulation rides to the art of a proper taper.

You'll learn:

• the Gravel Power Workout (the single best workout for gravel racers)
• how to build your long ride from 2.5 hours to 5+,
• why Flint Hills repeats matter, and
• what race-winning power data from Ian Boswell, Pete Stetina, and Cam Jones tells us about pacing Unbound.

📱 The CoachCat app gives you a custom Unbound training plan, AI coaching to adjust on the fly, and nutrition guidance — all free for 30 days.

🚴 Let us know what distance are you riding at Unbound 2026?

#UnboundGravel #UnboundGravel2026 #GravelTraining #FasCatCoaching #CoachCat #SweetSpotTraining #DieselWatts #GravelSimulationRide #FlintHills #EmporiaKansas #GravelPowerWorkout #HowToTrainForUnbound #GravelRacing #CyclingTraining

Are you making this gravel pacing mistake? It could be costing you 30 minutes or more — and you won't even feel it happening until it's too late.

In this video, Coach Frank breaks down the #1 pacing mistake I see in gravel race power files, why it happens, and exactly how to fix it. I'll show you the one tactical decision you need to make in the first hour of your next gravel race that could save you 30 minutes — without being any more fit than you already are.

What you'll learn:

- Why gravel racing is really a time trial (and why that changes everything)

- How to use Intensity Factor (IF) as your real-time pacing gauge - The art of "self-dropping" — and why the tortoise always beats the hare

- A 4-step process for finding the right group without blowing up

- First-hour IF targets for every race duration from 2 to 8+ hours

Want course-specific pacing instructions in watts for YOUR next gravel race? CoachCat's AI can give you section-by-section wattage targets so you always know what's too hard and what's just right.

🚀 Start your free trial: https://fascatcoaching.com/app

Learn how not to be the Group Ride Hero and Train the Right Way, Free for 30 days → https://fascatcoaching.com/app

One of the most common mistakes cyclists make is piling on high-intensity intervals before they've finished building their aerobic base. It feels great in February. You're flying on the group ride. You're winning town line sprints.

But by May, when racing and big events actually matter, you're flat, stale, and wondering what happened.

In this video, Coach Frank Overton from FasCat Coaching shows you how to bridge the gap between base season and race season the right way.

You don't need to live in Zone 2 forever. But you also shouldn't be smashing yourself with full-gas workouts every week.

The answer?

A smart, controlled progression that introduces just enough Zone 4, 5, and 6 intensity to wake up speed while still building durability and aerobic strength.

Inside, Frank walks through four proven winter workouts from the CoachCat training system:

🐆 The Cheetah Pounce – Sweet Spot control with explosive attacks. Practice commitment and fast-twitch recruitment without blowing up recovery.

🎯 Sprint → Stalk & Catch – Learn how to handle the surges that drop riders in real races and group rides.

📊 The Three 8's – A powerful combination of testing and training that reveals your true ability and builds fatigue resistance.

💳 The AmEx Ride – FasCat's signature terrain-driven session. No timers, no ERG, just smart execution and a mission: don't come home without your prescribed OTS.

These workouts help you:

✔ build the engine

✔ touch high power

✔ improve repeatability

✔ arrive in spring ready for true interval work

Instead of peaking early, you'll keep stacking fitness when it counts.

If you're following a structured plan, this is the step many athletes miss.

Try These Workouts Yourself They're available inside the CoachCat AI app, where you can follow your training plan, track OTS and LEVEL, and get guidance based on your real data.

👉 Start your free 30-day trial https://fascatcoaching.com/app

Have questions about winter training or how to balance intensity with base work?

Drop them in the comments. And tell us:

Which workout looks the hardest?

Which one would you skip if you could? 😈

Getting sick or injured during a training block doesn't have to ruin your season.

Try Coaching (AI or 1:1) Free for the 1st 30 days → https://fascatcoaching.com/

In this video, Coach Frank breaks down how to use your coaching in the event of sickness or injury without making things worse and without losing weeks of fitness to a preventable layoff.

You'll learn a simple 6-step process used with real coached athletes to:

✅ decide when to rest vs train

✅ adjust intensity and volume

✅ avoid overdoing it

✅ revise your training plan

✅ rebuild day by day

Most athletes don't lose fitness from missing a few workouts — they lose it by pushing through pain or sickness and turning small issues into multi-week layoffs. This video shows you how to avoid that mistake.

We'll also show you how CoachCat, our AI Coach, handles illness, injury, and "something feels off" situations by revising the training plan automatically when life happens.

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Try CoachCat Free for 30 Days: https://fascatcoaching.com/app

Work with a 1:1 Coach Free for 30 Days (limited offer)

https://fascatcoaching.com/pages/hire-a-coach

What is CoachCat? CoachCat is an AI Coach that builds custom training plans, analyzes your power files, revises workouts automatically, and helps you train smarter all year round.

Learn how to eat right for your cycling. Most cyclists try to lose weight by eating less and riding more and that doesn't work.

Get the Go Fast Grocery List mentioned in this video for FREE → https://fascatcoaching.com/app

In this video, Coach Frank breaks down the #1 nutrition mistake most cyclists make and explains why watts per kilo don't improve on the bike… they start in the kitchen. This video introduces our long-standing FasCat concept called Winning in the Kitchen: a simple, sustainable approach to performance nutrition and weight loss that works for real cyclists with real lives. You'll learn:

• why you can't out-ride bad nutrition

• the 80/20 rule of weight loss for cyclists

• the Go Fast vs Go Slow food framework

• why grocery shopping matters more than recipes

• how to avoid "Losing in the Breakroom"

• what Winning in the Kitchen actually looks like day-to-day

• and one of our favorite cyclist meals: Salmon Watts

This is not calorie counting. It's not a fad diet. And it won't sabotage your training. It's how cyclists fuel smarter, lose weight sustainably, and improve watts per kilo.

🛒 Want help putting this into practice? When you start a free trial of the CoachCat app, you'll get: our Go FasCat Grocery List, Performance-focused meal plans and nutrition guidance built around the Winning in the Kitchen framework including "How Much you Should Eat" before that big ride tomorrow.

👉 Start your free trial here: https://fascatcoaching.com/app

The base training advice you've been getting from social media and indoor riding platforms is wrong.

Riding only Zone 2 all winter doesn't work for cyclists with less than 8 hours a week to train. Riding hard indoors doesn't work either. In this video, Coach Frank Overton (aka BigCat) breaks down how to build a REAL aerobic base on just 4–8 hours per week, using the Sweet Spot training methodology he has pioneered for the past 20 years.

You'll learn:

1️⃣ Where base training actually fits in your annual plan

2️⃣ Why Zone 2-only training fails when volume is low

3️⃣ The biggest base-training mistakes cyclists make indoors

4️⃣ Why Sweet Spot delivers more aerobic gains per minute

5️⃣ How to measure base fitness using OTS & Level

6️⃣ What a real month of base training looks like (calendar example)

This is the same approach we've used for over 20 years to help time-crunched amateur cyclists get stronger, more durable, and faster without burning out.

🎁 FREE BASE TRAINING + GIVEAWAY

If you listen to the end, you can get

✅ A full month of base training for free

✅ A chance to win a FREE YEAR of the CoachCat app

How to enter the giveaway: Start a free 30-day trial using the link below

Comment "CoachCat" on this video (plus any questions or thoughts)

No purchase necessary. One winner will be randomly selected and announced in the comments 5 days after this video goes live.

Even if you don't win, you'll still get full access to this month of base training for free.

👉 Start your free trial here: https://www.FasCatCoaching.com

What happens when you mix a live Sweet Spot group ride, real-time coaching, fueling advice, tech questions, and unfiltered athlete Q&A?

You get a live, no-BS training session led by Coach Frank that covers how cyclists train. Pardon the audio as we recorded from our discord channel that was live during the ride.

In this ride & podcast, we dove into a dozen or more topics, including:

1. How to ride Sweet Spot by feel (no rigid intervals required)

2. Why Sweet Spot is "not too hard, not too easy — just right"

3. Fueling correctly indoors (70–90g carbs/hr and why it matters)

4. ERG mode: when to use it and when it hurts your training

5. Using time-in-zone instead of chasing perfect watts

6. Heart rate vs power for Sweet Spot Time in Zone Accuracy

7. Training consistency, durability, and long-ride fatigue resistance

8. How to adapt training when life, travel, injuries, or holidays happen

9. Festive 500 strategy for road, gravel, crit, and masters athletes

10. Strength training + endurance: how to blend them without burnout

11. Why most plateaus are caused by doing the same thing too long

12. How CoachCat helps revise plans, answer questions, and guide decisions in real time 🎯

Who this ride and podcast is for:

Masters cyclists

Time-crunched athletes

Gravel, road, crit, and fondo riders

Athletes training indoors on Zwift

Anyone tired of over-complicating training

🧠 Key takeaway: Fitness comes from doing slightly more work than yesterday and recovering well enough to do it again tomorrow.

Sweet Spot training done right builds durability, raises FTP, and teaches you how to pace long efforts — without burying yourself.

🚴 Join us live again on January 3rd, 2026 Sweet Spot Saturday is part of a 7-ride progression series: Each ride gets 30 minutes longer Builds durability and confidence Ride #7 culminates in the legendary Uber Pretzel

📅 Next ride: January 3 👉 Join the FasCat Coaching Club in the Zwift Companion app

👍 Like • Subscribe • Share If this helped your training,

hit 👍, subscribe for science-backed cycling advice, and share with a riding buddy who trains hard but wants to train smarter. Train Smarter. Ride Faster. — Coach Frank 🐾

Sweet Spot Training is one of the most widely used and effective ways cyclists build their base and improve power. Sweet Spot Train the Right Way for FREE in the CoachCat App → https://fascatcoaching.com/app

But very few people know the story behind the development of 'sweet spot training'.

Long before Sweet Spot Training was mainstream, it was developed inside a secret, private beta group of coaches and sport scientists that I was part of.

We were testing a new power-based performance model that would later go on to become the Performance Manager Chart inside TrainingPeaks.

And what we discovered & developed changed endurance cycling training forever: there was a training intensity that built the most fitness for the least fatigue.

And that this type of training enabled time crunched athletes to develop a massive aerobic engines that previously weren't possible with Zone 2 training.

That discovery became Sweet Spot Training.

Do you remember your first sweet spot workout?

Pro Coach Sierra Sims (M.S. Exercise Physiology) breaks down the science and technique behind muscle tension intervals: one of the most effective ways to turn gym strength into real power on the bike. Whether you're building your base, coming back from the off-season, or looking to climb stronger, these workouts teach your neuromuscular system to produce MORE torque and apply it efficiently across the pedal stroke. You'll learn: ✔️ What muscle tension (high-torque) intervals actually are ✔️ Why low cadence is so effective for force production ✔️ How to combine torque work with strength training for maximum gains ✔️ How WorldTour pros use torque blocks from October–February ✔️ How to structure these sessions indoors or outdoors ✔️ Real-world workout examples you can try this week ✔️ How to avoid knee pain and progress safely Watch till the end where Sierra shows you two practical ways to perform these intervals so you can do them anywhere — on Zwift, on climbs, or on rolling terrain. 🚴‍♂️ Want workouts like these? Hire Coach Sierra, https://fascatcoaching.com/collections/coaches/products/sierra-sims or Start your 30-day FREE trial → https://fascatcoaching.com/app The CoachCat App includes: • 15+ muscle tension interval workouts • 600+ cycling workouts • 100+ training plans • Daily AI coaching • Human coach in-app support!

Most cyclists don't realize it, but our entire training lifestyle is basically built for longevity.

Endurance & VO2 max training, weight lifting, real food, and good sleep are the same fundamentals that help you live longer and stay healthy as you age.

With books like Outlive and the rise of longevity science, I finally decided to share my personal plan to live to 100 and the 8 fundamentals I'm going to use to get there.

This video is the first in a full series on Longevity & Health for cyclists and non-cyclists alike. No hacks. No supplement stacks. No billionaire biohacks. Just the fundamentals science keeps pointing to again and again.

You'll Learn:

1. Exercise: The #1 lever for healthspan: aerobic base, strength, muscle mass, and durability

2. Nutrition: Real food, protein, plants, hydration, and sustainable habits

3. Sleep

4. Stress Management: Daily habits that keep the nervous system calm

5. Relationships: Backed by the 80-year Harvard Study as a top predictor of long-term health.

6. Purpose & Mission

7. Safety: Smarter riding choices (more gravel/MTB, less traffic), and stepping away from high-risk environments

8. Blood Testing: FTP testing for your health: measure, benchmark, track trends, adjust early.

If you want to live well, ride long, and build the longest streak of your life… you're in the right place.

Train Smarter. Ride Faster. Live Longer with the CoachCat App https://fascatcoaching.com/app