A week in the life of pro-cyclist
Kinda pro-cyclist/gravel privateer, but you get my point
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I often write about racing, sponsorship, privateering, travelling the world, or how I plan to solve world peace. It’s rare that I talk about training, writing, or day-to-day life.
So, here it is.
I’m writing this on a Monday evening and it’s a relatively ‘normal’ week in winter.
Let me take you through my week.
Training
The most wonderful time of the year, not just because Christmas is around the corner, but because I’m allowed to ride long hours with no interruptions.
I, like almost every athlete, use a platform called TrainingPeaks where my coach uploads my weekly plan. TrainingPeaks is my bible, it rules my life.
Here’s a screenshot of my week. It’s pretty simple, nothing too special this time of year. My coach, Alex Welburn, always tells me that good training “isn’t sexy” and that’s a notion I subscribe to.
I’ve been riding bikes for more than a decade now, racing them for eight years. The older I get, and the better I get, the more I crave a simple training plan.
Monday is always my chilled one. It’s the day I catch-up on work calls, do my grocery shop, and try to chill out as much as possible. I sometimes do a ride, but it’s always super-duper easy.
Tuesday usually brings some easy efforts. On the plan I have 4x10mins at zone three. I’ll probably do what I refer to as my ‘work loop’ for this. It’s the Sant Hilari 4-hrs. I’ll probably scrap the official structure of 4x10mins and instead ride bottom-to-top of the two long climbs. That’ll work out as around 2x35mins at 335w. Coach Alex is pretty flexible with me altering bits and bobs, and that’s why I love him.
I’ll also head to the gym on Tuesday evening. That’s something I’ve started more of this off-season, and I do 2x1hr sessions per week.
[Ed, This didn’t work out at all. I woke up feeling groggy and sleepy. Went out to do my efforts, and ended up calling it quits after an hour. Came home, napped. Felt loads better after. Listening to the body is important]
Wednesday is simple - 4hrs endurance. This is nothing special, if I have time maybe I stretch it to 5hrs. Zone 2, keep it simple.
Thursday we welcome the torque efforts. Torque work has become quite the trend thanks to John Wakefield and co. I say welcome, they’re not my favourite efforts in the world, mainly because to do them well you have to do hill-reps of a relatively steep climb.
You don’t measure these based off power, but ‘torque’, there’s a setting on your power meter. I could explain more on here, but I’m not overly educated so it’s best if you read the article I linked at the top of this paragraph.
Here’s a 4-minute torque effort I did last week. I usually aim for 70-80Nm.
Friday is a more chilled day. This week, I’ll head to the gym at nine with my strength coach, Chris. Then it’ll be home for an hour or so before doing a couple of chill hours on the bike. I’ll hit La Menuda in Banyoles, they have the best cookie in Spain.
Saturday and Sunday are both long endurance rides. I’ll probably do one on the road bike, and one on the gravel bike. There’s a strong likelihood that one of them will turn into a six-hour ride, and an even stronger likelihood that I’ll stop at a cafe one of the days. December is a nice time to be a bike rider.
Company?
For those wondering, I’m usually 50|50 between training solo and training with a friend. I love riding solo, and if I’m doing intervals then I only ride solo (unless Riley Pickrell is home). On longer endurance rides, I like to find one other person, but it’s extremely rare that I ride in a group bigger than two.
Work and Life
There’s a lot more to life than just riding a bike though…
It’s a relatively quiet week off the bike and away from work as Maggie is at training camp with her new team, Human Powered Health. I’ll be plodding away with bits and bobs of freelance work, as well as building Lego.
Honestly, this calendar goes out of the window most days, it’s more to give my days some structure and make sure I have the key bits in. I mostly fill my calendar to see where I have time to put any work calls around my training and other commitments.
Training always comes first when planning my week. I input all of my sessions into my calendar, leaving an extra hour or so to give me time to shower, eat and chill out. Then any calls start to make their way in, then it’s other commitments, etc etc.
I’m always working on something. This winter it’s a little quieter than normal, but I’m still working for two freelance clients alongside racing and running my privateer stuff.
There are spreadsheets to build, equipment decisions to be made, and the search for the final little bit of sponsorship to make a couple of logistics easier. If anybody has a genius idea on how I can make all of my flights cheaper, I’m all ears!!!
There are bits that I don’t put in here too. There’ll inevitably be multiple visits to my favourite coffee shop in town, Oniria. There’ll inevitably be parts of the week where I end up napping, or days that I’m sitting writing past 9pm when I promised myself I’d read, build Lego, or watch a rom-com Christmas movie - they’re my guilty pleasure, don’t judge.
December through February is the only part of my year which has structure. It’s something I love when you consider I spend the other nine-months or so on the road
Weekly To-Do:
Kit Design
Sign final contracts
2x Freelance Pieces
Bike Fit
Send kit list to sponsors
Schedule and edit Substack
While you’re here…
I’ve added a paid subscription and a ‘Buy Me A Coffee’ link to this post. As the year progresses, I’m planning on building this blog and putting out articles which I’ve always wanted to write but for whatever reason, haven’t wanted to pitch.
Any money that I make from either my Substack or BMaC link will go straight back into supporting my 2025 racing project. I am planning on keeping all content on here free to view though.
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/joelaverick
Project TAG, proudly partnering (both for my athletic and influencing ability) with…
Very interesting so thanks for sharing. Clearly pro level with 24+ hours “scheduled” in Training Peaks!