What’s the Trans Am? It’s a 4,200 miles, 6,800 km self-supported cycling event, where the clock doesn’t stop, that sees riders going from one side of America to the other, always eastwards apart from 2016. Abdullah Zeinab, who completed the 2019 race in 16 days, 9 hours, 56 minutes, is the quickest to finish.

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John, who lives out in Napa Valley, started on my coaching plan on May 29th 2023, with the stated aim of completing the Trans Am Bike Race in June, 2024.

He was 54 when he joined, weighed 97.5kg, and had an FTP of 150 watts. Though a serious triathlete up until some 17 years earlier, when he came to work with me, he was struggling to get in an easy 2 hour ride without feeling fatigued.

Fast forward 8 months and he’s knocking 7 hour rides out of the park, managing 20 hour weeks without any major issues, and his FTP stands at a rather brilliant 320 watts.

How did we get here? First of all I have to say that John has a bucket full of determination that has served him very well, evident when I had him do a half Everesting in October, as part of his program. Completed indoors in 9 hours at an average of 210 watts, he got through it without a hitch.

Determination and talent alone though won’t get an athlete from where John started to where he is today however. He’s also highly motivated - he works a regular 5-day, 8 hours a day week, and carves time out on work days when I ask him to get in rides over 2 hours. He also absorbs information and advice very well, and is willing to take on whatever I put into the plan, and I do my best to explain why we are doing what we are doing on our weekly calls.

He trusts me too, which is a crucial aspect of this whole process. He found me through the blogs of Mark Croker, whom I coached in the run-up to his successful TransAm back in 2017. You can read his testimonial here and access his own blog here. Mark’s success led John to reach out to me, and that’s how we got started.

Mark at the start in 2017.

…and Mark at the finish, with his son.

Mark’s training was somewhat different to John’s in that Mark had much more time all week to train, whereas John has only two days off work per week. As a result, I had to approach John’s plan with this in mind and to maximise the time on his days off, and make sure we utilised the smaller window of available time on week days, ensuring his plan was optimal for him.

This meant using the first months building his base up, increasing the duration of rides on his days off whilst also using the time available (usually 90 minutes) on work days to mix in higher end work, increasing John’s lactate threshold and his VO2, whilst also working on the mental side of things – to complete a TransAm, you have to be tough mentally.

In fact, to deal with the training required as the event draws closer – which involves a mixture of some longer 20 hour+ weeks with some short, very hard weeks – requires mental toughness too. A coach can’t make these demands on an athlete without first preparing that athlete for what’s to come.

I’ll be writing an article soon about how to train for endurance events such as the Trans Am, Race Across America and the TransContinental Race, and will be following this introductory article on John with more detailed articles on how we are getting him ready, in these final three months, for the start in Astoria, Oregon on June 2nd.

One thing I will say however is that there is a school of thought that recommends increasing the volume of riding each and every month as the main (if not only) requirement to be best prepared to undertake a ride like the TransAm. This is, in my opinion, a mistake, especially for the athlete that has a full time job.

Better results come from a more balanced approach, getting in long rides when time is available, and going harder and shorter when it is not. Sure, a week of 1000km or two is potentially a great thing, but this can not be sustained week in week out, and rest must be prioritised.

Another factor to consider in this regard is the stress and fatigue that the rider has put upon them when not on the bike – ie from work, the home, and life in general. This stuff doesn’t show up on the weekly stress scores on apps like TrainingPeaks and Strava, but ignore it and you can derail your training significantly.

So, back to John, who will be on three months to go before lift off in just two days time. We are moving into a critical time now, but we’ve covered all the bases we needed to to date: he’s improved immensely in terms of power, endurance and all-round ability, he can gauge short hard efforts and longer efforts very well and, crucially, he believes in this process and in his ability: building confidence in an athlete more or less defines what a good coach does.

We’ll get him to that line in Astoria. After that, he just has to get over the one in New York…

Simple… not easy!