Before he won the 2026 road Worlds in Montréal, Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates XRG) spent the winter at home in Phoenix, Arizona — he skipped the team's December camp — and uploaded almost every ride to Strava. Everything in this collection comes from those files. We went through his Strava by hand, ride by ride, from October 2025 to the end of January 2026: the lap tables, the heart rate, the terrain, and the power on the handful of files where he left it visible. Nothing here is copied from an article or a plan; it is what he rode. Where his power is hidden, the targets are our estimate from his heart rate, and every session note says which is which.
The assistant adapts these sessions to your event date, days and fitness — then drops the whole block on your calendar. One conversation, no blank calendar.
After Il Lombardia on 11 October: four weeks of 4–11 hours, short rides and hikes, and a bout of hand, foot and mouth disease. The base started on 17 November — 15.7 hours that week, 23.4 the next.
3×35 in November, 3×40 in December, 3×50 on New Year's Eve, 3×55, then 3×60 in late January — while the heart rate on those blocks fell from 151–155 to 138–147 bpm. The load went up by holding it longer, not by pushing harder.
November and December are mostly tempo, threshold climbs, big-gear hill repeats and long days. Short efforts appear only as sprinkles — a few 15-second sprints inside a steady ride, one 30/30 session just after Christmas. Over-unders, 4-minute sets and kicks arrive in January, a month before the first race.
His four-hour days are measured: NP 273–289 W, 63–67% of an FTP of about 430 W, several times a week, plus a 5-hour day most weeks. Easy days really are easy: heart rate 120–124.
- —How to use it: shift the months so that 'Feb' is your first goal race. The order matters more than the dates — rest, then long tempo and climbs, then the sharp work in the last 4–6 weeks.
- —A base week has four kinds of day and nothing else: tempo (Tempo 3×35 → 3×60), threshold climbs (5×10 Climbs + Tempo Hour, or Hill Repeats), a long steady day at 63–67%, and short genuinely easy rides at the bottom of zone 2.
- —His real week of 24–30 Nov, one week into the base, 23.4 h: Mon tempo 3×35 · Tue 4 h at NP 282 W · Wed 5×10 + tempo hour · Thu 1 h 42 easy · Fri tempo 3×40 · Sat 4 h at NP 273 W · Sun 5×10 + tempo hour.
- —At 8–10 hours a week: one tempo day, one climbs day, one long ride of 3 hours at 63–67%, and two or three short easy spins. At 12–15 hours: two tempo days, one climbs day, one long day, the rest easy. Two hard days a week is the ceiling either way.
- —The progression is in the tempo: add time to the blocks, not watts. From 3×35 to 3×60 took him two months; for most riders 3×20 → 3×40 is the same idea. If the heart rate on the blocks is falling while they get longer, it is working.
- —The sharper intensity waits for the last month (his one exception: 3×10 min of 30/30 on 27 Dec) — the Double Over/Under on 10 Jan, the Hill Repeats with a kick on 13 Jan, six 4-minute efforts with sprints on 22 Jan. His first race was Valenciana in early February.
- —Trainer hours are extra volume on top of a road ride, at 53–61% — they are not where the work happens.
- —Honesty note: built from his own Strava, which we went through by hand, ride by ride — October 2025 to January 2026, every lap table we could open. Power is visible on the long rides and trainer hours quoted here (five of those files put his FTP at 428–433 W); on the interval sessions it is hidden, so those targets are estimated from his heart rate. His heart rates are his — set your targets from your own FTP.
Brandon McNulty's public Strava activities, 13 Oct 2025 – 1 Feb 2026, read ride by ride: lap tables, heart rate, terrain, and power on the files that show it. Context from coach Jeroen Swart (Cycling Weekly, May 2026) and UAE's December 2025 camp reports. A reconstruction, not an official UAE Team Emirates plan.