4-week Winter Maratona dles Dolomites Sportive training plan

If you’re an intermediate cyclist targeting the Maratona dles Dolomites, this 4-week winter plan is designed to help you use the colder months wisely, maintain momentum, and arrive in spring ready to build with confidence. It’s the ideal bridge between winter consistency and the long climbs, sustained efforts, and alpine demands of one of cycling’s most iconic sportives.

Who’s it for?
This training plan is aimed at intermediate cyclists with a solid fitness base who want structure and direction through the winter months. Whether you’ve come off a busy season, taken a short reset, or simply want a clear focus heading into next year, this plan helps you stay consistent while laying the foundations for the demands of the Dolomites.

Is it for you?
This plan assumes you’re comfortable riding both indoors (e.g. Zwift) and outdoors, and happy combining structured quality sessions with longer endurance rides. It’s ideal if you want to keep variety in your training, avoid burnout, and gradually rebuild aerobic fitness, climbing strength, and durability, all essential for long alpine climbs and extended time at steady, controlled intensities.

What’s involved?
The plan builds progressively over 4 weeks, balancing structure with flexibility. Each week you’ll work across the key training zones, blending indoor sessions for efficiency and precision with outdoor rides to develop endurance, strength, and real-world climbing resilience. The emphasis is on aerobic conditioning, sustained tempo and sweet-spot efforts, and fatigue resistance, key qualities for handling long climbs at altitude.

The goal isn’t to peak now; it’s to come out of winter fit, motivated, and well prepared to transition into more Maratona-specific training as spring approaches.