The 117th Milan-San Remo rolls out of Pavia on March 21, 2026. Nearly 298km to Via Roma in Sanremo. The longest one-day race on the calendar. And the headline matchup couldn’t be cleaner: Mathieu van der Poel, two-time winner, against Tadej Pogačar, who has never won La Primavera despite being arguably the most dominant stage racer alive.

Then there’s Filippo Ganna, who finished second in 2025 and will not simply roll into Sanremo to be a spectator this time around.

But what actually matters for your training isn’t who wins. It’s how they win, and what those demands translate to on your training plan.

Why Milan-San Remo Is Freakishly Hard to Win

298km of racing and the decisive climbs (Cipressa and Poggio) don’t come until the final 20km. Average gradients of 5-7%. Short, punchy efforts. Nothing like the Alpine cols that separate January from May.

The Cipressa is 5.6km at 4.1%. The Poggio is 3.7km at 3.7%. Those numbers don’t look scary on paper. But after 275km at race pace, with the peloton under constant tension, those gradients feel like walls.

The race doesn’t crown the best climber. It crowns whoever can produce hard 5-8 minute efforts repeatedly, after riding 5+ hours at threshold-adjacent endurance pace. That’s a specific physiological demand. And it directly maps to something amateurs can train.

Van der Poel’s Approach: Win Before the Poggio

In 2023, Van der Poel attacked on the Cipressa. Surprising, given most winning moves come on the Poggio. He dragged a small group over and then soloed away on the Poggio descent, winning by a large gap.

In 2024 he was even more direct, riding away on the Poggio itself with a long sprint from a small group.

His pattern is explosive power deployed early enough to avoid the sprint. He doesn’t want Jasper Philipsen or Mads Pedersen in Sanremo with him. He wants to make the final group small and specific: attackers and climbers, not sprinters.

For Van der Poel, MSR is a long time trial until the Cipressa, then a series of attacks with zero recovery time between them.

Pogačar’s Problem (and His Opportunity)

Pogačar has finished on the podium at Milan-San Remo twice without winning. He’s nearly won. He hasn’t won.

The issue is tactical. Pogačar is so obviously dangerous that the race organizes against him. If he attacks on the Cipressa, half the peloton responds immediately. On the Poggio, same story. He needs a scenario where he goes so hard, so fast, that even the riders who know it’s coming can’t respond.

His best shot is a Strade Bianche-style solo. Go long, go brutal, make the gap so large before the final climb that even Van der Poel can’t bridge. That means attacking 40-50km from the finish, maybe on the Capo Mele, and grinding for 45 minutes before the Poggio even starts.

That’s a punishing scenario. But Pogačar has done it before. His win at Strade Bianche 2026 was built on exactly this approach: go so early and so hard that the tactical chess never gets to start.

Ganna: The Dark Horse Who Won’t Stay Dark

Filippo Ganna is not a puncheur. He’s the world’s best time trialist, with sprint speed that few in the peloton can match at the end of a long race. Second place in 2025 was not a fluke.

His best outcome is a reduced sprint. A group of 10-15 riders arrives at Via Roma together, and Ganna wins the sprint comfortably. He won’t attack on the Poggio. He’ll sit on wheels, manage his effort, and hope the big guns neutralize each other long enough that he can outsprint whatever’s left.

That’s a legitimate path. It’s also why Van der Poel needs to make the final group genuinely small.

What This Race Actually Demands

Strip away the narrative and Milan-San Remo is a specific physiological test:

Five-plus hours of race pace. Not easy riding. Race pace with surges, position changes, constant vigilance. Average power might be moderate, but normalized power is much higher.

Repeated hard efforts in the final 20km. The Cipressa, the valley before the Poggio, the Poggio itself, and then a sprint or a final push. Each demands a 5-8 minute effort at or above VO2max.

No recovery between those efforts. You can’t sit up between the Cipressa and the Poggio. You’re still racing. The guys who win are the ones whose VO2max ceiling is highest after hours of fatigue.

This last point is the one that matters most for training.

The Training Takeaway: Fatigued VO2max Work

Most amateur training builds VO2max in a vacuum: fresh legs, proper warm-up, then 4-6 minutes at 110-120% FTP. That’s valuable. It builds the engine.

But La Primavera demands something different: the ability to hit those same efforts when your legs are already cooked. That’s a trainable quality, and most amateurs never specifically train it.

Here’s how to build it.

Workout 1: The “End-of-Ride” Interval

This is exactly what it sounds like. Do it at the end of a 2.5-3 hour endurance ride, not at the beginning.

After your long ride, with 20 minutes left:

• 3 × 5 minutes at 105-115% FTP (RPE 8-9/10)
• 3-minute easy spin between each
• Cool down and go home

Your power will be 10-20 watts lower than fresh-leg intervals. That’s fine. The physiological stimulus (training your aerobic system to clear lactate under accumulated fatigue) is the point.

Do this once every 10-14 days during your build phase. Not weekly. This is hard and it requires real recovery.

Workout 2: Cipressa-Poggio Sim

This mimics the actual sequence: two hard climbs separated by minimal rest.

Do it on a route with two shorter climbs 10-15 minutes apart, or simulate it on a trainer.

• 90 minutes at Zone 2/3 (warm up the legs properly)
• Climb 1: 5-6 minutes at 110-120% FTP (RPE 9/10, go hard)
• 8-10 minutes active recovery at Zone 2 (do NOT fully stop)
• Climb 2: 5-6 minutes at maximum sustainable effort (whatever you have left)
• Cool down

Climb 2 is where the training happens. You’ll feel the difference between fresh VO2max work and this. The goal is to hold above 100% FTP on that second effort even when your legs want to give up.

If you’re training for any spring sportive with multiple climbs, this workout is more race-specific than almost anything else you can do.

Workout 3: Long Tempo With Punch

This builds the base that makes the above workouts survivable.

• 3-4 hours total
• 2 hours in Zone 2
• 30 minutes at Sweet Spot (88-93% FTP) (RPE 7/10)
• 10 minutes easy
• 30 minutes at Sweet Spot again
• Finish with Zone 2

This isn’t glamorous. It’s not the “punchy” stuff that gets attention. But it builds the metabolic base that lets you stay at race pace for 5 hours and still have something for the Poggio. The pros who fail at Milan-San Remo aren’t failing on the final climb. They’re failing because their base isn’t deep enough to reach it with legs intact.

Zone 2 training done consistently is what makes all the harder work possible.

Power Numbers to Benchmark

These aren’t pro numbers. They’re aspirational targets for serious amateurs doing long sportives or gran fondos:

Effort	Duration	Target (W/kg)	RPE
Cipressa-type effort	5-6 min	4.5-5.5 W/kg	9/10
Poggio-type effort (fatigued)	5-7 min	4.0-5.0 W/kg	9-10/10
End-of-ride interval	5 min	100-110% FTP	8-9/10
Long tempo block	30 min	88-93% FTP	7/10

If you don’t train with power, use RPE. The goal is to learn the sensation of pushing hard when your legs feel heavy, and recognizing you can actually sustain more than your brain tells you to.

Race Context: The 5-Hour Problem

Here’s what makes Milan-San Remo genuinely different from Strade Bianche or the Poggio climbs in isolation: by the time the decisive moves happen, riders have been racing for 5+ hours.

Most amateurs ride their hard intervals fresh. Most sportive riders don’t think much about what their legs feel like at hour 4 of a 6-hour ride. Milan-San Remo is essentially a test of what your legs are like at hour 5.

The spring classics base training work matters here. Not just interval quality, but the ability to keep producing quality output late in a long effort. That’s a function of glycogen management, fat oxidation efficiency, and yes, Zone 2 volume. Three sessions a week of well-structured training can’t fully replace the long ride. Get the long ride in.

How the Race Will Play Out

The early kilometers from Milan to Pavia and then south toward the Ligurian coast will be controlled, unless a strong crosswind section changes things. Intermediate climbs like Capo Mele, Capo Cervo, and Capo Berta will thin the front group but won’t be decisive.

The Cipressa is where the race starts. Van der Poel will be near the front, and if he attacks there, expect a fast group to form, maybe 15-20 riders. Pogačar will respond. Ganna will respond. The question is whether the sprint-pure domestiques can survive.

The Poggio is where it ends. One of three scenarios plays out:

1. Van der Poel goes long on the Poggio, creates a gap, wins alone or in a small group sprint
2. Pogačar counters Van der Poel and manages to drop him, winning solo
3. A reduced sprint in Sanremo, where Ganna is dangerous

What won’t happen: the bunch sprint. Too many strong riders want to prevent that.

What to Watch For

If you’re watching this race from a training perspective, pay attention to:

The pace before the Cipressa. How hard is the final 50km before the climbs? How shattered does the peloton look? That context matters for understanding what the decisive moves actually cost.

Van der Poel’s position 10km before the Cipressa. If he’s sitting top-5 with protected team support, he’s planning an attack. If he’s buried, it’s a bad day.

How long Ganna sits on wheels. If he’s marking every move, he’s saving for a sprint. If he’s working, his team has a different plan.

The Paris-Nice results from earlier this month showed how well these riders are form-building into the spring classics. Both Van der Poel and Pogačar arrived at MSR with race sharpness from earlier campaigns. That context matters.

Building Your Own Pre-Sportive Week

If you have a big gran fondo or spring sportive in the 2-3 weeks after Milan-San Remo, here’s how to structure your final build.

The week of Milan-San Remo (if your event is 2 weeks out):

• Monday: Rest or easy spin, 45-60 min
• Tuesday: Cipressa-Poggio Sim workout (see above)
• Wednesday: Zone 2 endurance, 2-2.5 hours
• Thursday: FTP intervals, 2 × 20 min at 95-100% FTP
• Friday: Recovery spin
• Saturday: Long ride, 3.5-4 hours, mostly Zone 2 with end-of-ride intervals
• Sunday: Easy ride or rest

Then taper into your event. If your event is 3 weeks out, do this block twice before tapering.

If you haven’t done a proper FTP test recently, do that before building any of this intensity. Training to wrong power zones gives you wrong adaptations.

The Real Lesson From Milan-San Remo

Every year La Primavera rewards a specific type of rider: not the best pure climber, not the best sprinter, but the rider who can hold the highest ceiling late in a long race. The one who arrives at the Poggio with legs capable of producing 5+ W/kg when everyone else is surviving at 4.

That’s not a talent you’re born with. It’s trained. Long rides build the base, fatigued intervals raise your ceiling under stress, and race simulation workouts tie it all together into something that works on event day.

Pogačar and Van der Poel have spent years building exactly this profile. You can build a scaled version of it on 8-10 hours a week. You’ll feel the difference in any long sportive where the hard stuff comes late.

Saturday, March 21. 298km. One winner. Worth watching every kilometer.

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Related: Tirreno-Adriatico Stage 5: Training for Punchy Muri Climbs. Similar physiological demands, different terrain. And if you missed the Strade Bianche amateur guide, it covers the sustained power demands that carry over directly to MSR preparation.