About
The coach who writes the plans
Every plan on this site was written by one person. Here is who, and why that matters when you are deciding whether a training plan is worth your winter.
Shayne Gaffney
If you have ridden a structured workout in Zwift, there is a good chance Shayne wrote it. He authored around 85% of Zwift's workout library, along with the "Build Me Up", "Pebble Pounder", "Zwift Racing" and "201: Your First 5K" plans.
He founded GC Coaching in Massachusetts and spent a decade coaching riders one to one — from first-time Cat 5 racers through masters athletes chasing upgrades. In 2018 GC Coaching won a TrainingPeaks Athletes' Choice Award.
The 14 plans sold here come out of that work. They are the same structures he built for coached athletes, written up to be followed on your own. That is the whole proposition: the programming, without the retainer.
Credentials
The qualifications behind the programming
Certifications
- BSc Health Science — Professional Development and Advanced Patient Care
- Licensed physical therapy assistant (Massachusetts)
- USA Cycling Level 1 (expert) certified coach
- USA Cycling Power-Based Training certified
- Precision Nutrition Level 1 certified
- US Military Endurance Sports (USMES) affiliated coach
- USA Olympic Committee Safe Sport certified
Published in
- Bicycling
- Triathlete
- TrainingPeaks
- Zwift Insider
Also
- Created P2 Coached Computraining
- Hosts the Never Going Pro podcast
- TrainingPeaks Athletes' Choice Award, 2018
Why plans, not coaching
Most riders do not need a coach. They need a plan.
One-to-one coaching is expensive, and for a lot of riders most of the value is in the thing a plan already gives you: a structure that progresses, a reason for every session, and a recovery week before you dig a hole.
So the plans here are self-guided. You buy once, the plan lands on your TrainingPeaks calendar, and every workout tells you what to hit and why. There is no ongoing relationship to pay for, and no monthly fee.
Shayne does still take a small number of one-to-one athletes. That is a separate thing, deliberately kept small — if it is what you want, there is awaitlist.
Training guides
New training guides, as they go up
Shayne writes about how training actually works — thresholds, intervals, fuelling, strength. Get each new guide when it is published.
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