Training Babble: Off-Road Insights for MTB and Gravel Cycling

Dominating Endurance Cycling on 10 Hours a Week with Alex Grant

December 10, 2019 Alex Grant Season 2 Episode 9
Training Babble: Off-Road Insights for MTB and Gravel Cycling
Dominating Endurance Cycling on 10 Hours a Week with Alex Grant
Show Notes

Alex Grant is a father to two young girls, a business owner, and closing in on 40 but he is not showing any signs of slowing down. In this episode, I talked to Alex to find out the secret to his success. Alex discusses the importance of strength training, quality over quantity, and prioritizing rest and recovery.

After the episode, I followed up with Alex because I still had some questions regarding what his typical training mix might look like. Alex mentioned that lunch rides were central to his plan as a busy athlete and that riding road probably accounts for 50-60% of his total cycling time each week. This is distributed among a gravel bike with fenders in the winter, riding his mountain bike to the trails, and pure road riding in the spring. 

In regards to a typical training week, he says that he generally sticks to a structure consisting of a Monday rest day, two days of quality structured work and then on the other days a short recovery spin and a light, short endurance ride. The weekend would generally be a hard Saturday designed to simulate the next goal event with an endurance ride Sunday.

When asked about his favorite workout Alex replied, "...endurance/recovery spins are the most consistent and important workouts I do. As for the real work, well I guess hot laps might be one of my favorite for XC MTB and Cyclocross training.  They can be structured in a variety of ways, but they are race-specific and fun."

To hear the rest of the interview listen to the full episode!



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