Three minutes. Every 7 to 10 days. That is the test John Wakefield runs on his athletes at Team Bora-Hansgrohe to know whether the training is sticking. Most amateurs find out six weeks later when the next FTP test goes the wrong way.
Wakefield coaches Primož Roglič and Jai Hindley. Before Bora he was at UAE Team Emirates and at Science to Sport, where he turned Matt Beers and Ashleigh Moolman Pasio into world-class gravel and stage-race riders. He spent 45 minutes on the Roadman podcast breaking down how he would actually build a plan for an amateur targeting Badlands, Unbound, or Traka.
Listen to the full conversation on the Roadman Cycling Podcast →
This is not the WorldTour version of generic ultra training advice. It is specific. It has named protocols. And most of it translates straight into a 6-to-10 hour amateur week if you know what to look for.
The Fatigue Test Most Amateurs Have Never Run
Wakefield builds his training week around a submaximal fatigue test his team adapted from the Lambert protocol. The athlete rides three minutes at a prescribed power somewhere between threshold and 110% of threshold. Then they fill out a short questionnaire — RPE, time to exertion, sleep, mood, body weight. That data feeds back to him.
He runs it every 7 to 10 days. Inside the first 10 minutes of a session that was already on the calendar. No lab. No lactate strips. No mid-week disruption.
Six weeks of training without a check-in is six weeks of guessing. By the time most amateurs realise the load is wrong, the season is gone. A three-minute pulse every week or so tells him whether the stimulus is right, whether the athlete is digging in, or whether they have already plateaued.
Wakefield says when athletes report the questionnaire accurately, it is almost bulletproof. When they cheat it, you spot it quickly because the metrics stop correlating — which is also useful information about the athlete in front of you.
If you train with a coach, ask them about adding a weekly pulse like this to your TrainingPeaks file. If you self-coach, the simpler version is honest journalling around a repeatable interval. You are not waiting six weeks to find out whether the plan worked.
Why Volume Is Not the Answer for Six Hours a Week
A common amateur question Anthony put to him directly. 780 km of gravel over three days, six hours a week to train, when does the coach refuse the job?
Wakefield does not refuse. He rephrases.
The limiter is not hours per week. It is consistency. He looks at whether the athlete will actually do the six hours he prescribes, or whether Tuesday gets done and Thursday gets bumped because of school pickup. Deliver six out of six and there is something to work with. Four out of six on a good week and the conversation changes.
Quality over quantity is right, but it has a hidden requirement. Quality stimulus only stacks if you turn up.
Torque Is Not Optional for Ultras
Look at the cadence trace from any 200km gravel race in the second half of the day. It drops. Then it drops again. By the back end of Badlands a rider is no longer turning the pedals at 95 rpm. They are grinding through torque.
Wakefield's words on this are direct. "When that fatigue kicks in you need to revert to torque to keep going." Power is lower. Torque is higher. The bike still moves forward.
So he trains it. Off the bike in the gym. On the bike with low-cadence strength efforts. From day one. Not a final-block addition. Baked in across the year.
If you have ignored low-cadence work because the watts look unimpressive, you are missing the part that holds the rest of the engine together at hour 14. Our low-cadence torque intervals guide walks through how to programme it inside an existing week, and the strength training guide covers the gym side.
The Periodisation Question
Asked about reverse periodisation — intensity early, volume later — Wakefield is blunt for first-time ultra riders. No. Build the way you would build for any serious aerobic event. Base. Pre-comp. Higher intensity. Taper. Three weeks on, one off, or four-on-one if the athlete can take the load.
Reverse works for a small subset of riders who already have a huge aerobic base and need only the sharpening. The amateur preparing for their first Badlands is not that rider. Case for and against is in our reverse periodisation guide. The periodisation plan guide and how to periodise a cycling season cover the practical templates.
Sprints Still Matter, Even for 780km
Counter-intuitive moment in the conversation. If your event averages 190 watts and you barely see 800-watt spikes in the file, why bother with sprint work?
Because the ceiling sets the floor. Wakefield wants the V̇O₂max raised, the threshold raised, the metabolic phase improved. None of which happens if the only stimulus you ever apply is sub-threshold. Pull the top of the curve up and everything underneath gets easier. If the only intervals on your calendar are sweet-spot, you are leaving free watts on the table. The V̇O₂max intervals guide is the place to start.
Sustainable Power Beats Aggressive Aero
Anthony brought up Dylan Johnson's argument that slower riders should care more about aerodynamics, because they are out there longer. Wakefield's answer cut against it.
Aero only counts if you can hold the position. An age-group rider in a position they cannot sustain past hour two has given back the watts they should have spent on staying low, and added muscular fatigue on top.
His preference for amateurs targeting ultras is sustainable comfort over aggressive position. 220 watts in a tolerable position for the full event beats 230 watts in a position you bail on at hour four.
This is not an argument against aero. It is an argument against bike-fit theatre. If you are going to pay for a fit before Badlands, brief the fitter on the position you can actually hold for 14 hours, not the one that looks fast in a wind tunnel for ten seconds. Our aero versus weight piece covers where the marginal gains actually live for amateurs.
The Carb Conversation, Pro to Amateur
The high-carb arms race in the WorldTour has trickled down. Anthony asked whether ultras need 120 to 180 grams per hour the way one-day road races now do.
Wakefield's read. Yes and no. With one of his ultra athletes he moved fueling from 90 g/hr up to 130 g/hr and saw a major performance improvement. Going beyond that hits two ceilings — gut absorption, and the practical reality that after 72 hours of sleep deprivation, eating solid food becomes physiologically hard.
His specific fix for that athlete in the back end of a multi-day was switching part of the fuel mix to high-density baby formula and slurries. Easier on the stomach. Easier to carry. Same carb density. The grams-per-hour number is only useful if the athlete can get them in.
Our in-ride nutrition guide and the Badlands fueling breakdown cover the practical side.
The Hardest Sentence in the Episode
Wakefield said something near the end that the time-crunched amateur audience needs to read twice. Sometimes the answer for an over-committed amateur is to do less.
He was talking about riders who have the income, the brain, and the obsession to do more than the WorldTour pros he coaches. Not paid to train, but training as if they are. He sees the data. He sees them collapse.
The fixable part is rarely an extra interval. It is the second job, the late-night admin, the stress about whether the kilo of body weight is still sitting where it should. Stack training stress on top of life stress without acknowledging the second one and the body responds the only way it can. It stops adapting.
When he is asked about recovery tools — ice baths, compression, ketones, foam rollers — his summary is one word. Rest. The kit list is mostly placebo, and a placebo you believe in is worth using if it gets you to recover. But the load-bearing variable is whether you let the body have the gap it needs to absorb the work.
What Amateur Cyclists Can Actually Take From This
You are not going to coach Roglič. You probably are not going to win Badlands either. The principles still translate.
1. Run a weekly fatigue check. A repeatable short interval, the same questions afterwards, an honest log. No lab needed. Consistency in measurement is the point.
2. Train torque from day one. Low cadence on the bike. Compound lifts off it. Not a final-block addition. A foundation.
3. Periodise the conventional way for your first ultra. Base into intensity into specificity into taper. Reverse is a tool for a specific kind of already-trained athlete.
4. Keep the top of the curve sharp. Even if your event is sub-threshold, V̇O₂ work pulls everything up under it.
5. Pick a position you can hold. The fit conversation is for the position you survive in, not the one that looks fastest empty.
6. Fuel the work. 90 to 130 grams per hour is realistic and trainable. Plan the late-race fueling switch before you get to hour 50.
7. Do less when life is louder. The hardest one for amateurs to accept. The ones who do are the ones still improving past 45.
If you want a structured way to apply this to your week, the Roadman coaching system is built around these exact principles. For a fast answer to a specific training question, ask the AI coach — trained on every episode and the same expert pool.
Listen to the Full Conversation
The full episode with John Wakefield is on the podcast. It is the closest thing to a free WorldTour endurance consult you are getting this year.
For more in this thread, Dan Lorang on endurance, the Badlands training guide, and the Unbound 200 training guide are the natural next reads. If your aerobic numbers have stalled, the fixable reasons your V̇O₂max is low is the diagnostic to run before adding volume.
Key Takeaways
- A 3-minute submaximal fatigue test every 7 to 10 days replaces six weeks of guessing with weekly evidence.
- Train torque from day one. Cadence drops in ultras and watts give way to newton-metres.
- 3+1 or 4+1 periodisation beats reverse for first-time ultra riders.
- V̇O₂max and sprint work raise the ceiling. Everything underneath gets easier.
- Sustainable position beats an aggressive aero setup you abandon at hour four.
- 90 to 130 g carb per hour is the working range. Gut absorption is the cap, not appetite.
- For over-committed amateurs, rest and stress reduction outscores another interval.