Are you gearing up for a major XCO or XC mountain bike race this summer? Maybe you’re eyeing the USA or Canadian National championships in July?
How to Prepare for a MTB RACE
Let’s look at how you can prepare over the next 3 months to thrive in your goal mountain bike race as an adult, masters cyclist.
Your goal is to race a mountain bike for 75-180 minutes so the most obvious way to train is to ride your mountain bike for a few hours. This need to mountain bike quickly and for extended periods is obvious but often overlooked or skipped. To race a mountain bike well you need to be on the mountain bike often and doing some of your intervals on the mountain bike. Most of the adult riders we work with will get 2 mountain bike workouts in each week and maybe one additional session doing intervals on their mountain bike.
You might do a weekly structure like the below most weeks:
- Monday – rest/yoga
- Tuesday – 90-120 minutes w. 8 x 30 sec at race pace
- Wednesday – 90-120min w. 4 x 8 min fast climbing (or mostly climbing). This could be road, gravel or mtb on steady climb/section.
- Thursday – 90-180min road endurance focus
- Friday – rest or light cross-train/yoga. Some may ride here as well depending on recovery needs.
- Saturday – Bike hard on trails – e.g. 3hrs w. 2-3 x 10-20 min moderate efforts on mixed terrain
- Sunday – Long road/gravel endurance, some weeks this can be an additional longer, fun mtb ride.
Month One Focus – Skills and Endurance
With 3 months before your race you can aim to build more endurance/fitness with longer rides and more moderate intervals (e.g. sweet spot). Skills practice is important this far out when the risks of crashing and urgency of races are further out. Don’t wait to learn drops the week of the race! Get help with skills sessions and by purposefully going to trails with challenging obstacles for you, or event specific challenges.
Month Two Focus – Build Speed and Race Tactics
With 2 months until your race you should start having more race like intensity, including sprinting and anaerobic or VO2Max efforts. Often missed in this period is the benefit of group riding on the mtb or road bike to gain tactical and technical experience, including drafting. The social comparison and influence is something that is stressful for many athletes and so getting used to riding with other people before race day can be hugely performance enhancing.
Month Three Focus – Fitness Utilization & Competition
As you get to the month of your big race there is often more racing on the weekends or more race specific workouts, such as offroad time-trials or specfic intervals like VO2 Hill repetitions with a technical mountain bike descent recovery. The key is that your training is getting to look a lot like a race and might even include a few ‘B-Priority’ races to help you get into the race mindset before you race. You will want to be very careful to not spend extra energy on moderate workouts or extended workouts that create fatigue but not specific fitness. Remember your goal is to be ‘fit for the task’ not tired and this last month is often the most challenging due to the race stress and reduced training loads.
Need a Mountain Bike Training Plan?
If you want your training laid out for you then consider one of our training plans, which take a goal like racing in an XCO race in 3 months and help guide you there. You get scheduled rest days and weeks along with workout ideas that will push you to your best fitness for race day. Our XCO Build Training Plan incorporates workouts that have propelled top master’s racers to clinch National and Provincial championships. Plus, you’ll find some of Coach Peter’s personal favorite routines that he swears by in his own training regime!
Get our 3 month XCO MTB Build Training Plan on Training Peaks
