Beginner to 4th Cat Training

You're over-thinking it.
Ride your bike - on your own, with a club and you'll get fitter.

Don't worry about zones and heart rates and power - if you're unfit and gaining fitness, that'll change so much so quickly that it's pretty useless for measuring anything meaningful at first.
Same with kit - don't go buying shiny new stuff at the moment, learn to ride what you've got.

Once you feel ready for it, find a local 4th Cat circuit race and enter it. Chances are you'll get dropped in your first couple of races regardless of fitness but that's to do with tactics and you'll soon learn that.

Have a read of this too:
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/road/article/20131213-Get-into-road-ra...

You need fitness, it's true, but you'll be amazed at how easy it is to get pulled along by the bunch. What you need more of is the ability to ride safely in a fast moving, fast changing, fast cornering mass of riders. Riding with others at a club and in a chain gang helps with this.

See, I would disagree.

When I wanted to road race I went out and rode with the people who raced; a group of 1st, 2nd and 3rd cats with a sprinkling of old ex-pro riders. The club I was in didn't have much of a racing section so I rode with the guys who did, graduating from training runs in the winter to the chain gangs and then on to racing with a local sponsored team.

You need to ride with others to understand what fitness you need; and most importantly, to develop the skills that keep them and you safe while riding fast. It's not like a sportive, it's very, very different.

Riding with others also begins to stretch what you can do; getting dropped after 100 miles with 50 still to get home tends to concentrate the mind somewhat.

I began to use a HRM after 4 years of racing, and it wasn't all that much help to be honest. I raced abroad for a while too and that was a major step up in terms of speed and handling to learn.
Racing is a whole new skill to learn, don't underestimate it and don't think that you can because your power meter says yes.

None but may look at Cat 4 next year myself as a 'veteran' what is obvious though you need the fitness first and foremost and a lot of training has to be solo.

Not saying not join a club but I am saying the basics have to be done first and foremost.

Everyone I have ridden with who cat racing (up to level 2) use their stats to judge and measure themselves with. Jeez I was on a ride in Snowdonia with a guy for 10K before he dropped me and all we talked about was w/kg, power and HR ....

How much racing have you done Ian?

Riding by yourself makes you really good at riding by yourself, which is not what racing is about...

Riding with other people is the most important thing to do. Junior and 4th cat racing is full of people who are 'fit'. It is not full of people who can 'race', because you only learn how to race by riding with others and racing with others.

Racing is not about horsepower, nor is it about watts/kg, it is about being intelligent and capable and competent to be able to use the fitness that you have to your advantage without endangering others.

Ignore the HRM and power meter brigade; these are tools to help refine your training and will not get you out the door on a cold wet January Saturday; riding with others will.

TL:DR; join a club and listen.

You have to remember if racing in one hour crits or 5 hour races what you are able to sustain so you do not blow out. From that perspective speed is less important.

It is important to work out your threshold HR etc so that you take everything else from that. Course you can do it by feel but remember in any race you have to judge what you are capable of.

Whilst I would not disagree about a club there are other methods available.

If basically starting from scratch then you need to look at your weight and try and lose excess (not Chris Froome like). Certainly a HRM is a must but not a chest one, wrist ones far better) and if you can a power meter.

In fact it does come down to cost and what are you prepared to pay. Some may say that this is not needed but I would disagree.

Sign up to training Peaks is a must IMHO.

The most important thing is time and working how many hours a week you can do then base your training on that.

A turbo trainer as well.

Riding in crits is a little different to riding solo for a couple of hours. They tend to be a more a series of hard sprints followed by light pedalling followed by hard sprints etc. rather than riding at a relatively constant power output for 2 or 3 hours. Other than joining a club, my advice would be to include a few short sharp climbs into your rides and use strava leader boards to monitor your improvement. Once over the hills, ensure that you keep pedalling after rather than grind to a halt.

Everyone will tell you to get comfortable riding in a group first too, this is sound advice but not always an option for everyone. I hadn't done any group riding before entering my first couple of crits. Just make sure you read up in advance about racing etiquette so you don't end up being that div who gets constantly shouted at for not keeping their lines in corners, too trigger happy on the breaks or worse, causes an expensive pile up.

Ensure your bike handling skills are up to scratch as you will need them in a 4th Cat bunch.

I'll echo what everybody else had already said - join a club. Where abouts are you based?

I agree with the others about joining a club. Try and find one with an active contingent of racers and some proper chain gang rides. They are great training for two of the important aspects of racing: fitness and group riding skills. Even if you become fit enough to race, it will be an unpleasant experience if you're not used to riding in close proximity of other riders.

I don't know if you can commute to school/college but that's quite a good way of getting some extra miles in. It's not necessarily the best training, though you can make it better with some structure, but it at least ticks the legs over.

Many 4th cat races are hour long criteriums, so you don't entirely need the fitness to ride super hard for four hours+ but you do need to be able to ride fast for an hour or so. And you have to be able to respond to changes in pace while already riding at a high speed. People attack and the group usually responds, people slow into and speed out of corners, people slow up hills and speed out on the flat. This is where interval training can help.

For now I would try to do a midweek chain gang ride, if there's a local club that has one, as well as at least one long ride at the weekend. Try and keep it up over winter, plus whatever other riding you can do. Then come January, your base fitness should be up and you can start trying interval training, either on safe roads or a turbo trainer. You can google for free training plans and turbo videos to help.

It's also worth saying that lots of clubs are very supportive of junior riders and have specific training and coaches on hand to help.

You need to riding 20 30 40 and working upto 50 mile outings. Your speed will come with getting fitter. If you are not upto 50 mile around now then doing a 100 mile sportive in Sept might be a challenge, but doable if you put the hours in.

Base miles are just that, steady riding for an hour or two maybe 3 hours totaling several hundred to a few thousand miles over several months. Once you have these miles under your belt then power training can begin with intervals to build strength and speed.

Doing intervals too early can result in injury if you're not careful.

Sweet spot training is a pace and distance where you're are working hard, but not too hard that you can't sustain it for an hour. Later maybe 2 to 3 hours sweet spot.

With winter not too far away getting miles can be a challenge if the weather gets bad, a turbo trainer can help keep those miles up. By January and a winters base riding you will be in a position to build speed with interval and sweet spot.

A heart rate monitor and cadence sensor will help in working in the correct zones.

Join a club and do 10mile time trial next spring then if you like pushing hard then see about racing.

I'm guessing that if you plan to race there are clubs that race in your vicinity, join one. That's probably the best advice I can give.