Reviewing Your Season: Look Back to Move Forwards

We’ve passed the autumnal equinox and it’s a good time to take a look back at your spring and summer of cycling and start planning forward through the winter and towards next spring, summer and hopefully some exciting events and goals. In all aspects of life, including your cycling, honest reflection and then using this to improve is a key to success.

Look back

How did your target events go? Did you hit your goals? Did you stay illness/injury free and did you stay motivated and enjoying your riding? If yes, amazing, keep doing what you’re doing but I’m yet to meet a rider who was 100% content with how their year had gone and didn’t feel that they could make some improvements - remember, reflection has to be honest!

If not, what can you do differently?

RELATED: How to Use Strava’s Fitness & Freshness Tool

Look at your Fitness/Freshness Graph

Especially if you use a power meter (if not, why not?!), the data from this is invaluable for analyzing your year. Your Fitness/Freshness graph can show you where you were throughout the year - especially in the lead-up to your target events.

We’re looking, in general, for a constant cycle of three weeks of gradually building training load, followed by an easier “recovery week” to allow your body to make the physiological changes that result in you becoming stronger. Did you do this or did you make the mistake of just piling on the training relentlessly in the pursuit of an ever-increasing Fitness?

In the lead into your target events, you should also have had a taper period of one or two weeks where you dialed down the training, took the hit on your Fitness score but saw your Freshness score increase. Again, did you do this or did you fall into the trap of “panic training” right up until the event, cramming in “one more long ride” and turning up to the start line with fatigue in your legs?

In summary, in terms of performance, you only get the benefit of your Fitness score if your Freshness score is high too.

RELATED: How to Create Effective Training and Performance Goals

Was your training realistic/effective?

Looking right back to the winter of 23/24, through spring and into summer. Were you filling that three weeks on and one week off? Was your training consistent or were you on a cycle of binge and bust training due to injury, illness or failing motivation?

For most riders, the key to a successful year of riding is not to overdo things during the winter in the name of "winter base training”. This approach is highly ineffective for most riders, especially time-pressed amateurs and the low-intensity/high-volume approach to winter training should definitely be avoided.

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Were your goals/targets realistic?

Goals, whether event or training-based, need to be challenging but they also need to be realistic. If they’re not and keep failing to reach them, you’ll simply become demotivated. A classic example of this is riders who plan a mega winter of training and then, when life, work, family, injury and illness kick in and they start missing their targets, they fall off the wagon and end up not training at all. It’s vital that you factor in those non-riding factors, see them as “loads” and don’t set the bar too high for yourself. Something consistent is always better than everything occasionally.

Taking some time off

The temptation, especially if you’ve had a great summer of riding, is to plough straight into your winter training but I always recommend to the riders I work with that they take some time off from structured training.

RELATED? Cyclocross: A Fun & Effective Way To Maintain Winter Fitness

Plan forwards

What you plan will vary massively depending on your goals for 2025 but, if for example, you’re looking at July Sportive/Gran Fondo as your main target event, it might seem a long way off, but it’s only roughly 40 weeks away. Allow yourself a few weeks off structured training - always a good idea as I’ve already mentioned, maybe losing a few weeks due to Christmas, inevitable cold/flu, or a holiday and you’re suddenly down to 36 weeks or, in terms of training, X3 12-week blocks - alternating 3 weeks on and one-week recovery.

Block 1, through to the New Year, should focus on strength, mobility, some mid-range higher intensity efforts and keeping your endurance ticking over. As I’ve mentioned, there’s no need for massive slow and steady winter mileage in the name of “base building”. This period is about consistency and, most importantly, staying healthy. Racing some cyclocross is a great way to maintain intensity, develop your bike handling skills and have fun.

Block 2, should carry on from Block 1. You might want to start upping the volume a bit but, given that this is likely to be the worst time of year weather-wise, again, there’s no need for big miles. I’d actually up the intensity a bit, increase your engine capacity, and wait for spring to up your volume.

Block 3, through spring and into summer - this is when I’d start doing some solid endurance rides, sportives, and back-to-back long days if your event is multi-day.

Do you need some help?

That honesty and objectivity of reflection can be really hard and, even if you’re an experienced rider with loads of training knowledge, taking a step back, analyzing your performances and training, and making a plan moving forwards can be difficult. I know I’ve struggled in the past and my most successful years have been when I’ve put myself in the hands of a coach, given them control, and trusted their judgment. As I said in my Best Bang For Your Buck Bike Upgrades Blog, getting a coach is high on my list and definitely worth foregoing any shiny carbon bling for!