My Training Week: Emerging rider Marc Potts - stretching and plenty of sprints | Sticky Bottle

Marc Potts is currently working hard, though not getting carried away, in the hope he can improve on something of a breakthrough season this year.

Tyrone man Marc Potts (23) is a rider who really emerged on the domestic scene in 2014. A punchy rider who can sprint really well, he went to Belgium for the latter half of the season, riding for amateur team PCT Tomacc.

While there he raised his game to a new level and did something very few Irish riders do in Belgium; win. He’s currently training in California ahead of the forthcoming season and with the help of his friend and coach Peter Hawkins, has been ramping up the training week by week.

He’ll race with the same team in Belgium again next year, with Hawkins for company. He took some time out to talk us through his typical training regime for the past month.

Name: Marc Potts
Team: PCT Tomacc
Date of birth: October 10th 1991, (23)
Weight: 73kilos

Training goals at this time of year

It's still early days and the season is long but I’m starting to build things up a bit more now. The last six to seven weeks I’ve just been keeping consistent and by no means getting carried away.

Typical weekly routine

Potts take a great win in the town of Boezinge in west Belgium back in July; he was also victorious on home roads during 2014.

Monday

Normally I go to the gym in the morning for a structured circuit routine followed by a short strength workout. Then after lunch I’d normally do a 60-90 minutes spin, really easy.

Every night I do a short stretching routine of around 15-20 minutes. It’s at the point that if I don’t do it I’ll get paranoid!

Tuesday

I do two to three hours riding in zone 1, including some short sprints with plenty of recovery between.

I start this ride before breakfast and eat maybe an hour or so into it, depending on how I feel.

Wednesday

I’d do 30 minutes in zone 1 to 2, 90mins zone 3 and 30mins zone 1. Normally I split the 90 minutes up into 3 x 30 minutes because there's a really nice steady climb I can do without interruptions from traffic.

I focus a lot on holding a solid position on the bike and just turning my legs. If I lose concentration it’s easy to slouch and sway side to side on the saddle which obviously isn’t efficient.