The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

Training, Strategy, and Demands of Timed-Segment Racing vs. Traditional Racing

• CTS • Season 5 • Episode 276

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OVERVIEW
Timed-segment racing might be your new favorite competition format! Coach Adam Pulford and CTS Athlete Camilo Lopez discuss their experiences at Gran Fondo Maryland, which featured five timed-segments rather than a start-to-finish competition format. They reveal the key differences in effort level, physical demands, strategies, cycling skills, and even nutrition and pacing between timed-segment racing and start-to-finish racing. 

NOTE: The 2026 Gran Fondo National Series Calendar is live and registration is open for all six of their annual events, including the 2026 Gran Fondo National Championships.

Topics Covered In This Episode:

  • Demands of timed-segment racing
  • Demands of traditional start-to-finish racing
  • Race-winning strategies for timed-segment competitions
  • Why timed-segment races are more inclusive for many riders
  • Training for success in timed-segment racing
  • Training for success in traditional start-to-finish racing

Resources

Guest Bio:

Camilo Lopez is an accomplished cyclist and triathlete and winner of the 2025 Gran Fondo Maryland Gran Route competition. He is a CTS Athlete coached by Adam Pulford.

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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SPEAKER_00:

From the team at CTS, this is the Time Crunch Cyclist Podcast, our show dedicated to answering your training questions and providing actionable advice to help you improve your performance, even if you're strapped for time. I'm your host, Coach Adam Pulford, and I'm one of the over 50 professional coaches who make up the team at CTS. In each episode, I draw on our team's collective knowledge, other coaches, and experts in the field to provide you with the practical ways to get the most out of your training and ultimately become the best cyclist that you can be. Now, on to our show. Is time segment racing harder than traditional start line to finish line bike racing? I raced the USA Cycling Grand Fondo National Championships back in September. It had like five time segments on an 87-mile course and about 9,000 feet of climbing. I was completely worked over by the finish. It's just a different ball game. And maybe time segment grand fondos are something that you should put on your racing radar if you want a new challenge or if you haven't considered it before. Welcome back, Time Crunch fans. I'm your host, Coach Adam Pulford, and today we're going to discuss the differences in performance demands between Masters Road Racing and Fondo or segment racing formats, and the insights may surprise you. Along with me to unpack all of this is Camilo Lopez, Masters Racer and the 2025 Maryland Grand Fondo champion in the 4045 to 54 age group. Camilo, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you, Ian. It's a pleasure to be here with you today to discuss this.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yeah, it totally is. Uh full disclosure, Camilo is uh one of my best friends here in the DMV area. We ride together all the time. We talk a lot of bull crap back and forth, and we ride long miles and uh drink a lot of coffee. So uh I'm very uh good friends with Camilo, uh, but everybody listening is not. So, Camilo, could you tell our listeners a bit more about yourself? Like what do you do for work? Uh tell us about your family and how you got into this whole endurance goofy thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Of course I'm originally from Colombia. I've been riding bikes all my life, really. Started with mountain biking back in Colombia. Then I picked up, I moved to the US for school. I picked up rock climbing, rock climbing for many years, always kept cycling in the side. And in 2013, I started doing triathlons, got really into it. And the piece that I enjoyed the most was the bike. I always favored the bike, looked forward to riding the bike, so I realized I should just bike. And um moved into cycling in 2018 only cycling, and and I've been riding and and and racing since uh different types of of um events, uh gravel, um road races, some crits, and um some mountain biking too. So so pretty much all around. I have a full-time job, I work in a bank, I have two kids. So I one is 16 and the other one is is 10. Um so I do have uh time constraints for training and and and and things uh related to cycling, but but I find time and and I'm pretty motivated and I get to to cycle with my friends like you, and and and I have a blast. So yeah, that's my my background.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Uh to put some context, some mountain biking uh Camilo has done the Cape Epic and um has prevailed through that as well as some other uh pretty challenging things. But yeah, in that way, you know, it I I've talked about being time crunched and time rich. And I think a lot of us, you know, we kind of go back and forth between these time constraints in our life where we are, you know, short on time, we're traveling, we just can't ride for a week or something like that. And then other times we move stuff around in our schedule, we communicate with uh like our family and say, you know, we're going long um on Friday or Saturday. And when I when I tell Kristen that I'm riding with Camilo and we say it should be about four hours, she goes, Okay, I'll see you at sunset. So that's that's about how it works around here. Uh but Camilo, this is a pleasure. Um after the Maryland Grand Fondo race, I I mean, I was I was completely shelled, like I said, and we were talking about it, and we were just like going back and forth about like, man, this was crazy compared to like some of the masters level uh races that that we've been doing, but crazy in a different way. So let's let's give a backdrop, like very quick summary of how these two types of races are different. And and I should say, and we talked at noon on our on our group ride about how we need to focus on uh like traditional masters racing because there's categories there. Um it's it's start line to finish line, but it's different than crits, it's different than junior racing, who you know who you're racing, and of course, like professional racing. So let's just we'll keep it kind of focused on like masters road racing. And there we have mass starts categories, like I said, and sometimes you don't you don't know who's in your category, like you don't know exactly who you're racing, but you're racing the whole time, and the first one over the start line, or sorry, the first one over the finish line wins. So uh you know I mean that sounds very obvious, but anything that you want to add to uh just the the quick background of like the the master's road racing context and how we're gonna compare it to the the segment racing.

SPEAKER_02:

The master's road racing, it's simpler. You know, you know that you need to cross the finish line first or in the best position, and that's your position. That is not true in the segment racing. It's it's segments, and the segments are separated, could be they could be separated by a few miles or long miles. So you never know where you are until you finish. In a normal road race, you pretty much know where you finish. So a lot more tactics in the segment racing, more things to to consider in that regard. So so that's how I would say they're different, at least in how you approach them. But um a lot of similarities too, which we're gonna uh dig in later. And um usually segment or or at least the the grand fondos that I've done that are segment racing, they they tend to be longer events, you know, 80 miles plus. Uh well, road racing, master's road racing, at least in this area, tends to be 50-60 miles. On as much. So shorter distances. The um unfortunately, the the longer road races in in this region at least have have um not prevailed after after COVID, they never came back. So, or few came back, or most of them came back as gravel events, or uh the whole landscape changed. So if you like doing longer events, these timed grand fondos are a good uh venue for that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's a good point, and we'll get into some of those like performance determinants here in in a second, but I think that that is crucial kind of to it. Is like if you're like me and Camilo who prevail at longer stuff, less of a sprint, uh, you know, of a fondo or gravel, you know, we're we're gonna usually perform better um in that way, right? And with the fondo or segment racing, um, you know, it's also a mass start, but it starts neutral. Some masters road race will have a short neutral. Is it really neutral? That's always the question. Um, but again, you have the mass start, you have the each categories. It's also like really confusing, like who's who, what's what, all that kind of thing. So there's some similarities there, but then the racing uh for the segments um just themselves. So to put some context, is you roll out, it's neutral. Um, you blast it hard for four or five times, whatever the segments are, and you're regrouping along the way. Uh, you're you're stopping at aid stations, you're you're kind of like laughing and making jokes, uh, you're going to the bathroom. Like it is very, very chill in between the segments. But it is also like, yeah, I don't know, DEF CON one during the segments. Like it is, like I I hit some of my peak powers of all time this year, not gonna lie. And I am just like, why are we going so hard right now? Like blew my blew my mind. Like I never go that hard um in in masters racing unless I have to. And and I and I tell my athletes this uh all the time. I'm like, do as little as it takes to win in in a road race, right? Because we're conserving, we're drafting, we're being efficient. And if you're there at the right time, maybe it's just a little uh like you know, pop sprint around the corner, I win, right? Sometimes you need to completely gut yourself because you you made the break, you went solo. Maybe it's like Camilo at Poolsville a couple years ago, that's what he did, uh, went solo all the way to the victory, and and he went very hard on that one. So the the contrasts are very different. And I think, like in true like masters racing, there's there's more artistry to it, there's more feel to it. There's the drafting, you're reading the people, you're reading your competition, and again, like uh being efficient is crucial during these fondo and time segment races. You you're not even thinking about the next segment. You are basically just burning the ships. Is that right? Correct. Yeah, correct.

SPEAKER_02:

In in uh in road racing, you have to be paying attention the whole time, you have to be on the whole time, even though the pace, especially in masters racers, racing in this area, there's a lot of negative racing. It's like like like kind of like easy, cover a move, easy, easy, easy, and then a sprint. Some go like that, and then sometimes I I've come from masters races here, and I go way harder in a group, right? Right. So it even though it was a race, I didn't really, there was not a lot of racing. So that is not true in the in the segment type of racing, when you're in the segment, it's all out, and you're racing. So so in in that regard, it it's different, you know. Like in a road race, you never know. Uh now there's some other road races that are absolutely super hard, the whole pace, but it depends on the group, it depends on on who shows up and the dynamics of that particular race. In the segment racing, it's always hard. In the segment, you're you know you're gonna go hard, and you should go hard. Even if you drop people, you keep going. You don't you don't coast, you don't conserve. You go all out because you want to get the maximum amount of time in that segment. And to to be clear in this one, is you have, let's say, the the race we just did with the Ramfondo Marion. Yeah, it's five segments. Each segment is timed individually, and at the end, your time is the cumulative summatory of times from the five segments. So you're incentivized into get as much time as you can in between each segment. Even if you dropped everybody, you have an incentive to like go all out. In a road race, if you have 50 miles ahead and suddenly you know you have a 10-second gap, you're not incentivized into keep you know yourself at VO2 for 10 seconds because you're gonna get caught and you're gonna get out sprinted. So a lot more tactic strategy in a road race. And we'll discuss this later on some tactics in the Grand Fondo, but but it's it's different the way you would race them, for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, yep, yeah, exactly. And just a little bit of background on the the Grand Fondo National Series. Um, it's it's organized by uh I mean it the name of that company is Grand Fondo National Series, and it's used this time segment competition format since like uh 2012, I think. And the format it is becoming more popular among fondos and gravel races, even um in the US because it's generally more inclusive. Um you know, everybody anybody can show up, you can go hard even if you're not gonna go for the win, right? It's less intimidating. Um, I I think oftentimes road racing uh don't need to get into the culture of that, but it can be a little uh off-putting for somebody just like getting into it, especially if you don't have friends and kind of like a culture or group to roll up to the race with and and understand the layers of of racing and and um every everything that goes on with it. Um and I think oftentimes the the segment style or format that we're talking about, it's easier to integrate into communities uh across the nation because you don't have to close down roads or or have road enclosures or something like this. It's a little bit more like uh like the gravel scene where uh you know we release the route, here it is, follow it along, stay safe on the roads, that kind of thing. So again, it's gaining traction here. And uh Oatroot had uh had done that before in in the United States. And I remember this might go back to like 2010 or 2012. Um they had some it was amazing uh because you you get these epic, huge rides, you go hard in between, you find friends and you ride along the way. So overall, like I'm a big proponent of this this style of of racing or events, but I've never uh I've never gone this deep before, which which finally has got me thinking about all of this, which is why we're here with the podcast. Um so with that backdrop, Camilo, and we're kind of going along here because we're storytelling as well as getting into the juicy details of physiology. Let's talk about the performance demands of each of these things, masters road racing, and then the Fondo segment uh style racing. So we've already talked on the master style road racing being much more tactical throughout the entire race, drafting and efficiency prevail, uh pacing from start to finish. You need to titrate those efforts based on the gamification of what's going on in the race. And there's also limited feeding opportunities. You know, we we were we didn't talk about nutrition just yet, but like really it's like how much can I bring on my person and in my bottles and uh effectively uh drain the tank uh uh you know, with what I can get. Sometimes you can get a feed, but not all the time, right? So that's part of the strategy as well. And then uh the course dependent, like you can have a big FTP and that's helpful, but the sprintability is actually very crucial for most respect around here anyway, um, that doesn't have huge hill climbs, but that sprintability is crucial if you want to break away or win um something. Would you agree? 100%.

SPEAKER_02:

100% in in masters racing, especially in this particular area, uh the which is the mid-Atlantic region near Washington, DC, in this particular area, I would say having a good sprint is key to to win races. Well, in the Grand Fondo, uh I mean it's it's important to have it, but I I would say not one time I've won this race twice and and not because I'm sprinting. I'm not particularly good at sprinting. So the the sprinting ability is is a lot it's muted in in in in segment racing, while in in master's racing it's critical, I would say.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's it's critical. And you know, some people say, well, I live in Colorado or California where we have these big hill climbs. Um, sure, and that's where big FTP again, it's a very helpful and might be critical. It's course dependent, but you still need that sprint at the end, right? So then we get into the two other things which I think are are crucial and essential, are powerful repeatability in Masters Racing and durability. So can you perform late in the game, whether that's a sprint or a five-minute effort or something like that. So big FTP, helpful, not crucial, sprint, crucial, uh powerful repeatability, crucial durability, essential. Now with the fondo and segments, big FTP crucial.

SPEAKER_02:

No, no, I would say VO2 max. I would say I would say depending on depending on the on the distance of the segment. Obviously, you need to be we were talking about this today at midday, and it's obviously you need to be to to succeed in either, you have to be a solid rider. You you have to have an engine, for sure. In in both. So if some segments are short and not necessarily hilly, and some are really hilly, and then definitely your your watts per kilo are crucial. In a road race, the way you you race being in the right time at the right moment, covering the right move and and conserving energy might be you you can get away and win a race, effectively being a uh a weaker rider than several of the people in the in the in the Peloton. If you're smart, you can win the race. You don't need to be the strongest, you need to be smart. In sec in segment racing, I would say the strongest wins. I I that's that's what I've seen, at least in in the in the fields that I've seen, the people that that that have won, they're stronger than me. I mean, while not the same in Masters Racing, I get beat several times over and over by people that in regular group rights I would drop. So different it it's in that sense it's different.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I think I I mean definitely agree with you, like big VO2 prevails, but let let's let's call it how it is. VO2 Max is a higher aerobic marker, FTP is that high aerobic marker. So even for you, like when your FTP is its biggest, your VO2 max is also its biggest. You're you don't fluctuate in body weight all that much. So those two are are uh directly correlated. There, there is definitely a direct correlation between those two. And the person who is the strongest is kind of that hammer that can just like grind around. And these segments, too, um 15 minutes, five minutes, seven minutes, and thirty minutes-ish, 28 to 30 minutes, something like that. So they're they're they're not uh they're not ultra long, but they are long segments and they're not super short, sprinty stuff, right? So all of the all those durations that I talked about are uh how they would relate to what we talk about on this podcast in your physiology, is they are uh aerobic glycolytic energy systems. Still me aerobic, don't don't discredit that for being not hard. Aerobic is hard, but it is high aerobic glycolytic energy, right? And and so that's where FTP and VO2 max really shine through. And so that's what I want. So if you're training for all these things, I mean you you double down on that, right? And we'll get to how to train for this here in just just a second, just a second. But like um, I think that those if there's like big things that are difference between that are difference between the two, just because you're carrying a big FTP and you're rolling into Masters national championships, you ain't gonna win. But if you roll into uh Grand Fondo national championships, aka group ride national championships, as some people like talk about it, uh yeah, you're you're probably gonna have a good chance at prevailing.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And and I miss it, I I would say I misunderstood your your comment. And and I thought you meant riding at FTP. Oh yeah. I didn't mean the FTP. Obviously, FTP is critical for everything, but but what I what I mean, if you're writing at FTP in the segments, you're not you're not gonna win. You might. You might keep your FTP. Like you put the example of of of um Poolsville two years ago. I managed to break and then I wrote my FTP. And writing at my FTP, I was able because the group didn't organize, not because I was super fast, but because the group didn't organize to catch me, writing at my STP, I was able to stay away. So in a in the Grand Fondo, if I write my FTP, I I I get dropped. So I that's what I mean. Like, like while in the road race, only in certain specific moments you might have to go to your VO2. When there's attack, when you need to cover a move, uh, or or or something that you think it's it's it's important to not let go, and obviously at the end. But other than that, you you rarely are, yeah, I would say even above FTP, rarely, but but or at FTP.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, that's a good that's a good distinguisher because uh, like I said, efficiency in masters road racing and burn the ships in the segment. I can't tell you how hard like that was. Like honestly, like very hard. And I was just like, this is unsustainable, you guys. Like this, I don't I was blown away. Anyway, so real quick before we get into how to train for this. Um, clearly, coach needs to do more intervals here, uh, but everybody uh probably knows that. Um let's talk about the tactics of this the segment racing because you understand this and do this better than I do. I just kind of showed up and and went hard. Tell us about like the team tactics where if you got a team and you roll up, how you could do that. And also let's talk about the tactics of the the timing mat and how someone could gamify or optimize speed and performance on how the timing system works at these segment races.

SPEAKER_02:

So in a road race, if you if you if you're racing with a team, there's a lot of team tactics. You're racing with your team, and the whole idea is to get one of you of the team to win. You actually race as a team. In the grandfondo segments, this is less important precisely because it's segments. So a lot less team tactics that I've seen. Also in the in the Grand Fondo or in the so in the time segment format, you get, as you said, it's more inclusive, you get a lot more people, and you can get to the segments with a lot more people of all different age groups, but also different abilities. In the road race, you're already filtered at least by age, and as the road race goes by, people get you know dropped and and and the the hurt starts thinning. In the segments, you can go super hard in one segment, finish you know with the top group, but then things slow down in between the next segment, and everybody that's behind catches again. So usually you hit every segment with bigger groups. So that that also changes the the the dynamic of of the of the segment. So I would say when you go into a race, a road race, there's strategy. You you usually discuss the strategy with your with your team, what in what places it makes sense to attack depending on the on the profile of the of the course. You know who who's your strongest rider in that day, and and and you're gonna protect him or her, and then uh you race that way. In the segment, there's not really a lot of strategies. Just go as hard as you can in the segment and get as much time as you can. What the segment does have, the segment races don't have is tactics. There's there's a lot of like little things that are unrelated to your performance and to your fitness that can make you win very valuable seconds, and you can actually win the overall thanks to those tactics. So, for example, when there's when you're coming behind the group or with the group, whoever crosses first in the group and whoever crosses last in the group, you're already X amount of seconds behind that person in the segment. So if you manage to come last in the group or even give them like a five-second lead and then accelerate and catch them, effectively you made up that time. So you from the get-go, even though you finish at the exact same, you cross the finish line of the segment with the person that is first. If you entered last, you already made five or ten seconds potentially on that segment. If you multiply that by you know five segments, you might have gotten, you know, between 30 to 50 seconds if you're smart in how you do it. And and you see it in every race that people don't want to come in first. They're everybody's lagging. In fact, I heard in that in the in the in the recent uh national championship, um, a person that was coming into the second segment completely breaked, almost caused a crash, because he didn't want it to come first into the segment. He wanted other people to come first into the segment, precisely because of those seconds. So there's there's those tactics. I I might not agree with them, but they're part of the race, and you need to you need to keep them into consideration, especially if you're if if if you're not, you know, if if if you want to win and and and your competition is close to you, you can you you have to be smart about that.

SPEAKER_00:

Um yeah, just to build off that, yes, that happened like right in front of me and almost caused a pileup, and I'm like, what the heck, people? And then from there, the next I think two or three segments, I made my way like to the front because I'm like, I don't want to get crashed up by these jokers. So I did the exact opposite of what you should have done. Not knowing this, not knowing like how something works, right? I preached about that on the podcast before. Is like if you want to do something well, learn how it works. I got a hard lesson in how segment racing worked uh by uh doing it wrong. So in should have consulted with Coach Camilo before before the race.

SPEAKER_02:

It's it's I mean you see it, but but so that's why I was talking about like tactics and and and and and also you know, for example, if you if you do this segment in between segments, you ride chill. If you see a group that's going too hard, if it's a really good group, in between segments I'm saying, if it's a really good group, then it's worth you staying with them and maybe burning a little bit more energy to keep up with that group. But if it's not, which you see it all the time, people that just keep going, let it go and and and find the the the the four or five people that you know are good, and then you work with them in the segments. Because in the segment it doesn't matter if you finish the whole grandfondo first, that doesn't mean where you're gonna place. In I I know from we were talking about this today. I mean previous years they on this particular event, some some teams would let everybody go, start last, and they would do the segments by themselves with the team, the eight or ten people, friends, or or similar abilities, and they would crash because they don't have to deal with with anybody else. They have a good group working together, which at the end of the day is what's important in these segments, and you know they come last and then suddenly they they won everything. So in a road race, you don't see that. In a road race, if you're not in the front, that's it, you're done. So so you can play those tactics, you can play games depending on on where you are. And if you have friends and you know them, that goes a long way in segment racing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and and if you make good friends out there too, like not knowing anybody before, you make good friends, you go fast. Um, yeah, it's it's it's just really different, you know, than that uh kind of more clicky uh uh road racing uh style that that that is you know just in the in the road scene.

SPEAKER_02:

So it's exactly and and just to finish for but uh to give an example. Last year, I in the first segment I managed to break away from the group, and I knew I ended the first segment around 15 seconds ahead of the second and and or of the group that was behind. From there on, I knew I didn't need to do one second of work all day. All I needed to do was to cover whatever wheel was in front of me. That's it. So it completely changed the way I needed to race from there on, because I was just protecting my spot, protecting my my my delta that I made on my first segment. While on road on a road race, forget it about that. You you only know until the end, you have to be on your toes the whole way. So that's different tactics and and and on the segment racing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, wildly different tactics as I I uh man, you you're far more aware and smart than I am. I basically just went until I saw red and and uh headed to the snack station.

SPEAKER_02:

So it's more fun that way, I am for sure. I prefer I pre I I would prefer if road racing, master's road racing was that way, like balls out if we're gonna pay for a race, I want to race. That that's that's how I see it. I don't want to go and and and and sit on wheels and sprint. I um I'm paying and and we're not professionals. You know, we want to get the the hardest possible event possible. possible. So I I and that I do appreciate of segment racing, that you do get absolutely shelled by the end of the race. You're done. So so that that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean that's that's a great point. If you are somebody who basically uh values the the the suffering per dollar spent uh something like this uh it checks all the boxes for sure yes and for sure I I think if I could pick and choose what I would want in in a race it is the flowy like I've used this word gamification but it's the you know people working together in flow that know how to ride their bikes where maybe there's a pream or there's some sort of like hilltop finish and then there's also the sprint finish and you can gut yourself but also like try to win the race all at the same time that to to me that's it for me. I think the segment blasting yourself uh every uh I don't know 10 miles or something like that. I don't know man.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know if I'll do it again but it's hard it's it's races within a it is races within an event. So what you said at the beginning I think I think it's the key and it's it's very inclusive. You can do this segment and then regroup with your friends with with everybody that it's maybe not even interested in doing the event that they're just there to complete the the the distance and the elevation because you know 88 miles which was this year with around 9k of elevation that's a proper ride. That's a beautiful ride for everybody. Just to get to the finish line. And it's healy so some people do this just to do the event and that's fantastic. But with the added bonus that you could like do it with your friends that are actually racing the segments. So so you get the best of both worlds but it is five this particular event the the the one we did in Maryland it was five races within an event so you can choose if you race it or not. And if let's say you start and you're not feeling well then you you just keep doing the right and and you didn't lose your money or or or feel bad about it or or nothing. It's very inclusive in in that regard and and I do as we're talking about this I do appreciate that aspect of of the of this of this of the format and and and how it brings more people it's it's less intimidating. There's no categories there's no you know you don't need to be a member of USA cycling or or or things like that.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a good that's a good way to put it I I think that the the inclusive bit of it plus like man I'm not feeling it today sort of thing in the days not wasted you know versus oh I got lapped and I guess I'm out you know that so that that I that's a really interesting way to to look at it. I think two things that stood out to me when you when you're talking to is like I I met you know a lot of people and I I was riding with somebody where they're like yeah I live in the um blue ridge mountains and it's it's beautiful down there but this is this is like a different beautiful right and and I think when number one you have these epic rides in beautiful locations right and and it's new it can be different um and you get to experience that just first and foremost. But second is if you're racing sometimes like I've done LaRuda four or five times and there was one time I went down just to uh just to be the the director of the team that we brought down I learned more saw more realized more in the year that I went as a director versus the racer because the the race I mean you just are you know trying to get through point A to point B through the jungle don't die don't get you know where there's a snake all that kind of crap. Right it so the segments allow you to like chill it talk to people uh and experience like how beautiful stuff is and we ride up in Frederick often and I was like yeah I was noticing stuff too that I hadn't before so I think in that way there's all these other kind of opportunities um that go on with with a different style of racing like that.

SPEAKER_02:

So for for sure you talk to the people in between the segments because you still have to do you know the 50 miles in between we're in the with riding so you talk to people the people from all around come the in well the masters races at least in this area you tend to pretty much race with the same people all the time. Which is great too because then you actually know the wheels and and and for safety strategy. Correct and and and for strategy but but as we said for inclusiveness and and and and overall openness uh the segment racing is is it's a great format in that regard and and as you were pointing out kind of like the the gravel events that have gotten super popular and grown in popularity precisely because they they bring more of that community aspect into the into the writing and and and it's more friendly to to people that are just starting or want to dive into this or or not. Well the the racing they can be a little bit intimidating from the get go.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep yep that's it. So I I think now as we're just kind of starting to push toward the end of this is is like how to train for these two things right and let's start first with like masters road racing and the boring answer this the straight up boring answer is how to train for it well a general progressive overload periodization plan is good. Start with a base go build preparation then you get into the specific training stuff and there's there's intervals galore that we could talk about we'll mention a couple right now but go back to what I said about like the master's road racing it's it's an art it's a craft and so when people say what do I need to do to you know prepare for a poolsville or this road race or whatever you need to race your bike because racing is the best training for racing in my opinion okay because of the because of the artistry because of the craft and group rides hit don't get me wrong group rides are specific and they do well but you the it's kind of like this segment racing where there's there's on times and off times you can kind of mentally space out a little bit or you stop at the gas station and your buddies are there for 10 minutes doing whatever. And and so like group rides definitely hit but like racing like if you want to if you want to become a good racer you race. And that's should be in the space and and that builds over time and I'm not just saying like sign up for 80 road races in a year if you're a master and you'll be good. I do not advise that. But in that way it's it's a general progressive overload uh sort of approach. And the reason I say that too is is Camilo does a very good job of this but we maximize the aerobic capacity before we turn on the anaerobic intensity. Okay. And in and for Camilo he's he's one of these athletes that I I train kind of differently with I long leash on him because I know he's got good habits where it's high mileage keep this up and I've got kind of a set kind of boundary of where I'm keeping the CTL to make sure that he stays fit and when he decides to to do something we're eight weeks out from getting specific and pointy and fast. That's the the general strategy with with Camilo um so anything that you want to add to that in in the way of how we prep you for uh road racing or what works best for you or or something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

I think if the the the road racing requires more grip tactics and knowing how to ride in a pack very well and and being very safe or or or you know it's it's tighter it's faster and you're racing the whole time and and you're racing in downhills you're racing in uphills you're racing in flat well on the segments they tend to be uphill which slows down not all of them but most of them are uphill and that slows down the pace a lot making it a lot safer in in so if if let's say you're the type of person that you don't like group rights you you wanna you you don't like group rights or or or races because you think or regular races because you think they they can be dangerous which they can be and and and and you like look I'm 45 I have kids I want to be you know I I want to come home every day and be good but still do events segment racing is fantastic because you can do it with minimal skill of group tactics you still need to know how to how to draft and and and how to be safe and and everything but you don't need to be fantastic at it you you and and you see it actually you see it in the segment racing and I know some people that do very well and always write by themselves. So you can you can get by and do fantastic in these segment races without doing any other racing or writing in groups while the other way around you won't you can be I mean unless you're like amazing and you know because at the end of the day it's it's it's engine if you if you're like insane well yeah you're gonna come and drop everybody but but if you're you know like a normal master like you do need to race and you and you do need to to to to to get that um that specifics and and that was something for example that um I came from China and I had I could go long and I could go you know at at a tempo for a really long time but in the first group race I would join I would get dropped because because races are VO2 set up the the the breakaway and then you you you maintain so so it it's different in that regard too so definitely for masters racing racing and um and getting really good in in group tactics or in in group writing and and and tactics if you have a team. While all of that is not that important in it's important it's still relevant but not as relevant. I think we were talking about this today um I think if you wrote race a lot and you want to come into segment racing with some specific training and tweaks and tactics and and and just tweaks you can actually do very well but the other way around no so so it it it's it's kind of like segment racing is a sub of um road racing well if we went to do gravel racing completely different uh completely different now we're now that's completely that's a whole different category on everything you know like like if you come from a mountain biking background you're gonna if you have good cornering is the course is technical not technical it's a whole different thing but in this particular one if you're a good road racer you can be a fantastic segment racer but if you're a fantastic segment racer it you might not be a fantastic road racer.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah and it's and it's no dig to uh segment racing or people who prevail at segment racing but it's just the like I said the artistry the craftsmanship of road racing you know you can have you can get on you can be a ninja on the bike and win and do well but that means you probably have a lot of hay in the barn of racing and training also like in your background you just haven't trained a bunch uh recently right and and you can only be that ninja on things where um you know not huge hill climbs and all this kind of stuff but at some point like to be good you know at road racing it's that craftsmanship but then like what Camilo was saying is he had a big aerobic engine when him and I first met so the two places where we work on the specificity of training or kind of in the final stages are the power for repeatability and durability. So power for repeatability what do I mean what do I mean by that? It's kind of the on off repeat go hard maybe not max but hard short not full recovery then go again so uh an example workout might be 15 by one minute on and one minute off that power intervals those that's a a great road racing crit racing uh power for repeatability durability or power for repeatability workout some people might do speed intervals that are like 3030s i i think that if you're going for like race winning moves and and if you you know you're eight weeks out I'd go more like a minute on minute off minute on minute off that's going to get you pretty pretty durable in my opinion uh threshold with surges these are also good I just had an athlete um do a big one of this so one by 45 minute go and it was like like three and a half minutes like sub threshold or threshold so like 91 to 101% of FTP and then a hard uh surge that's maybe like 130 to 150 uh percent of FTP so like a VO2 power or like a zone five and we're just going low zone four mid zone five low zone four mid zone five back and forth like that with no recovery because again we're working on can I repeat this power and can I hold up over time.

SPEAKER_02:

And and for example you you mentioned earlier today that your best numbers some even from all time not even from this year from old time you put them in this past event and you race a lot and you've raised mountain biking gravel you just did tracker which I mean you you it it's not like you've been slacking so so you've been doing this and and in the group rating here you're always you know one of the first ones if not the first so so what why did you put the best numbers in a segment race right I do I so so it it it it versus because you've been racing so I think there's no race that I've done in this area or ever that I have to go for 25 minutes all out as much as hard as I can usually it's I go for five minutes until the break gets set and then and then you start working this so then the pace is harder right in be there's no lag in between so you need to be able to do that and as you said repeatability repeat but then keep a high here in here is insanity followed by 50 watts you know like that so so or as or as easy as you can make it and you have 7.5 watts or 7.1 watts per kilo and then 1.7 watts per kilo it's the the chillest you can call in between segments that's your your strategy so so but then you put all these insane numbers for you before and and for example you've mentioned this before it's in this event every year that I see your best numbers and it's good to have them because you can compare them with previous efforts. So because it's the same route the same segment so so it it's very good also as marker for athletes for for for everybody doing this segment event it's a fantastic marker because they the segments are the same and the efforts will be you can gauge your fitness year by year in those segments. Not true in a race you can finish a race first today 100 tomorrow and would have done way more effort placing 100. It depends on the group that came that day. So that's a good point so it it it I I think that's an interesting thing of segment racing it it gives you a good continued marker of of improvement or or it's cleaner that way it's less um this there's less disturbance I guess in the data you know it's it's it's I mean there's some you're still drafting and and and every time you have somebody stronger than you in front of you that motivates you so that helps. But in general I would say I've done this event like I don't know six times and I would say you know like the difference between timing in one segment another it's five seconds it's it's the variability is not big.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah yeah though those are all really good points and I I think too is is um I mean I just get more motivated for group rides like I I've done a lot of training I've done all the intervals I've ever wanted to do in my life and then some in and I'm just at a point right now where I'm not motivated for that but put me next to somebody and go uphill hell yeah let's go right that kind of thing. So I think it is uh yeah I had a big year that was front loaded by trackers so I got a lot of volume got a lot of hay in the barn it was hot as Hades for two months so I've got extra plasma volume as it just cooled down and the fall foliage is here. Same thing with you so I think like for a lot of us that have been riding and and um doing events and stuff like September hits really well around here for various reasons and uh producing the the that power like was really good. I did not know that until like I uploaded um stuff but I was just but then you you talk about uh some of these other tactics too that we didn't talk about too much and I don't know if we have time for it but like uh stupid Adam who's like man I'm gonna carb up and bottle you know 750 and you know all the because I didn't look at where the aid stations were I just rolled down from the house. Meanwhile Camilo is like running like cell phone and pocket one half a bottle just to get up hamburg because he knows there's a frickin' aid station on the backside then you fill up and then you go so I had an extra three pounds probably at the at least three three and a half pounds so if you want if you want to improve speed right there start thinking about what you actually have to carry look at the course map look at where the aid stations are and in segment racing you can stop there's no penalty for that and that will strategically improve your speed so if you learn anything from this podcast learn from Mr. Dummy over here just think ahead a little bit and you will uh go faster.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah more tactics and and just to to close it which we talked about at lunch and it's the nutrition in in a road race you you you have to bring all of your nutrition you might have the a a places where where you might be able to get a bottle from you know from from a feed station but the feed stations you have to be careful you miss bottles sometimes the whole group comes in and it's hard to get in I I I've definitely missed feed stations. So you need to be self-sufficient. You need to know that I might not get another bottle I I I need to be careful and bring obviously your your the the carbs or whatever your gels or any food that you're consuming. In this segment racing I didn't bring anything I stopped in every eight station I would drink a coke and a peanut butter and jelly keep going so it it it it's way fuel in my control exactly so you so you can so you can control it way more and and and and and you can eat whatever you want and and stop and and relax or stretch or go to the bathroom a lot of things that in a in a regular road race will impact you in here you don't have so that's another but that's exactly my mentality like the night before I was like okay like 87 miles 9,000 feet this will take me five hours I need like six gels two bottles and it was free up hamburg I was like that is when it hit me I was like God I'm going so fucking hard right now and I'm like I have two bottles right now.

SPEAKER_00:

God damn it those three pounds yeah that makes a difference really bad especially on yeah so so that's a that's another I would say important difference between one and the other yeah yeah yeah we are kind of bouncing around that my last note on like the the masters racing durability that's pretty hot topic right now I've gone I mean search for time crunch cyclist durability I've done three or four podcasts on this so you can um learn all you want on that but really what we're talking about is can you perform late in the game this is important for masters racing as well as segment racing but I would say most important for that masters just because you spend a lot of energy even though you're trying to conserve and then you have to perform late in the game for that that finishing sprint, the hill climb, whatever. So how you train for it, you do work right you do work and then go hard. So for masters level racing usually 1500 kilojoules is is usually what I see at least playing out here because we're racing 5060 maybe 70 miles. So 1500 kilojoules of aerobic work I think for some other people I also use 2000 kilojoules somewhere in there best way to identify is just go back and look at some race data and see before that final sprint uh how many kilojoules you're doing do that in an aerobic ride and then go five minute full tilt or do your sprint and work on producing power on tired legs within a workout that's how you improve durability. So uh segment training uh Camilo I I would say back to the old you know like the boring answer progressive overload periodization still prevails because again we want to we want to have a big aerobic engine we want to maximize aerobic capacity if you intensify before that which sometimes you may not have the time like the timing to do like sometimes you got to just go hard coming in because you want the intensity and specificity of it but like as much as you can as big of a runway as you can try to maximize aerobic capacity first then your intensive training will go a lot better but as we were talking about like this kind of the specifics of segment racing is like interval training it's just on off right exactly if if if you have to if you if you lived in an area where you cannot ride outside and you only have a trainer you can you can do you know specific intervals or or training in in your in your in your um turbo and and and do fantastic in on the day of the event the while in road racing it's it's it's more erratic. So and to that point like I was I met a lot of cool new people and I also listened to a lot of people and all the people that were kicking my ass that they were talking about how much training they were doing indoors and like yeah I did a four hour ride with like five intervals and one of them was like at the very end I'm like that's a pretty good workout for this I would never do that but that's a great workout I mean honestly because it is very specific right you you were with a very fast group you were with the with the with the with the point you know with the with the top people not only in the area but I would say in the nation in in that so so so I mean it's it's you know like like well I almost turned around went home so yeah no but but but I mean it it you were you were with with some very very legitimate riders uh that day so well henry neff also rode away from us who uh to to that point um Henry Neff is is one of the top juniors um uh in the nation going on to U-23s here soon but like that dude just he highest aerobic capacity of anybody there and and he won the ballgame um so again kind of coming back to that um high aerobic uh capacity get your FTP nice and big hit VO2 intervals going in so I mean we talked about these segments 15 uh it's not true the longest one was right around 30 minutes that's a little different because that one I would say also requires like pack riding skills like the the the more you can ride and also incentivize people to work with you that's crucial um that's good it I missed the boat on the fast group there because I was uh hanging out in the aid stations by the way eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I realized people were gone so that group the group that I was hanging out with the whole time they went 28 minutes I snuck on this other group and I was 32 and I was like yeah dang and that's how I lost the lost the game anyway and um yeah go ahead and just to add on that for sure if you if you're gonna do segment writing you need to pay attention which one's the good group because yeah a lot of the segments are draft dependent and the difference between going with one group and the you might do the exact same effort but in the other group go three minutes faster because they're of the draft so so you need to be paying attention at all times you can uh in in between you you cannot stay in the eight station two hours and and and then because then you're gonna lose the fast group so that's another tactical thing you know like find a good group stick with it all day yeah yeah that's that's it for sure and so if people are are interested in this too and like okay so what what is the best training? I mean honestly group rides are some of the best because you have these intermittent you know hard periods you you're riding with people and if if I can if I can like really advocate for anything is riding with people is super healthy for so many reasons because if you're if you're gonna do events you don't want to be the person you don't want to be the swervy dude or the swervy girl that runs into people and and causes problems right you also don't want to have so much anxiety about mass starts and people all over the place and all this kind of stuff. You want to know how to handle your machine you want to have confidence in that and yeah go hard up the hill but like the more you ride with people the more confidence and skills you'll have. So group rides full stop but on these riding with a friend Camilo is is great because he makes uh beautiful routes and they always incorporate hills throughout so find a friend like Camilo and have these long rides that are four to five hours that have hills and all you do is you ride hard on the hills endurance in the flats you stop every once in a while to get some cokes and that's a great training program. How hard I would go threshold but every once in a while go full tilt because again like these segments peak powers of my all time the second best peak powers of all time in three different categories I can't even remember right now but it's like they were very hard so you got to prepare for that and especially from the durability side of things is um a lot of people are cramping up because again it's full tilt and the final one was like 30 minutes long a lot of people cramping and then there's a little sprint um at the top of that. So replicate that for the specificity in your training but I think yeah you can really uh game the system by doing this stuff indoors for sure um indoor racing totally indoor courses where you just like pin it on the hills uh that'll definitely get the job done and you can train on the course and and you know the segments and and that helps I mean it that's true for a road race too you know that you can say oh yeah you can go on the course but if it's a flat race yeah you go on the course but you know like like it it's muted it they what's gonna make the difference is the group while in this segment the group will make a difference but if you have the chance to train in the course know where the the areas that are gonna get steeper or or or or the curves or or things it helps a lot too for for for and and you can train on the course which is fantastic and and and this particular course is is quite hilly so so that that that helps too. That's it yeah that that is absolutely it and and I don't you know because this is a fairly specific podcast about uh the the the the differences between these two like racing uh you know like uh situations uh I had a ton of fun talking to Camilo about this and like I said he's done this race so many times I don't mean this to be like a a billboard for this race in particular but I will mention that um we ride in this area a lot if Frederick Maryland is close to my heart because it just has uh good quiet roads gravel roads mountain bike trails it's a cool funky town uh put it on your radar to go at least visit but if if you you know if you want to try some of this time segment racing like this race is established and it's not going anywhere so you do need to qualify for the national championship version of it. So if you want to qualify um for the 2026 version uh go over to Grandfondo nationalseries.com um or you go to usacycling.org and you can click on the national series page um there and you can find a bunch of information about how to qualify um how to get in how this whole uh thing works but then there they also have the non-championship uh race which is what Camilo has done several times if you're not a US uh citizen or if you didn't qualify you can still come and race the same segments on the same course and the the uh the numbers um the segments get posted and so you can also kind of compare uh uh race to race it's super fun there's a good chill vibe afterwards food beer a good hangout in downtown um uh Frederick Maryland so kind of a shameless pug plug for what I consider to be uh a hometown sort of race so I I definitely want to mention that uh Camilo any shameless plugs you want to throw out there into the world no it's it's it's a fantastic race it's it's it's a local race and and and for anybody that is local that that has been thinking about like the this type of port it's worth it it's fun it's gonna be hard the it's less intimidating definitely try it and and and if the distance challenges you or or if if you're not comfortable with 88 miles they have other distances and and and they keep the segments so you can do shorter distances also um it I think it's a fantastic event uh that's why I keep doing it and and and and I think we should support our local events and races too if if if you know if we want them to keep continuing we complain that there's no more races but then we don't sign in the races that there are. So so so yeah yeah fantastic event. It's a very good point. I think that anybody, you know, listening to like also go to your like local uh racing venue and and you can go to the board there and say we want this type of racing if you don't have a segment style, or you know, do something local. I think that's first and foremost. I did mention and just to kind of broaden this, because again, not sponsored by the Grand Fondo National Series, but like uh I've done the Oatroot events that were in the United States for a while. They no longer are, but that was my first um like sampling of the segment style racing. I had a blast at road with friends, like I said, epic sort of like you know, views in Colorado, and I was like, God damn, this is uh this is fun. You have done some in Europe before, Camilo. So if people are like, well, there's no there's no um no fondos in my local area, and oh I can the timing doesn't work out for Frederick. Uh and if they want an international trip, I mean, are there any races off the top of your head that are segment style, like fondo-ish, that uh are uh on your mind that you've experienced before over in Europe?

SPEAKER_02:

I I think that's a that's an important differentiation, and it's and it's there's a lot of companies that are called Grand Fondo Something. And Grandfondo is a style of of racing which comes from Europe and it's basically a road race, a long helium road race. Point to point, not segments, long, long, hard, and there's so many of those in Europe. Fantastic races all around. Now the the the segment piece, I'm not gonna say it's new because I don't know, but but that's the first time I saw it was here in the United States. And I think it's for safety and also for for very many reasons, but also safety. You don't want people racing down those uh hills in in Frederick, you know, all out. It's dangerous. On top of that, you have to close everything, and and now it's a whole different uh logistical production. So the segments control that and keeps races within, keeps the race manageable or the racing piece of the event manageable. There's grand fondos all around, there's the UCI grand fondos, but those are point-to-point. Um so so don't let the Grand Fondo name make you think that it's a segment. No, you need to go in, you need to go in and look exactly what it is. The Grand Fondo, it's kind of like a blanket name at this point. For example, there's another company, Grand Fondo New York, and those are point-to-point. As far as I know, they're all point-to-point. I don't think they have segments. So so it really depends. My I my last shameless plug is there is another fantastic event in Frederick coming up October 25th, the Grand Fon Dieu. It's it's everything the Grand Fondo is, but without any of the racing. It's just full fun. But really hilly. I I super recommend it. Grandfundieu October 25th. And and this is with a company that you know well, Adam. They do a fantastic meeting, they have a fantastic mission, big fans of them. Um, so that's my shameless plug. The the Grand Fund.

SPEAKER_00:

This is this is why I love you. I'm I am glad you worked this in. Yes, uh, my neighbor Alex and her husband Chris actually listen to this podcast. We have been neighbors for like years up there in Frederick, and it was like just a couple months ago, Chris uh texted me. He's like, dude, I just found your podcast. This is awesome. And I'm like, really? And that's how like terrible I think I am at self-promotion. Either way, they run uh Dirty Kit and Gravel series, they they they run a bunch of races and events. Um she is, I think, still the manager at Bike Dr. Frederick. Uh, lovely people. They do so much in the cycling community in the cycling world. So if you're in the DMV and you want something just funky, different, and a challenge, uh, Grand Fondue. It is coming up here in October 25th. October 25th. October 25. Yeah, and it's it's hard, man. But like, yeah, you self-paced, really well-stocked aid stations, and you got anything there. You you have pavement, you got like champagne gravel, you have like the rockiest gravel I've ever seen in my life. You have single track.

SPEAKER_02:

Single track. You have grilled cheese, everything grilled cheese sandwiches, um cameras, pictures, and they give you the pictures afterwards. They um it really is a fantastic event. I I I yeah, I recommend it.

SPEAKER_00:

Highly I do too. Yes. Uh, so we'll link to our notes for the Grand Fondue. It is a little bit of everything, which is what but it is like 10,000 feet of climbing 100 miles. And uh, Camilo, if you stop for 45 minutes for a grilled cheese sandwich when it's 45 degrees out, I will not ride with you this year. Uh, but it is still one of the best events I think I've ever done with you. So, yeah. Yeah. Good. So uh with all that being said, I I really hope uh for all the listeners who are still listening, this is definitely a different uh duration of podcast. And but it's it's that storytelling and and it it sprinkled in some of the training and some of the like eye-opening things that I learned by by like shredding myself uh completely on some of these events. I I think that you're you're never too old, you're never too experienced to just learn more and think about things in different ways. And I think that this segment style racing that I I'll be honest with you, like I poo-pooed it like Grand Fondo segment style, that's not for me, but man, it was fun and it was different, you know, and I think too, it's like I I still love road racing more, I'll always do that more. But like this is uh this was fun, and and I'm and then as me and Camila were talking more, I was like, man, this we could talk about this like for because we were talking about it forever, just like the comparisons, and and then I I asked you because we had this Viet Velo, which was kind of more like a road racy thing. I was like, which one was harder? Grand uh the Grand Fondo championships or the Viet Velo, which was just like you were on the gas the whole time, like no stops on like it was very different, but it it hurt in a different way, too. You know, so uh anyway, Camilo, I've taken up way too much of your time. Thank you for coming on the podcast and talking for uh a thousand minutes about uh nerdy stuff. I really appreciate it. No, of course I haven't had a blast. Thank you very much for inviting me. All right, see you tomorrow at noon. Yes. Thanks for joining us on the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you want even more actionable training advice, head over to trainwright.com backslash newsletter and subscribe to our free weekly publication. Each week you'll get in depth training content that goes beyond what we cover here on the podcast that'll help you take your training to the next level. That's all for now. Until next time, train hard, train smart, train right.

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Adam Pulford

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