"You really can't train with everyone anymore" - How UAE Team Emirates' training program is affecting one of it's riders

Training is one of the aspects in pro cycling that has changed the most over the past few years and has led to greater performances. UAE Team Emirates - XRG are at the top of the game and Rune Herregodts, who has now joined the Emirati team, explains how his training sessions have become too hard for him to be joined by his former training partners.

"I have to admit that I had to think about it carefully. Of course I was super flattered by the offer, but I didn't necessarily want to leave Intermarché-Wanty. On the contrary. There weren't many teams for which I wanted to leave Intermarché," Herregodts said in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad. "But when the best team in the world comes knocking with a great project, that's enough to make the decision".

After the success of signings such as Mikkel Bjerg and Nils Politt as right-hand men for the likes of Tadej Pogacar and other team leaders on the flat days of Grand Tours and stage-races, the team highly prioritized such riders this winter. Herregodts was signed alongside compatriot Florian Vermeersch and Julius Johansen who are clearly set out to do this kind of work.

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Working these first few months with UAE already taught Herregodts how different the training work is, and explains that in his average base training, he is required to go above what he would ordinarily do before: "Our endurance training is a bit tougher than with other teams. And we often have to do long tempo blocks that are above our endurance zone."

Whereas in the past training was a matter of getting the hours in and doing the perscribed intervals, more and more rider have long planned out training sessions at specific intensities. Regularly, endurance riders now are not just about putting in the hours on the bike, but of doing it without any meaningful stop - or often doing long tempo intervals, as Herregodts described. Tadej Pogacar's "famous" Zone 2 intervals had this topic hit the spotlght.

"And that's something I'm starting to notice now," Herregodts says when telling that he has to train mostly alone now because of it. "For example, I often train with Jenno Berckmoes from Lotto. I was lucky that he came out of the winter very strong so that we could still train together, but then I had to put on a rain jacket that cost me twenty watts. So you really can't train with everyone anymore, but only with men who have the engine for it."

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