OVERVIEW
Virtual racing on TrainingPeaks Virtual, Zwift, Rouvy or other indoor cycling platforms can be a fun and intense addition to an athlete's overall program. They can even become the central focus of your season! But too much virtual racing can work against you by removing too much of the specificity and contrast your training plan needs in order for you to experience gains in fitness and performance. If you want to jump into virtual racing or hard virtual group rides, here's a guide on how to do it wisely and effectively. 

TOPICS COVERED

• Swap race for interval session?
• Mistakes to avoid when adding virtual racing to training plan
• Bringing contrast to your training

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LINKS/RESOURCES

• CTS Membership: https://trainright.com/membership
• TP Virtual: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/virtual/
• TP Virtual Race Hub: https://tpvirtualhub.com/

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Overview:
Joe Friel, legendary coach and author of "The Cyclists Training Bible", "Fast After 50", and "Ride Inside" (among other titles), is back on the podcast to discuss some fundamental truths and takeaways on coaching and training. Whether you're new to training or you've been working out for decades, this is an opportunity to confirm what you've experienced and learned over the years and to discover more nuanced observations and techniques from one of the best coaches in the profession.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Importance of a high performance mindset
• Balancing the Big 3: Career, Family, Training
• How to individualize training for Time-Crunched and Time-Rich Athletes
• Overreaching vs Overtraining: Importance of scheduling rest
• Race readiness: The difference between resting and tapering
• Strength training: Why to do it, how, and when for Time-Crunched Athletes and Aging Athletes

LINKS

• Suggestions for the Aging Athlete - Joe Friel
• Motivation: Thoughts on Training #5: Motivation - Joe Friel
• Consistency: Thoughts on Training #3: Consistency Is Key - Joe Friel 
• FastTalk, Joe’s New Training Bible
•  Joe Friel’s Website and Books 

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GUEST
For endurance athletes and coaches, Joe Friel needs no introduction. A legend in the endurance coaching profession, Joe is the author of some of the most successful books on endurance training, including "The Cyclist's Training Bible", "The Triathlete's Training Bible", and "Fast After 50". He was a founder of Peaksware, creator of TrainingPeaks software. As a coach, his clients have included elite amateur and professional road cyclists, mountain bikers, and triathletes and duathletes.

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform

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OVERVIEW
There's a misconception that mixing higher-intensity intervals and Zone 2 aerobic endurance riding in the same session is bad. The contention is that exposure to higher intensities hinders the stimulus that leads to improved fat oxidation. Coach Adam Pulford dispels this myth and explains how training zones work together and can be used in additive and complementary ways.

TOPICS COVERED

• How training intensities complement each other rather than cancel each other
• Aspects of fitness that can be improved at ALL INTENSITIES
• The limitation of focusing too much on improving fat oxidation
• How progressive overload works to gradually build fitness

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LINKS/RESOURCES

• Is Zone 2 Training Overhyped or Under Appreciated? 
• #41 - Zone 2 training: why all the talk? With Dr Andrew Coggan
• Rethinking the role of fat oxidation: substrate utilisation during high-intensity interval training in well-trained and recreationally trained runners
• Forums: https://www.reddit.com/r/HubermanLab/comments/13cgwgb/zone_2_after_hiit/
  https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/high-zone-2-vs-sweet-spot-intervals/24263/2
• Sweet Spot Training In The Winter/Base Phase: Yes Or No? 
• Physiological Benefits of Sweet Spot Training

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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OVERVIEW
What you rest for is what you're investing in. Group rides, interval days, training races, goal races... you can't be completely fresh and rested for all of them, but when should you train through an event versus tapering for it? Should you rest for a few days before big weekend group rides or treat them like any other training day? Scheduling rest and recovery is as important as scheduling aerobic endurance work or high intensity intervals. Coach Adam Pulford teaches you how to know the differences between using a short rest to freshen up, a structured taper to maximize performance, or a long rest to deload between training phases.

TOPICS COVERED

• Intro
• How to "freshen up" your legs for important training sessions
• When to train on tired legs
• Resting before a new training phase
• What "coming in fresh" looks like
• Building recovery into your annual training plan

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HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Overview:
You are an athlete. Yes, you. Even if you don't always feel like one. Even if you're not as fit as you'd like. Being an athlete is part of your identity and who you are. It influences your priorities, eating behaviors, sleeping choices, and even your relationships and career decisions. Athlete, coach, parent, and journalist Pam Moore joins Coach Adam Pulford to delve into the power of athlete identity and how leaning into it can improve all aspects of your life and performance.

Topics Covered In This Episode:

• Defining athlete identity
• Occupational therapy insights on athlete identity
• How athlete identity changes with life transitions (kids, jobs, marriage, etc.)
• Maintaining athlete identity when life gets busy
• Adapting athlete identity with advancing age
• How shame affects athlete identity
• How self compassion improves longevity in sport/training

Guest:
Pam Moore started out as an Occupational Therapist before committing to her passion for writing and becoming a journalist. A regular contributor to The Washington Post, her work has also appeared in Time, The Guardian, and Runner’s World, Bicycling Magazine, and for well-known brands like Peloton. She earned a certification as an Intuitive Eating Counselor.

Show Links:

• Pam Moore's Website
• Pam's Podcast Real Fit — Pam Moore

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Host
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for more than 14 years and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Overview: Intuitive eating coach and journalist Pam Moore joins Coach Adam Pulford to discuss the ins and outs of "Intuitive Eating", what it really means (hint: it's not just eat whatever you want whenever you want), why it might be important for your lifestyle and eating habits, and how to incorporate it into your nutrition program.

Topics Covered In This Episode:

• What is Inutitive Eating?
• Examples of cues or prompts that fit into intuitive eating
• Why we lack awareness of how we're actually eating
• Is there a place for tracking calories/macros in intuitive eating?
• Going from "the least you can get away with" to "the most I can tolerate" during exercise.

Guest:

Pam Moore started out as an Occupational Therapist before committing to her passion for writing and becoming a journalist. A regular contributor to The Washington Post, her work has also appeared in Time, The Guardian, and Runner’s World, Bicycling Magazine, and for well-known brands like Peloton. She earned a certification as an Intuitive Eating Counselor, and says, "As an occupational therapist and a journalist, I bring my intuitive eating coaching clients a deep understanding of human motivation, what it takes to make sustainable behavior change, and most importantly, how to ask the right questions and listen deeply to the answers." 

Show Links:

• Intuitive Eating Website/Book
• Pam Moore's Website
• Pam's Podcast Real Fit — Pam Moore

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Host
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for more than 14 years and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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OVERVIEW
Should you perform your interval efforts at the beginning or end of your workout? In most cases, doing hard efforts early, when you are freshest, increases power output and time-at-intensity for those intervals. In this episode, Coach Adam Pulford provides the rationale behind this structure and shares the three specific scenarios when he has athletes ride in Zone 2 for most of the ride and execute hard efforts at the end.

TOPICS COVERED

• Why you should do intervals in the first third of your workout.
• How early intervals improve Zone 2 training effect afterward
• Intervals at the end for competition specificity
• Intervals at the end for fatigue resistance training/durability
• Interval timing advice for Time-Crunched Athlete

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LINKS/RESOURCES

• Workout & Interval Structure: Decoding Interval Workouts: How to determine the number and duration of intervals
  
  
• The Science of Training Your Durability and Fatigue Resistance: https://youtu.be/8-RRwmlErDI or https://www.buzzsprout.com/813266/episodes/15275108 
  
  
• Fatigue Resistance Training and Testing: https://youtu.be/556YzqceA9E or https://www.buzzsprout.com/813266/episodes/15507165 
  
  
• Knowledge is Watt: DURABILITY: THE FOURTH DIMENSION OF ENDURANCE PERFORMANCE: 

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform

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Overview: In this insightful conversation, Coaches Jason Koop and Adam Pulford pull back the curtain and reveal the ways they navigate the creation, planning, and execution of athlete goals - and their own goals as coaches and professionals. It's a new perspective on traditional narratives about goal setting, one that is sure to be thought-provoking for athletes and coaches alike.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Who's goals are these, anyway?
• Why coaches and athletes are terrible at forecasting
• Why a granular annual plan can be counterproductive
• How a broadly-based annual plan is essential
• How to guide an athlete with two or more A-goals in a season

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Guest: Jason Koop
Jason Koop is the Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning, author of "Training Essentials for Ultrarunning, 2nd Ed", creator of the "Research Essentials for Ultrarunning" monthly newsletter, and host of "The Koopcast" podcast. He is one of the most sought-after coaches in ultrarunning, and for many years he was the CTS Coaching Director in charge of coaching education and ongoing mentoring of CTS Coaches across all sports. Find Jason on Instagram, Twitter, or his website: https://jasonkoop.com

Host
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for more than 15 years and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

Links

• Long Range Planning Link: Book — Coach Jason Koop
• My Go-To on Periodization: Periodization Theory and Methodology of Training
• Article on Goals: Three Types of Goals for Cycling Success

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Overview: Coach Renee Eastman joins Adam Pulford to provide wisdom, guidance, and actionable tips for thriving through the week between Christmas and New Year's. For some, it's an opportunity for a big training block (e.g., Rapha's Festive 500). Others struggle to train at all because of family trips. And still others get anxious about indulging in holiday meals. Renee and Adam have common-sense tips for all these scenarios and more.

Topics Covered In This Episode:

• Strategies for Time-Crunched vs. Time-Rich Athletes
• Will taking two weeks off hurt your fitness?
• Alternative exercises that count for training
• Healthy perspectives on Holiday eating
• Are week-long fitness challenges a good idea?
• How to execute a week-long challenge if you choose

Guest:

Renee Eastman is a CTS Premier Level Coach and has been coaching with the company for more than 20 years. She has been a professional bike fitter for 15 years and was one of the first fitters to use the Retül bike fit system. She has a master's degree in exercise science, has worked for USA Cycling, and is a 6-time Masters National Champion.

Show Links:

• Renee Eastman bio: https://trainright.com/coaches/renee-eastman/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renee.eastman/?hl=en
• Detraining Effects Prevention: A New Rising Challenge for Athletes - PMC 
• (PDF) The Effects of Detraining on Cardiovascular Parameters in Distance Runners
• Vacations: Remarkably Valuable for Athlete Fitness and Life-Balance 
• The Rapha Festive 500
• Detraining Episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-time-crunched-cyclist-podcast-by-cts/id1494799053?i=1000583323375

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Host
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for more than 14 years and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform

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Website: trainright.com
Instagram: @cts_trainright
Twitter: @trainright
Facebook: @CTSAthlete

OVERVIEW
Warmup routines change based on the physical and mental demands of a competition or training session. There are general rules of thumb like, "The shorter the race the long the warmup", but Coach Adam Pulford dives deeper and describes exactly how long to warm up on the bike and with what range of intensities, along with dynamic activities cyclists can do off the bike - or in the start corral - to compete or train at your best.

TOPICS COVERED

• Warm up rules of thumb
• The Short warmup (7-10 minutes)
• Medium warmup (20 minutes)
• Long warmups (30-45 minutes)
• Example: Long warmup before hard training (25-30 minutes)
• Example: Race warmup (45 minutes)
• Example: Alternative short race warmup (20 minutes)
• Dynamic Warmup and Activation Exercises
• Do Masters athletes need a longer warmup?
• Creating a good dynamic warmup
• Time-Crunched Warmups and Race Start Corrals

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RESOURCES

1. EXAMPLE Warm up before hard Training: ~25-30min
   1. 10-15min of easy endurance spinning
   2. 3x1min FastPedals (high cadence, moderate power) with 1min RBI, spin easy for 2-3min then move on to
   3. 2x20s openers with 2-3min RBI
   4. Build into your main set, and have at it! 
      1. Good for a 90min session with hard, zone 4+ intervals
2. EXAMPLERace Warm Up: 45min
   1. 10-15min of easy endurance spinning
   2. 3x1min FastPedals (high cadence, moderate power) with 1min RBI
   3. 2x4min Threshold efforts with 3min RBI
   4. 2x20s openers with 2-3min RBI
   5. 5-10min easy spinning
3. EXAMPLE Simple Race Warm Up: 20min
   1. 7-10min easy endurance spinning 
   2. 3min build from Tempo to Threshold
   3. 2min easy 
   4. 1x20s Opener
   5. 3-5min easy spinning 

LINKS

• NSCA General and Specific Warm Up
• Golden Rule of Running: Never Skip the Warm-up
  
  

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform

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CONNECT WITH CTS

Website: trainright.com
Instagram: @cts_trainright
Twitter: @trainright
Facebook: @CTSAthlete