The Time-Crunched Cyclist Mini-Course:
How to Maximize Your Limited Training Time

► Section #6 - Create Your Time-Crunched Cyclist Action Plan

If you’re a Time-Crunched Cyclist, it’s time to make the most of the limited time you have and perform at your best.

Over the past decade, we have helped Time-Crunched Cyclists win criteriums and road races, mountain bike races, cyclocross races, and track races. We’ve helped athletes with limited training time finish ultra-endurance races like the Leadville 100, Unbound Gravel, SBT GRVL, and Cape Epic.

Being a Time-Crunched Cyclist doesn’t preclude you from pursuing your cycling goals. There are limitations, for sure, and you’re not going to win the Tour de France or set any world records. But you can get faster and stronger, increase your stamina, have lots of fun as a cyclist, and win plenty of local, regional, and even national-level events. 

What does a Time-Crunched Cyclist Training Program look like? Here’s a brief overview:

• Weekly training volume of 6 hours (option to increase to 8 hours)
• Commitment to 4 workouts per week
• 2-3 weekday workouts, each lasting 60-90 minutes
• 1-2 weekend workouts, each lasting 1-3 hours
• Time-Crunched Periodization - 11 weeks Build/Race Phases and 4-6 weeks Transition/Foundation Phases

 >> Download The TCC Mini-Course Worksheet Here <<

Step 1 - Write Out Your Goals

In our experience, Time-Crunched Cyclists stay engaged and make greater progress when they have concrete goals. Nebulous goals like “stay in shape” are not compelling enough to stand up against the encroachment of life’s other priorities.

Many people are familiar with the concept of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely). This is a good framework to use, but in the context of sporting goals, it is also important to distinguish between ‘process’ ‘performance’, and ‘outcome’ goals.

Process goals are things you can accomplish today, tomorrow, and next week. They include things like riding consistently four times per week, consuming, consuming 1-2 bottles of fluid per hour on the bike, and sticking to your bedtime and waketime routines. 

Performance goals are improvements in metrics that are largely under your control. They are typically the positive result of hitting your process goals over time. If increasing Functional Threshold Power by 15% within three months is one of your performance goals, you’ll get there by riding consistently, staying hydrated and fed during those rides, and getting high-quality sleep.

Other examples of performance goals include riding to the summit of a favorite climb 1 minute faster than last season, riding a technical section of trail without putting a foot down, or successfully redirecting focus during long efforts.

Outcome goals are the most unpredictable, but also the most motivating or personally valuable. These are the race victories, the age-group podiums, and finisher medals. You can nail your process goals and work toward performance goals on your own. However, the outcome of a competition is largely out of your control.

Try as you might, it can be affected by other people’s performances, the weather, mechanical issues, and crashes.  

It is important to create a full set of goals that includes process, performance, and outcome goals. At various times during the training process, the significance and power associated with these different goal types will vary. When your outcome goal is not powerful enough to get you out the door, your process or performance goal might be. 

Step 2 - Identify the Unique Demands of the Goal You Want to Achieve

The demands of your goals determine the specifics and focus of your training. If you are trying to get faster for a local criterium series, developing anaerobic capacity may be a higher priority for you than it would be for a Time-Crunched Cyclist aiming to complete the 100-mile route at SBT GRVL. 

General Guidelines

The first rule is to raise your aerobic fitness as high as possible. Fitness fixes problems, gives you options, and enables you to adapt to adversity.

The next priority is to manipulate your training to address the unique demands of your goal events. This can be a complex process for high-performance goals, but in addition to benefiting from great aerobic fitness, generally you can categorize the demands for the following common cycling events:

Short, high-intensity events: Events like criteriums, short track and cross-country mountain bike races, cyclocross races and circuit races fall into this category. They are characterized by repeated maximum-intensity efforts separated by very short and unpredictable periods of recovery.

Ideally, you need a bit of everything: high VO2 max, high FTP, great aerobic conditioning, high anaerobic capacity, and high sprint power. But, for Time-Crunched Cyclists who have decent fitness and want to tune up for criteriums, focus on increasing FTP and increasing anaerobic capacity for repeated max efforts.

Intermittent-intensity endurance events: These are your road races, gran fondos, and medium-distance gravel races or marathon mountain bike races. They typically last 2-6 hours and riders need the durability to sustain a high aerobic, sub-threshold power output for long periods of time.

They are referred to as ‘intermittent intensity’ because most of the time is spent at an endurance pace and below lactate threshold, but the critical parts that make a difference in the competition feature high-intensity efforts. This could be the formation of a breakaway, an attack on a big climb, the field splitting in crosswind, or when the speed ramps up in the final miles.

Aerobic conditioning and increasing FTP are going to be your main priorities, but it is important to incorporate harder efforts above lactate threshold. Some VO2 max and anaerobic capacity work will provide the power necessary for 1- to 5-minute extreme efforts that often make the difference between staying with the group or getting dropped (or dropping everyone else).

Ultradistance events: Long gravel and endurance mountain bike races fit into this category, along with multi-day cycling tours. Aerobic development and FTP will be the most important components of your fitness.

For Time-Crunched Cyclists, the challenge is creating time for some very long (5-7 hours) training rides. These don’t do very much for your fitness. The shorter workouts take care of that. Long rides are experiential training. They help you hone your hydration and nutrition strategies, bike fit, clothing choices, and mental strategies.

Obviously 5-7 hour rides seem out of character for a “Time-Crunched Cyclist” methodology because, if you had that kind of time, you wouldn’t be a Time-Crunched Cyclist. Yes, but we’re not talking about 5-7 hour rides each week. You only need to find the time for a handful of these rides throughout the preparation period leading up to your event.

Get Specific

Some events have very specific features that define their demands. The Leadville 100 has the climb to Columbine Mine at 12,500 feet above sea level. Unbound Gravel has 200 miles on rolling flint hills. The Snake Alley Criterium in Burlington, Iowa has a brick switchbacked climb every lap.

If you are preparing for a goal event that has a unique feature, incorporate specific training blocks to address those demands.

For instance, for Leadville that means long sustained climbing. For Unbound Gravel, you need to boost FTP as high as possible so your sub-threshold aerobic endurance pace improves. And for Snake Alley, you need the anaerobic capacity to withstand multiple maximum efforts with limited recovery.

Step 3 - Determine Available Training Time

If you are contemplating a Time-Crunched Cyclist training program, it’s likely you have 6-8 hours of available weekly training time. However, it’s important to get as specific and realistic as possible about the time you can devote to training.

Wishful thinking is one of the biggest mistakes Time-Crunched Cyclists make. You might hope for 8 hours of training per week, but if achieving 8 hours causes significant stress to your relationships, family time, sleep and recovery, and career, then it’s not worth it. 

A wiser approach is to be conservative about the time you have available for training. If you think you can squeeze in 8 hours, commit to 6. It is always easier to add time to a ride if possible than it is to deal with schedule conflicts on a regular basis. 

• Set baseline hours - First, you want to build your weekly training schedule around the number of hours you know you can reserve for training week after week. This is your baseline training availability. There may be a week here or there where you can’t achieve these hours, but those weeks should be anomalies.
  

• Identify higher-volume opportunities - Second, identify scenarios that could create opportunities for increased training time during some weeks. For instance, you may be able to commit to 6 hours of training on a weekly basis, but you know that you could make arrangements with work and your family to bump that up to 10 hours for a few weeks if necessary. These arrangements can include taking a half day at work or making some compromises with your family for a weekend. These longer weeks can be useful for focused endurance training blocks or specific long rides in preparation for ultraendurance events.

Step 4 - Create Your Weekly Workout Structure

At the same time you’re determining your baseline training hours you’ll also get a sense for the days of the week that will work best for your training.

Let’s say you can train on four days per week, for a total of 6 hours. You could spread the six hours evenly across four 90-minute workouts, or you could ride 60 minutes on two weekdays and split the remaining four hours across the weekend. You could schedule rides on consecutive days or separate workouts by one or more days. 

There is no perfect structure. The best option is the one that you’ll be able to stick with. Use the following steps to create the structure that works best for you:

Identify 2 Days for Interval Workouts Lasting 60-90 Minutes

You want to schedule interval workouts for days when you’ll be fresh and recovered from previous training sessions. This means the first interval workout of the week should come after a rest day. Incorporate at least one full day of rest or an endurance day between interval sessions. This is why many athletes end up scheduling intervals on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with rest days on Mondays and Wednesdays. If you are struggling to adequately recover between interval sessions, consider two days between them. This often manifests as a Tuesday and Friday interval schedule with an endurance ride on Wednesday or Thursday and another endurance ride on the weekend.

Identify 2 Days for Endurance Training, Each Lasting 1-3 Hours

Endurance rides can be scheduled back to back or on days between interval workouts. You can use the scheduling of endurance rides to change the concentration of training stress. For instance, a very common TIme-Crunched Cyclist schedule of Tuesday & Thursday interval workouts and Saturday & Sunday endurance rides concentrates aerobic training stress in a 2-day block. This also leaves time for complete rest days before and between interval days during the week.

A different strategy for scheduling endurance rides could include an endurance ride on Wednesday, between the two interval days. This creates a three-day training block, which can be very effective for concentrating training load.

This type of strategy works best when the intensity of the interval workouts is at or below FTP. This would not be recommended for most athletes during a period of VO2 max intervals or anaerobic capacity intervals.

Identify Opportunities for Indoor Cycling and Group Rides

Indoor cycling can expand the times of day you have available for training, and both indoor and outdoor group rides can provide opportunities for high-intensity workouts (e.g. e-races, race simulation group rides) or for social rides at an endurance pace. Virtual group rides are available almost any time of day or night, but your local outdoor group rides only happen at specific times.

What if you Have 5 Days Available for Training Instead of 4?

If you can add a day to your Time-Crunched Cyclist training plan, make it an endurance day. Two interval days per week are typically sufficient for moderately trained cyclists.

Some cyclists are able to add a third day of interval training, but we recommend working with a professional coach at that point because the risks for stress: recovery imbalances increase significantly.

Step 5 - Map Out Your Training Progression

Progression is one of the most important principles of training. In order to get faster and stronger, you must stress your physiology, allow for adequate recovery time, and support your body with sufficient energy. Your body adapts to increase your capacity for work so that subsequent exposure to the same physical demand is not as stressful to the system. You get faster and stronger. You make progress.

To continue making progress, your training activities need to apply greater stress than before. The challenge for Time-Crunched Cyclists is that you can’t increase physiological stress by adding training hours. Your time availability is maxed out. So, we have to change the stimulus by altering the type, intensity, and frequency of workouts.

Block Vs. Kitchen Sink Training

Block training focuses workouts on a narrow range of intensities to concentrate workload and training stimulus. “Kitchen sink” training is what many cyclists are accustomed to, which is a weekly training pattern that includes some endurance work, a threshold workout, a group ride, some sprints, and a climbing workout.

This method hits a little of everything, and can be highly effective for beginners because they have massive room for improvement in all areas. 

Time-Crunched Cyclists benefit from concentrating workload on a narrower range of intensities through block training. To improve power at FTP, for instance, you would focus both interval workouts for the week on FTP (e.g. 3 x 12-minute SteadyState intervals with 6 minutes easy spinning recovery between them). And you would continue focusing on FTP workouts for 2-4 weeks, rather than doing FTP this week and sprints next week and VO2 max intervals the week after that.

Block training focuses on one aspect of your fitness long enough that the concentration of training stress builds to the point it’s significant enough to cause a measurable adaptation. 

Creating Training Blocks

The current state of your fitness and the demands of your goal event will determine the type of training block you’re going to create. If you already have a reasonable aerobic base and your goal events are criteriums or cross-country mountain bike races, it might be time to focus on increasing FTP next, and then progress to VO2 max and/or anaerobic capacity work.

If your FTP is already high (e.g. 80% of your power at VO2 max), then it’s probably better to work on increasing VO2 max or focus on anaerobic capacity. 

Here are some guidelines for creating training blocks:

1. Schedule the hard stuff first. Whether you are creating a 2-day interval block within a week, a multi-day block of endurance rides, or even a multi-week block focused on power at FTP, in principle you want to start with the hardest efforts when you are freshest. If you have two interval days in one week, the first one should be harder or the two can be equal in terms of workload. This is especially true if the two interval days are back-to-back.
   
   Even when it comes to multi-week blocks of training, start with the training load high and gradually decrease the training load and increase the rest. This may seem counterintuitive to some athletes who have traditionally added intensity or volume on later days or later weeks. For instance, you may be accustomed to doing 2 x 15-minute FTP intervals one week and then adding interval time the next week to 2 x 20-minutes. But the time course for adaptation is longer than that, meaning your physiology hasn’t changed between those two workouts to suddenly enable you to do those extra 10 minutes at FTP on the second week.
   
   Instead, overload early in the training block when you are fresh after a rest period. Then, as fatigue builds, increase the rest between individual efforts, then the rest between interval days. Adaptation takes place over the course of weeks and months, not hours and days.
2. Creating ‘extensive’ or ‘intensive’ training blocks. An ‘extensive’ training block attempts to increase how long you can sustain a given effort level. An ‘intensive’ training block attempts to increase the power output for a given effort level. For example, extensive FTP training uses longer intervals (10-20 minutes) at the lower end of your FTP training range to increase the amount of time you can sustain efforts at FTP during events. The goal is to extend your time to exhaustion at that effort level. An example of intensive FTP training would be using shorter FTP intervals (6-10 minutes) at the upper end of your FTP range to increase the absolute power you can produce at FTP. Generally speaking, you’ll want to focus on intensive work first, then shift to extensive work once you have achieved an increase in power output.
3. Manage your training density. Training density describes the concentration or dispersion of your training efforts, particularly time-at-intensity. You could aim for 60 total minutes at FTP for a week, for instance, and schedule that into two back-to-back workouts of 3 x 10-minute FTP intervals. That means all your FTP work for the week was concentrated in two days. You could reduce the density by scheduling a rest day or endurance ride between the FTP workouts. Or two. On the flip side, you don’t want to leave too much time between focused time-at-intensity workouts because then you miss the opportunity for the training stimuli to build upon each other.
   
   Training density is important for Time-Crunched Cyclists because increasing the concentration of workload helps compensate for shorter rides that sometimes limit the number or duration of intervals. So, if you can’t schedule a ride long enough to perform 4 x 15-minute FTP intervals with 10 minutes of recovery between them, you might schedule 2 x 15-minute FTP interval workouts on back-to-back days. Are these the exact same training stimulus? No, but with training there are many routes to the same destination and consistent, high-quality work at a variety of intensities is more important than any specific workout architecture.
4. End training blocks when you reach diminishing returns. How long should you focus on any one aspect of training? The preceding examples have focused on power at FTP, so to know when it’s time to move on from a block of FTP training, look at your performance during interval workouts. As fatigue builds over the course of a multi-week training block, you’ll reach a point where either you can’t maintain the target power output or can’t finish the interval duration, or both. A bad day now and then can be accommodated, but if you underperform in 2 (maximum 3) workouts that specifically address the training block (FTP in this case), you’ve likely achieved all you can within the training block. It’s time to rest and then shift to your next training focus. 

Periodization and Long-Term Planning

Just as you need recovery periods between intervals, rest days between hard workouts, and rest weeks after focused blocks of training, you also need to plan your build periods and recovery periods. Build periods typically last 8-11 weeks and feature 2-3 focused training blocks, interspersed with multi-day recovery periods.

For example, you might have a goal event that’s a long endurance challenge (e.g. gravel race or gran fondo) on September 1. You’d want to work back from that by about 12 weeks. This gives you a week of rest/taper between the end of the build period and the event, and a little buffer in case life gets in the way at some point. 

The first training block could be 2-3 weeks featuring intensive FTP workouts, followed by 4-5 days pretty easy for recovery. The next block could be 2-3 weeks of extensive FTP workouts to bake in the training stimulus from the intensive work, followed by 5-7 days of recovery.

Then, you want the final block to be very event specific, so if it’s a long gravel event that may mean endurance and durability rides in the final weeks. Or if it’s a gran fondo with more intermittent intensity, perhaps some Speed Intervals (e.g. a few sets of 30 sec max, 30 seconds spinning, continuously for 6-8 minutes). 

Following the goal event, however, you’ll want to back off the intensity and incorporate 3-4 weeks of recovery and base endurance rides. This “transition period” can include some intensity from group rides occasionally, but should focus primarily on aerobic endurance and non-structured rides. Then turn your focus to another 8-11 weeks of build.

Adjusting Your Long-Term Plan

What if your goal events don’t neatly fall into the schedule above? That’s fine. Just follow the principles behind the structure:

• Create training blocks long enough to cause sufficient training stress. This typically means at least two weeks focusing training on a specific area (in addition to basic endurance rides)
• Give yourself adequate recovery within training blocks to keep your progress moving forward.
• Training build periods longer than about 12-16 weeks tend to be counterproductive for Time-Crunched Cyclists. You just don’t have the aerobic base to keep layering on the stress.
• Give yourself a minimum of 3 weeks between build periods to recover and reinforce your aerobic conditioning. 
• Build periods can be short, too. A single training block lasting 2-4 weeks between goal events can work.

Step 6  - Fill in Your Training Plan With Structured Interval Workouts

Coaches use a wide range of interval structures to address very specific aspects of a cyclist’s physiology and power profile. In this mini-course, we’re going to keep things simple because basic interval workouts built on proven sports science principles work very well.

The vast majority of your fitness will come from uncomplicated, easy-to-remember, simple-to-execute workouts like these Key CTS Workouts. (If you want access to 900+ pre-built structured workouts you can use in your training plan, consider signing up for a free trial of our TrainRight Membership.)

For each week in your training plan, you'll want to select interval workouts that address the intensity focus of that particular training block. For example, if in weeks 1-4 of your long-range training plan you're focusing on improving your FTP, you'll want to select workouts that address your threshold zone.

Keep in mind, you will need to adjust the interval duration and total interval workload volume for each work based on your current fitness level. Using a SteadyState interval workout as an example, a lower fitness level athlete might start with a 3 x 10 minute interval structure whereas a higher fitness level athlete might use a 3 x 20 minute interval structure. You can see that the higher fitness level athlete utilizes a longer interval duration and ends up with a higher total interval workload volume.

Step 7 - Perform CTS Field Test and Set Your Training Zones

Testing your fitness and setting your training zones is something you need to do at the start of a training plan, and also at pivotal points along your training journey. Completing the CTS Field Test and setting your zones provides you with power and heart rate ranges that work with your current fitness.

As you make progress, you will outgrow them. Six months from now, your power at FTP may be 10% higher than it is now. If your current FTP is 250 and it rises to 275, then to continue making progress you must adjust your training ranges based on your new FTP. 

When it comes to heart rate, you may notice some changes to FTP heart rate if you are a novice, but experienced cyclists don’t typically see large shifts in heart rate ranges as they gain fitness.  

How Often to Test FTP and Change Training Ranges

Training adaptations occur over the span of weeks and months, so it’s rare for athletes to benefit from testing FTP more than 3-4 times per year. It’s good to test at the beginning of a training season after a significant period of reduced training.

For many Northern Hemisphere athletes, this could mean testing in January after taking a rest period in the fall. It’s good to test again as you make the transition from the preparation period of training to the competition or specialization period of training. This is typically late spring for summertime athletes, and gives athletes a better picture of their performance capacities for events.

Some athletes will test once more in the spring or summer, particularly if they have specific high-performance goals. And then it’s good to test at the end of the competition/event season so you have a marker to measure against in the future. It’s also good to get a snapshot of your fitness as you enter a period of reduced training load so you can do enough time-at-intensity work to minimize performance declines.

What About the “New Threshold” Messages From Devices?

This is a question we get a lot from Time-Crunched Cyclists. If you have a TrainingPeaks account or one of many bike computers or wearable devices, you may receive notifications that you set a new FTP during a workout, or a new threshold heart rate. These can be fun notifications to receive, but we caution athletes against updating their training ranges based on the data from one workout.

You may have had an exceptional day. You could have been riding in a group or with a tailwind on a climb, or your power meter may not have recalibrated based on the temperature of the day. Heart rate monitors sometimes glitch, or your heart rate was affected by hydration status, caffeine, stress, or the adrenaline of a race. Even field testing, like the CTS Field Test or a 20-minute time trial FTP Test, can skew high or low depending on the environment, the terrain, how rested you are, etc. 

As coaches, when we see a jump of 5-10% or more in something like power at FTP, we typically look at performances over a period of weeks to see if that increase makes sense in context. Ask yourself the question, “If I raise my training ranges based on this new FTP value, will I be able to train effectively (e.g. complete interval workouts) at the new target power outputs?” Or, go ahead and try it to see. If your perceived exertion is elevated way above where it should be for FTP (about an 8 out of 10), your breathing is out of control panting, and your heart rate is sky high, then the “new FTP” probably isn’t warranted.  

Step 8 - Go Have Fun!

The most important thing to do with fitness is to use it! Go out and push yourself, sign up for events, design your own challenges. Keeping cyclists engaged in the sport they love was one of the biggest motivations behind creating “The Time-Crunched Cyclist” books and methodology. We want you to enjoy being a cyclist, and that means performing at a level where you feel fast, strong, and confident. 

Are there limitations to Time-Crunched Cyclist fitness? Yes. We’ve often referred to it as “The 3-Hour Limit”, meaning you are likely to perform best in events and rides that last less than three hours.

Fortunately, this covers a huge range of bike races, charity rides, and group rides. The 3-hour limit simply recognizes that training 6-8 hours a week won’t develop the same depth of aerobic fitness that training 12-16 hours a week will. Athletes on higher-volume training plans will be able to repeat more high-intensity efforts than you can during a race, for instance, so to be competitive you’ll need to be smart about when you make big efforts.

But remember, races are won by athletes who use their power at the right times and for the right opportunities, not just by riders who have more power or endurance!