By Mara Abbott, Olympian and CTS Contributing Editor My junior year of college, I spent a semester enrolled at a university in Mérida, Mexico. In part, I considered it an experiment in what would happen if I went out in the Real World where sports (forever and always swimming and at the time only recently, …
By Syd Schulz CTS Athlete and Pro MTB Racer When I first started mountain biking, it used to make me miserable, like, somewhat frequently. This was because mountain biking is hard and starting new things is hard and also because I wasn’t very confident in my own abilities. As a result, perceived failures (OMG …
We’ve been helping athletes have great international cycling experiences for nearly 20 years, and right now Coach Adam Pulford is preparing to take 16 athletes to South Africa to compete in the Absa Cape Epic MTB stage race. Adam has led CTS teams all over the US as well as in South Africa, Chile, and …
Some days your well-planned schedule is going to go off the rails. Training is one of the first activities to get jettisoned when deadlines, emergencies, and dance recitals require our attention. Rather than skip training altogether, I have two 30-minute workouts that will help you stay on track. Consistency is perhaps even more important …
By Syd Schulz, CTS Athlete and Pro MTB Racer There I stood, again, at the top of the infamous Graveyard section at Angel Fire Bike Park for what felt like the 100th time. Ol’ Graveyard and I go way back. The first time I rode it was in 2013, in my first ever enduro race. …
In this episode of CTS Training Talks we cover: Developing season goals Identifying limiting factors like available training time Structuring a training plan around priority events CTS Senior Coach Clayton Feldman talks with Gayle Connell from the Naked Women’s Racing Team about identifying goals and building a plan that will lead to a successful season. …
Haute Route San Francisco (April 20-22), Haute Route Asheville (May 18-20), and especially the seven-day Mavic Haute Route Rockies (June 23-29) are all demanding multi-day events that require special attention to recovery. No matter how fit you are coming into one of these events, it’s critical you focus energy on recovery between stages. Here are …
Haute Route San Francisco (April 20-22), Haute Route Asheville (May 18-20), and Mavic Haute Route Rockies (June 23-29) are all coming up soon and we wanted to provide you with some guidance and training advice on how to prepare for challenging multi-day events like these. We recently sat down with former ProTour rider, 2x Pro …
The Mavic Haute Route Rockies is likely to represent a significant increase in your total weekly training volume and workload. In many cases, the event may be on your bike for TWICE as many hours as you normally ride in a week. As you’re preparing for the upcoming challenge, it is important to recognize that …
Whether you are a triathlete, runner, cyclist, or another endurance athlete you need accurate physiological data to guide and monitor your training by. Lactate threshold and VO2 Max are two of the most commonly, and effectively, used performance markers used by many athletes and coaches. The point is to learn the highest intensity at which …