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Ollie Williams Senior Road Racing Cat 3

Personalised Performance Training for ALL

Giro Sardegna 2017

Ollie presented to me in July 2016 with the sole ambition of gaining top form for races in the 2017 season. Ollie had reached what he thought was his peak ability in 2015 having good results in the Tour of Cambridge, at the 6 stage Giro di Sardegna and Crystal Palace series. Suffering an injury in 2016 put a sizeable hole in his training, and Ollie felt he wasn’t able to get back up to speed in time for, and guarantee a stellar season ahead.

As the Giro di Sardegna was his first event of the year, our main focus was to reach prime form in time for April but also as a stepping stone for the other planned races throughout the summer. Ollie had maintained some consistent riding throughout the summer of 2016 which allowed us to lead him in to his programme strong, yet not fatigued from heavy racing or training. Because of this we had the luxury of extended resistance programme phases which would provide the stimulus for a vastly improved foundation to base endurance training on.

In parallel, Ollies weight was both his advantage and disadvantage as his absolute peak power was progressive, but power-to-weight would be a hindrance on steeper gradients…so we set about including a nutritional plan. Ollie assigned a nutritionist who was able to work well in coordinating food intake recommendations aligned with prescribed coaching activities. Over the final specific conditioning phase of Ollies training he had managed to decrease non-functional mass by 7kg, improve the quality of his lean muscle and still enjoy his preparatory period and training  camp break. With a vastly improved critical power curve at the longer duration end of the profile and confirmed positive direction (through BSX Insight measurement) of lactate threshold Ollies winter preparation was starting to pay dividends in time for the Giro di Sardegna 6 day event. There, he secured an exceptional result high in his age-group GC, maintaining his competitive edge each day.

Following on from achieving desired success with that objective Ollie prepared for a full-series of criterium and SERRL races…already achieving a 2nd place and finishing in the top 10 for his age group at the Tour of Cambridge, improving by 10 minutes on his time from 2 years prior. Now Ollie is anticipating a string of solid results, hopefully securing his Cat 2 license and continued progression after another productive preparatory period before 2018.

UPDATE October 2018: Ollie has had an exceptional season, and one of, if not the best of his recreationally competitive cycling career. Even though he didn’t succeed in securing his second Category race licence later in the year, to date his results at the London Ride 100 (4h 13min), and top 10 positions in several SERRL Road Races/ Cat 3 road races, plus a very solid result at the Albi World Champs in France (4hrs 18min) confirms he reached prime cycling for much of 2017. Ollie intends to capture his Cat 2 license early in 2018, which will free him up to exploit some bigger race goals throughout the season and keep him acheiving his cycling aspirations for yet another year.

PERFORMANCE COACHING