RAGBRAI Journal: A Basic Training Plan

RAGBRAI Training Plan

At this point, you've taken care of your registration, signed up for an East/West Shuttle, and are simply waiting to hear about parking options in the start or end town. Hopefully that doesn't mean that you are also waiting to get in the saddle by now.

If you have procrastinated and not gotten yourself into pedaling some sort of cycling machine yet, you are still okay. No need to panic. You do have time, but the time is now for you to get yourself into motion. As you will notice, you're only behind by 1 week of training since the Training Plan below starts on February 12th. But let's get on that training now!

Whether you are RAGBRAI newbie, or a veteran rider, you will need to train for this ride. Having a training plan is important... we all know that. But having a training plan that you can actually stick to is even more important. You don't want, nor can you afford, to have your RAGBRAI training plan go the way of your last New Year's Resolution. The training plan for this ride will likely carry over a 4 to 5 month period, so it has to be sustainable. And if I learned nothing else from my previous training plans, your cycling workouts have to work in the context of your daily routine.

Your training plan has to start with a boiler-plate

I knew nothing going into training for my first RAGBRAI. Yeah, I had done a few Sprint Triathlons. Yeah, I am comfortable riding a 30 miler on the greenway. Yeah, I had done a few 50k charity rides. But I hadn't done any multi-day rides. I hadn't done any 30 miler two days in a row. I certainly knew that racing was completely different than riding 30 or more miles. And I for sure knew that riding a good amount of miles over 7 consecutive days would take some serious training. But I needed some example. I needed some mental image in my head... of what training I should be doing... of how far I should be riding regularly... of how many weeks I would need to prepare. I needed that boiler-plate example of a training plan that actually worked for others.

Fortunately, such a training plan did, and still does, exist. And big surprise, it was sitting out there on the RAGBRAI website. That one example that helped start the formation of my mental image of what training for the RAGBRAI should be. It came in the form of a blog article written by Coach David Ertl, a certified USA Cycling Level 1 coach, entitled "RAGBRAI Training Plan". Go figure. I found it right there in plain site (and you can too) by navigating a web browser over to the RAGBRAI site under Training Blog and even some of his older plans listed under Training Archive. He even provides his annual RAGBRAI Training Plan in both PDF and Excel format. How cool is that?

A basic RAGBRAI Training Plan

Each year Coach Ertl tailors his training plan to align with both the mileage and the number of feet of climbing of the route. His plan is a customized 22-week plan (hopefully I counted correctly) that also serves as your personal training tracker. Based upon a 4-days-a-week workout regimen, it neatly organizes each week's training mileage that gradually increases your mileage as you lead up to the actual RAGBRAI ride.

You can find Coach Ertl's annual RAGBRAI training plan available for download in the article RAGBRAI Training: The 2024 RAGBRAI Training Plan is Here.

In this years Training Plan article, Coach Erl provides his training plan:

Click here for the PDF version of this training plan

Click here for the Excel version of this training plan

I recommend that you download the Excel version so that you can make modifications to the plan.

Below is a screenshot of the Excel format of Coach David Ertl's training plan.

As you can see from the screenshot above, this plan provides

• a recommended mileage row for each week of training

• an actual mileage row for you to track your efforts week-by-week

• recommended mileage for given days within each week

• recommended mileage for the longest ride for each week

• recommended total weekly ride mileage

Let me call out a 3 key points that you should take away when using Coach Ertl's training plan... actual points that Coach specifically mentions:

Firstly, this is just a guideline training plan.

Secondly, shoot to ride the total weekly mileage listed for each week.

Thirdly, shoot to ride the longest mileage listed for each week.

You honestly can't get a better starting point than this training plan. Be completely assured, Coach David's plan works. Just follow along, and it will get you to your goal.

Many thanks must go out to Coach David Ertl for sharing such a great starting point!

A training plan or a boiler-plate?

As Coach Ertl freely points out in his article, his training plan is but a guideline. He is clear to say that his training plan is designed with the novice rider in mind. But that does not, and should not, dissuade the more experienced riders from the using this training plan either. For some, this training plan might work for you... exactly as is. For you, this is your training plan. For other riders, parts of this plan might work, and still other parts of it might not. That is the whole point... for those riders it is a starting point. I call it a boiler-plate. So the way I look at it, it is both a training plan and a boiler-plate. You have to try things to find out what works, and you adjust what doesn't work. Using this plan doesn't make you a novice rider, nor does using a different training plan make you an experienced rider. All the training plan does is make you a better conditioned rider. That's it. Achieving your training goal is what you are after. Labels mean nothing here. This can be your training plan, or a boiler-plate to a variation that fits your needs. As I said at the top of this article.... "your cycling workouts have to work in the context of your daily routine". Find what works for you, and then just ride!!!!

Try it out for yourself. See what works for you.

I am incredibly grateful to Coach David Ertl for having published his RAGBRAI Training Plan back in 2016. That plan got me moving when I didn't know exactly where to start. It was my training plan then. And now, with a fair bit more experience, his plan is the boiler-plate from which all my future RAGBRAI training plans have derived. Thank you Coach David Ertl!!!

The journey continues.

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