RAGBRAI Training: Training Plan in Excel File

Several people have asked for Coach Ertl’s Training Plan in an excel file, so here it is RAGBRAI_Training_Plan_2013.

The most popular blogs every year is my training plan for preparing for RAGBRAI.  This has proven to be popular among riders.  So here is this year’s edition.  This is meant to be a guide, not necessary an absolute plan to be followed to a ‘T’.   The main thing it does is provides you with a target for the amount of riding you should be doing each week as you build up RAGBRAI.  The idea is to gradually build up distance each week and occasionally take an easier week to recover and rest.  While this plan has various miles on given days of the week, it doesn’t really matter which days you do these. If this doesn’t fit your schedule feel free to do these rides on other days. However, don’t try to jam it all in on weekends if you can avoid it. Try to ride 3-4 days a week.  It’s good to try to get a couple of shorter rides in during the week and then longer rides on the weekends.

While this plan doesn’t build you up to 400 miles of riding in a week (150 is the max), that is okay.  If you can work your way up to a 65 mile ride, with some other rides during the week, you should be able to handle RAGBRAI.  On RAGBRAI you don’t have to ride fast or hard.  You have many stops during the day and many chances to eat and drink, so your riding won’t need to be terribly strenuous, so you should be able to recover from day to day.  Sure, you will be fatigued as the week goes on, but as long as you take it fairly easy, you can ride day after day, once you build up the ability to ride a long distance in one day.

So if you haven’t been riding much yet, now is the time to get started.  RAGBRAI begins in three short months!  Build up gradually and you will be ready by July.

Coach David Ertl

David Ertl is a USA Cycling Level 1 (Elite) Coach. He coaches the Des Moines Cycle Club Race Team and is a national head coach for the the JDRF Ride To Cure Diabetes and he coaches individual cyclists. He also provides cycling training plans and ebooks at his website: http://www.CyclesportCoaching.com . He can be contacted at coach@cyclesportcoaching.com.

Click to access: RAGBRAI_Training_Plan_2013

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