If you love the idea of getting up off the couch and getting to grips with cycling but have no idea where to start, we have just the training plan for you. It doesn’t matter whether you used to cycle regularly in your younger years but have gotten out of practice in later life or if you’ve never completed a sportive in your life, stick to this schedule and we promise that you will be crushing it again within 10 short weeks.

Workouts are designed to be used on Zwift if you prefer to make sure you have a good time riding with friends while staying warm.

Endurance Miles (6 out of 10)
This is one of the primary workouts for building an aerobic energy system that will increase your endurance capabilities. Expected benefits include: increased size and strength in slow-twitch muscle fibers and increased stroke volume from your heart.

Tempo (7 out of 10)
It is important that you try to ride the entire length of the tempo workout with as few interruptions as possible. Tempo workouts should consist of consecutive riding at the prescribed intensity to achieve maximum benefit. Strategically placing tempo workouts into your training has many advantages: greater comfort while cruising on rolling terrain, better fuel utilization during long races, or rides, increased capacity for more intense workouts, better power at moderate intensities, increased muscle glycogen storage capacity and improved aerobic efficiency. While performing the tempo intervals you will want to stay in the saddle when you hit hills during your tempo workouts. This adds more pedal resistance and readies the connective tissues and supporting muscle groups before training heads into more explosive workouts.

Power Intervals (10 out of 10)
The goal is to increase power output during short, intense efforts; the goal of the workout is to produce the highest average power you can for the interval set. By doing so gains will be seen quickly in “lactate tolerance” or in other words, “your capacity to suffer.”